Boyd and Welch don't have another couple like them to talk to, and they find the role gender plays in their lives a challenge. Arguments have come up over their differing viewpoints on the importance of gender.

"I think the gender roles just come from history," Boyd says. "I don’t care about gender roles."

"But I want that," Welch explains. "That makes me feel better. That makes me feel more like a man.

"I'm not asking you to be in the kitchen, cooking my dinner while I soak my feet," Welch tells Boyd. "I'm not asking that. All I want really, from all our arguments about these roles, is for you to acknowledge my manhood."

He has stronger feelings about gender roles than Boyd, and he says this is because he was raised in an environment where these roles were stressed.

"It's ingrained," he says. "Maybe I need to relearn, but I've been taught these strict roles, so it's hard for me to think something else."

The changes in their relationship keep Boyd questioning her place in it.

"It's a role reversal, constantly," she says.

Although Boyd and Welch go through things in their relationship that most couples will never experience, they are essentially like any other couple. They have easy times and difficult times, but they also have each other. And each day, Welch moves closer to becoming the man he wants to be.

"Life is too short," he says. "Whatever you need to do to be a whole person, do it."

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