Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

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

MNHQ have commented on this thread

1 2 3 4

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

MNHQ have commented on this thread

Relationships

It's all gone weird.

91 replies

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:04

Not sure if this is the correct section, looking for advice, I will make a long story short. My husband is having the most crazy midlife crisis. He was weird, shifty and secretive for a couple of years, I thought he was had another woman, turns out HE was the other woman.

So now he is both man and woman apparently, doesn't want surgery or anything.

And now I know about that, he then tells me he thinks I should find a boyfriend, as it isn't fair that his decision to embrace his feminine side means I don't fancy him.

Anyway this idea he had, of my getting a boyfriend (which I haven't) appears to be really for his benefit. The idiot has decided he is into cuckolding (I had to google) He is walking around all turned on because he thinks I might be willing to let him dress as a French maid and serve me and my imaginary boyfriend tea.

I feel like I am going mad, I half expect Louis Theroux to pop over and narrate my life.

We have 2 kids, 7 and 4 and he is a great dad (outside of the weird stuff which they never see). He earns all the money. We have been together for 17 years, I am 37, he 42.

WTF would you do? One thing I am certain about is that I don't feel enormously respected, he loves me, but.

OP posts:

Report

CruCru · 27/12/2015 00:07

Seriously?

CruCru · 27/12/2015 00:07

I'd ask for this to go in Relationships.

timelytess · 27/12/2015 00:07

Sack him. His new identity and the direction of his urges for sexual experimentation make you uncomfortable.

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:08

Yes! Absolutely. I am new here, and joined because I feel like I am in the twilight zone. It is so Fd up.

OP posts:

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:09

Do I re type this into relationships?

OP posts:

PurpleDaisies · 27/12/2015 00:10

You need to decide if this is a deal breaker for you. Only you know if you can live with it. Would you both be willing to try relate or some sort of marriage counselling?

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:11

The thing is, I don't have a career, and two small kids, he supports us well. I don't want to be on my own with the kids, nor do I want him to be out there making a fool of us all, right now I can help him keep a lid on it, but I feel like I am being eaten alive.

OP posts:

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 27/12/2015 00:12

OP - I've reported it to MNHQ so they can move it for you. No need to re-type.

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:13

We are in counselling. She is great, but it is all so normalising, I don't think many other people live like this. But I hear worse stories.

OP posts:

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:15

@milkandtwosugars, thank you. X

OP posts:

maddening · 27/12/2015 00:15

I would retrain and build yourself a career so that you can live independently of him.

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:16

@MilkTwoSugarsThanks, Thank you. X

OP posts:

afussyphase · 27/12/2015 00:17

Start listening to Dan Savage's podcast, Savage Love. Great advice and thoughtful comments about all kinds of weird kinks and relationships, funny, and he is a clear thinker who has heard it all. You can email or call for advice too if you think it would help once you know his work. Yes to counselling too, but find someone experienced with kink and not knee-jerk sex negative. Sounds very difficult, I've been there. Not precisely of course! But seen similar.

thelaundryfairy · 27/12/2015 00:19

Keep talking. This is new for both of you, really, especially for you. Think, and talk about how you both feel. Only then will you know if it is viable to continue your relationship and whether you can both continue to give each other what you need and want. Good luck.

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:20

@afussyphase thank you. X

OP posts:

scatteroflight · 27/12/2015 00:23

I think the only way you can accommodate this is if you agree to have a sexless but affectionate and supportive marriage from now on. Can you and him live with that? If his fetish (which is what it is) is going to consume him then that is not sustainable. But if he can keep a lid on it and you can likewise live without sex then there's no need your break up your marriage. Under no circumstances let him (or your counsellor) push you into a twilight zone where he normalises this behaviour and makes you bring a 3rd party into your bedroom.

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:23

Thank you, we are talking, probably too much, I am trying to get it all out of him, and to be supportive and to call his bluff a little. I the probably futile hope that he gets over it.

OP posts:

Mmmmcake123 · 27/12/2015 00:24

If the new bf is to satisfy his kinky needs then it is sickeningly selfish. Midlife crisis shouldn't involve you being used. Good luck

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 00:26

Everything about his being both man and woman is also sickeningly selfish, in that he didn't tell me for 6 years of dating and then 9 years of marriage because of his "fear of rejection" which apparently trumps my right to reject.

OP posts:

JoelyB · 27/12/2015 00:45

Honestly? I would leave him. Go ahead and shoot me, but I would!
That's not what you signed up for!
He'd still be obliged to keep you and the dc to some extent, and you could start over and build and independent life.
That's what I would do. In a heartbeat.
If that isn't what your heart tells you to do, you do possibly love him above and beyond, and need some major help, to navigate your way through this.
Good luck x

GarlicCake · 27/12/2015 00:54

WTF would you do?

Divorce. Find the shittest-hottest, nastiest carnivore of a lawyer you can.

The old me would have dithered for half the children's lifetimes, feeling I ought to understand and query whether I was being prejudiced.

The freshly sensible, pragmatic & realistic me appreciates that a marriage is a contract between two people, with many conditions both explicit and implied.

Being married to a part-time woman who wishes to use you as a sex accessory was presumably not among those terms. Thus the contract is void and your obligations thereunder dismissed. He/she broke the fucking contract, not you.

In addition, experience has now taught me that this: Everything about his being both man and woman is also sickeningly selfish is so common in this (uncommon) situation as to be utterly predictable.

You are not a gender-bender's sex toy, and now you're no longer a wife. Get rid and do it thoroughly.

BertieBotts · 27/12/2015 00:54

Er, I don't think I'd be seeking out any counsellor who announces themselves as "sex positive" since "sex positive" seems to translate to "look at me having loads of amazing kinky sex, I'm sooooooooo kinky, of course nobody has to share my desires because choicy choice choiceness, but, y'know, normal boring old vanilla sex is so yesterday, all sexual choices are valid, PLUS anybody disagreeing with me is a big old prude".

Silly, because the meaning of "sex positive" is supposed to be about avoiding damaging puritan/catholic type narratives about sex being dirty and wrong, which, uh, don't seem particularly rampant among normal UK adults in the first place.

You don't need to get into a discussion about the rights and wrongs of his sexual desires or gender identity. Clearly, that's something that he needs to work out, not anybody else. But if you are not careful about keeping things on track, that is what you will quickly find this becoming, which is craziness. You need to be able to discuss what is happening in your relationship without being told that you're being unsupportive, bigoted, prejudiced or whatever else - because TBH it's totally fucking irrelevant whether or not you believe that any of this is right or wrong, the relevant thing is that it DOES change your relationship, especially when he is asking you to do things that you're not comfortable doing. It's just bloody hard to keep the discussion focused on that point, in my experience. Being supportive is definitely fine, doing things you're not comfortable with because you feel like NOT doing it is unsupportive or down to some kind of prejudice is not. Likewise examining your own views to see whether your reluctance is the case of shock/cultural disgust or an actual feeling that something isn't right makes sense, but automatically jumping to the conclusion that what he's doing must be right because some people said that you're closed minded so you must be wrong, is also unhelpful.

Ultimately, though, I'm afraid that I don't think this is the kind of thing that somebody "just gets over". I'm sorry :( Especially if he really has been thinking about it for 15 years, and you've been noticing signs for 2 years. It just doesn't seem like it could be a mid life crisis or passing whim if it's really been happening for that long.

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

Maryz · 27/12/2015 01:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Notwhatiexpected · 27/12/2015 01:01

Thank you for those last three messages, you are all spot on.
Och it's all such a mess, and I have absolutely lost all confidence in my decision making ability, let alone everything else.
You are right, I did not sign up for this. Splitting will hurt the kids, but staying, what sort of example would I be setting.
I have been accused by the councillor of being a bit predjudiced, that should have been a red flag.

OP posts:

howtorebuild · 27/12/2015 01:05

I couldn't stay in a marriage with a liar. Are you expected to be Lady W? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Dorothy_Fleming

Flip

1 2 3 4

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.