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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

My husband is a transvestite

31 replies

babushka2012 · 13/10/2016 21:08

5 months on from finding out that my husband is sleeping with a "Filipino bar girl" 20 years younger than him and THEN finding out that for 24 years of our marriage, he's been secretly cross dressing.... I'm still deeply hurt.
Although a divorce is now in process, my husband cannot see how much the cross dressing has devastated me. He calls it "just a hobby", yet in all those years, he kept it hidden. He'd wear my underwear, stockings, basques, dresses and heels and when on business trips, he go so far as to wearing full make up and wigs and buying blouses and skirts.
I understand that many people don't have an issue with this, but in all honesty, I feel duped. I also feel odd that I had no clue that as soon as I was at work or out with friends, my husband who I totally trusted was rifling through my underwear and using my sex toys.
Am I being totally unreasonable ?? I'd love your thoughts :(

OP posts:

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freshstart22 · 13/10/2016 21:09

No that's pretty fucked up. I'd need therapy to get over that one. Good luck and be thankful you know now.

treaclesoda · 13/10/2016 21:11

I couldn't get over that either. I'd be very hurt, very angry and very confused.

usual · 13/10/2016 21:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DoItTooJulia · 13/10/2016 21:13

There was a thread on here a while ago from a man who wanted to tell his wife he was into cross dressing. I wonder if it would help to read that? Lots of women commented on how it would feel to be deceived for so long.

this can't be easy. Just remember that it's ok to feel however you feel, to take things slowly and to talk to someone in RL.

Iamdobby63 · 13/10/2016 21:15

No you are not unreasonable, it's the realisation that you only barely knew the man you had been married to for so long.

💐💐💐💐

Yourarejokingme · 13/10/2016 21:16

It's the secrets and lie for the last 24 years that would get to me.

If he'd been honest at the start I would of been fine with it. A bit weirded out by it at first.

Also he's having an affair and do you mean a ladyboy now that I wouldn't forgive an affair is and affair regardless of what sex they are.

Get checked out asap too

Now you have to decide what to do but I would be leaving or get him to leave.

babushka2012 · 13/10/2016 21:27

I thought it was a ladyboy as she does look very masculine but "apparently she's not". It's not the affair so much as the lies and the secrets.
I cannot believe how I NEVER ever suspected, despite his lack of interest in sex.
I cannot tell you how messed up my head is. I truly love the man.

OP posts:

TiggyD · 13/10/2016 22:52

But do you mean you loved who you thought he was, or who he turned out to be?

He's almost certainly had a really crappy life of trying to hide of himself. Constantly being afraid of being found out. Afraid that you'd be disgusted and leave him. Be saying it's just a hobby he's minimising it all, probably in readiness to say he's given it up, but really to hide it all over again.

Counselling for both/each/together would possibly be more use that a chat forum.

TiggyD · 13/10/2016 22:53

Why the divorce by the way?

babushka2012 · 14/10/2016 07:29

The divorce is because he's decided to leave the family for the bar girl !!LOL! What an idiot.

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MatildaOfTuscany · 14/10/2016 07:40

I think the "why the divorce" was perfectly obvious to those of us who'd bothered to read the Op properly, babushka don't worry. I hope you've got a shit hot lawyer to protect your share of the marital assets and your children's futures.

I'd be reeling too from the cross dressing revelations. It's not the cross dressing per se (though I personally think that when someone's behaved decently at the start of a relationship and mentioned they like cross dressing, the other person should be free to say whethertthey're happy with it with no "you ought to be cool with this, it's just a facet of my sexuality" pressure). But in your case it's the decades of deception, the secretly wearing your clothes - and presumably getting a sexual kick out of both the wearing of them and the deception. I'd be gutted by this latest revelation too.

babushka2012 · 14/10/2016 22:31

Thanks for all you comments. It's been the most horrific time. xx

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Peach9876 · 14/10/2016 23:06

You feelings are your own and no one can tell you that they are wrong. They are feelings and we cannot control them. We can only control our actions.

I would suggest that your first action is to get some counselling or even see a psychotherapist. You have spent 24 years with someone who has deceived you, and understandably it will take time to move on. But it's been 5 months and I worry how deeply this has hit you. I think you need help and support from someone you can fully open up to and can help you analyse, accept and move on from those feelings.
I wish you look in all those aspects. Try to enjoy your life as much you can and focus on the good feelings that each day brings.

pontificationcentral · 14/10/2016 23:14

Have you heard of the Beaumont Society? They have a 'women of' support section where you can get in touch with people in a similar position. As you are getting divorced, you may not feel it is appropriate, but it might help to share some of your feelings with other women who have been through the same thing?
I think anger and devastation are entirely appropriate though. Xx

bikerlou · 14/10/2016 23:53

How I sympathise. My middle aged husband left me so he could go to fetish night clubs and doll himself up as a latex woman, after decades of marriage. I do hope it was worth it because he isn't coming back on the best day he ever had.

babushka2012 · 15/10/2016 18:45

bilerlou - It's very hard. I get that people have kinks but I hate that it was kept from me for all those years.
I'm just hoping the shock dies down as I find it hard to keep my mind off it.

OP posts:

bikerlou · 15/10/2016 19:34

Thsi is it. Honesty would have been nice, it's just been lies, lies, lies. If he had once said this is me, this is what I am but to be honest I still think we would have broken up. It isn't what I signed up for in marriage and not for you either by the sounds of it.

QueenSpartacusOfTheAndals · 15/10/2016 21:56

why the divorce

FFS Tiggy, isn't it perfectly obvious?

Sorry you're going through this OP. Stay strong and I hope you get through it ok in the end.

HermioneWeasley · 15/10/2016 22:01

tiggy please stop implying it's OP's fault for not being a cool enough wife. Her husband is clearly a tosser

Muser54321 · 15/10/2016 22:03

I don't blame you. No wonder you feel betrayed and duped. I think it's easy to be very politically correct when it's somebody else's husband cross-dressing.

IzzyIsBusy · 15/10/2016 22:05

OP. You trusted your husband.
Thats ok. You are supposed to. The fact he betrayed your trust is not something YOU are meant to feel responsible for.

Tiggy stop being a tit.

TiggyD · 15/10/2016 22:50

There were 2 issues in the OP. I was wondering if it was the first, second or both that was the reason for the divorce.

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IzzyIsBusy · 15/10/2016 22:54

Both issues are reason enough for a divorce....are they not?

affair
major lie for 20 yeats about lifestyle.

What does it matter which is the reason?

SpaceUnicorn · 15/10/2016 23:51

What does it matter which is the reason?

Depends how 'right on' and 'zeitgeist cool' you're trying to be

babushka2012 · 16/10/2016 11:10

When the trust is gone, it's gone as far as I'm concerned.
I'm a very reasonable and open minded woman who would have possibly been less hurt had my husband spoken about his fetish early on in the marriage. What has destroyed me is that he undermined our sex life and marriage for all that time. I also feel strangely weird that for all those years, he was wearing my underwear, stockings (to masturbate with) dresses and make-up.. and then putting them back into my wardrobe.
I respect any woman who can say she can happily live with a TV husband, but I married a man, not a woman. I'm not attracted to women, especially ones that look like Dame Edna.
As for the divorce, he is now lumped with a Filipino bar girl who has her claws into him for money and a visa. She's 17 years younger. He's heading to 50. It's utterly pathetic.
The saddest thing is that I trusted and loved this man.

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