I’m glad you have someone you can believe in when you don’t feel like you can believe in yourself, and I hope that you get to a place where you can believe in yourself over time. I’m cis, but that feeling of “not being who you want to be” is tough enough without sex dysphoria, so with any luck SRS should help with your confidence.

I feel you on the “surviving your partner” fear, my wife is ~15 years older. I don’t like to think about it either. That said, my own grandmother is fastly approaching 90 years old and has had a couple of good friends (she won’t call them boyfriends) in recent years that as far as the family can tell have been really good to her and split on good terms.

Last thing, and I hope it’s not a sore subject. If you want kids there are options. My wife and I were able to find success with donor eggs, but we were well aware of adoption options if that hadn’t worked. All depends on how big of a deal having kids is to you, and that’s between you and your BF.

I hope that wasn’t operationphobia, just envision outlooks. If the latter, it’s a good concern to have. I don’t believe partners should be tied to one person, or forever. I am polyeros, & I can’t see myself withholding my partners from finding someone better after I am gone, or during our ship. I don’t mind age gaps, so long as the theory of prudence (ToP) is well developed. (I’ve been an ojii/obacon all my life) It’s “I need to wear protection. If I still get pregnant, I know how to abort. If I know I can carry, I need to take all my vaccines. I have to prepare to waste 18+ years to ensure they develop ToP, & can emotionally live w/out me. Etc…” & sometimes the leverage gaps: “Can they bribe me, power me, threaten me, abuse me, exploit me, manipulate me, gaslight me, harass me, isolate me, disenfranchise me, etc.?” With the amount of abuses I’ve experienced, manipulators of my trust has been weaker than a skin flake.😔