Trans Widows Escape Committee 3: Rise of the Trans Widows

Totally. You won't fully know how much this thread has helped women living this nightmare. You kept it going, fought off troublemakers , and I for one can't thank you enough. You should be so proud of this

Congratulations on two years of support and consciousness raising.

She does have other theatre options, thank goodness.

Hi Tinsel. The play is not at school but at a community theatre where they are both involved. She will not be able to avoid him completely but she can limit her time there until he graduates from high school and goes off to college next fall. It cannot come soon enough!

Last night her ex told her new romantic interest that he wanted to "warn" him about my daughter. He also raged with anger at a girl who seemed to be on my daughter's side. He is definitely proving to be a problem.

I'd like to say something about "the disingenousness of the fetish." What you say fits my experience with my ex, a closeted AGP TIM. My ex, who declared himself a masochist, was very good at "topping from the bottom," as it's called. So although what he wanted was to act as a submissive woman, he was really controlling the action. He wanted me to take up a position of dominance, to act "as the man," but as a woman who was acting out her husband's desires, I was still "acting as a woman."

It was a giant mindf*ck. One of the most damaging aspects of that time I spent with my then husband was the hit I took to my sense of myself as a woman and a sexual being.

Thank you, social. I do hope she can just get through this play (performances are this weekend and next) and be through with him for good. It has been such an ordeal for her.

What I'm sorry to hear that. We'd all hoped your daughter had extricated herself safely. On reflection it will help her realize she is best keeping him at arm's length but it sounds as if she can really do without this after all she's been through. Others will of course see this person's behaviour for what it is. It's horrible to see her still having to manage this though.

That last part was suppose to read: He has managed to elicit sympathy from everyone because my daughter broke his heart and is now interested in someone else. I could not figure out how to edit.

Massive congratulations to you Tinsel for not just starting but nurturing these threads. You have quietly changed so many women's lives, and created a safe place for honest discussion and support. It's such a great thing you did

I have been reading these posts and am saddened and amazed at what you all have experienced. I am so sorry. Until recently, I saw the word "abuse" quite a bit and thought that it was not the case with my daughter's ex. I could not imagine him being abusive had she agreed to stay with him. However, the tide has turned. The two are in a play together and thankfully it is going to be over soon. But he has observed that she has developed feelings for another guy who is also in the play. The two of them have been very careful to keep their relationship under the radar because it's new, and they do not want it played out in front of her ex. No one guessed their mutual affection but her ex has of course been watching her. So, this past week, he has been doing what amounts to bullying. He has made sure the two have no chance to talk. He will position his body in such a way that he edges my daughter out of circles of friends and especially away from the other guy. He has taken to being overly friendly with the guy, such as rubbing his shoulders from behind, which is really making him uncomfortable. And he is staring my daughter down in a way that is giving her anxiety. This is from an 18 year old. So I can only imagine what he might be like later!

At the same time, he has managed to elicit sympathy from everyone that my daughter broke his heart and is not interested in someone else.

Welcome Walked. Glad you found us. This has been a lifeline for me throughout my very difficult years moving through this. Sounds like you tried very hard to accommodate your ex and stay together; I hope it's a relief to have left and that you have no regrets. Your ex sounds immensely selfish and lacking in empathy or concern for you; this is an experience shared by many women on this thread.
It interests me that your ex understood that his truth would damage your son, despite him expecting you to see it as entirely reasonable and something you should accommodate without complaint or distress. My ex believed it would be absolutely no big deal, let alone damaging, for his teens; he was wrong on both counts.
That sounds hard with your son; I found my teenagers really didn't want to think about or confront what their father had done, so your son may be in a state of denial, or avoidance. As for what he would think of you, I spent a lot of time feeling upset that others (his very woke workmates, his family) would be criticizing me for leaving/being narrow-minded/not loving enough, and other nonsense... but of course you know you tried, the situation was impossible, and you could not stay. Not wanting to stay with a male partner doing this is entirely reasonable and often essential self-preservation; just as late transitioners sometimes say they had to do it, or they would kill themselves, many of the women who leave have to do it, for their own sanity and survival.
Couldn't agree more, Rett, on lived experience. Ours is as valid as and equal in importance to our ex-partners', our definition of ourselves is as valid, and our right to choose our identity and our lives is equal. They don't like it, but if you spout views on living your true self, and equal rights, you look a bit, well, intolerant and unkind, to deny women in our shoes ours.

@walkedaway

You spoke of your experience and the impact it has had on you and your family, I hurt for you in so many ways - for everyone who has experienced it.

Today in counseling I understood one of the reasons for being so vulnerable and not seeing the flags when I started the relationship with my ex. My parents were ambivalent at best when it cae to parenting. Physical punishment (eye for an eye) was done when we were small, then when we got older, we were told off and ignored for days on end. I was terrified of my parents and their anger so I did as little as I could to provoke them. We were also told, never to tell anyone outside of the family our problems, so we never spoke about issues outside of the house.

So, it was with this training that I became an easy target for an abuser. Already cowed into submission by my parents, I feared and still fear the anger of my spouse and will behave in a submissive manner (this is why we're going to marriage counseling and I'm in counseling for my trauma). It allowed my ex is manipulate me so completely, that I still don't understand what happened to me. Just that I was abused profoundly.

Now that I have an understanding of some of the mechanisms behind how I was manipulated, it's going to be easier I think from now on for me to move forward.

I volunteer a lot, I look after friends who need help and my counselor agreed with my thought that I need to pull back on my activities and start looking after myself. I feel incredibly uncomfortable doing this, that I am being very selfish. However, self care is something I must learn to do for myself.

This forum, as you've mentioned is critical for women who've had our experience. I didn't realise that there were women out there, that had experienced what we have. That we were not allowed a space to say how we feel and discuss our realities. The counselor today wasn't telling me I was wrong to feel the way I did, but that I was allowed to feel the way I did because this is my lived experience.

This thread, is a beautiful way to express our lived experiences and be supported.

@RettStar

Sorry you were triggered by my post. What we live with is traumatic, which those who haven't been through it simply can't fathom; one big reason I wanted to come and participate here, and share my story, is that I think it's important for there to be a place where our stories are collected. Our individual stories are important, as is the collective portrait that emerges from them.

I've been to counseling in the past, in the worst of the experience, and I've been active at the Straight Spouse Network Forum for three years now. Good friends have seen me through, once I came out of his closet about a year and a half in to the nightmare.

As for children: yes, we have one. A son who was a young adult when my now-ex dropped his trans bomb. At the time, my son's welfare was my primary concern, and I kept asking my husband, "What about [our son's name]?" He was so wrapped up in his delusions and desires that he wouldn't even address the question, as if I hadn't asked it or our son was irrelevant to what he wanted.

Later, when after three years I worked up the courage finally to leave, when my ex was firmly in his closet and intending to stay there, my ex became furious when I told him I wanted an honest relationship with my son and wanted him to know why we were getting divorced. In order to protect his closet my now-ex's reaction was to unleash an avalanche of rage and to declare I cared nothing for our son because this information would damage him. I allowed him to browbeat me into a watered down explanation, in which I told our son "People don't just get divorced after 35 years because 'they're happier apart.' There's an issue of your dad's which is his to tell you. He knows I'm telling you this. You can ask him about it, but he's already told me that if you ask he's going to say 'Some things are private.'" It's been a year and a half since I said that, and although I still would like our son to know the truth, somehow it gets more difficult, not less, to tell him as time goes by. Wondering what if anything my son knows or guesses eats at me, because I don't know what he might think of me if he does know.

@WalkedAway - holy hell - that post was so triggering for me.

I almost felt like throwing up. Are you ok? Are you getting counseling?

I am seeing a counselor for my ptsd brought about by my trauma with my Ex and some of the things you've written definitely I can relate to.

Did you and your husband have children? I know that's a personal question. I hope you have a support network for yourself, but from what I have been reading in this group, there's a bunch of really supportive women here.

Nice to meet you.

I've just registered, and am new to Mumsnet although not new to the trans spouse/ trans widow experience. I apologize if this summary is long, but I'm three and a half years out from my ex's declaration, and I'd like to at least give an outline of my experiences.
My now-ex declared out of the blue in March 2015 when he was 58 that he was "a woman in a man's body," intended to transition, and began regaling me with his demands ("I don't know why you can't help me with this; gender is what you do!"; "Should be be intimate again, I want to be punished. I'm a masochist. I want to play the part of a woman; I want to be penetrated."). At the time of his declaration, he told me that he had been "exploring" this possibility for three years, including with a former student, a woman, one with whom he'd long had what I considered an improper relationship (at one point, for instance, she asked if he would obtain an online minister's degree so he could marry her and her fiance, a wedding that didn't take place).

At that time, I told him then that I didn't want to be married to a transwoman and that I wanted to divorce. I also told him he needed to see a therapist and stop using me as one. He went to a trans therapist who was moving him toward his stated goal of transitioning.

Meanwhile I was in shock, trying to process the information, looking back at our life together wondering how I could not have known, etc etc, all the usual reactions, and grieving the end of my marriage and the future I'd work so hard for (we'd been married 32 years at that time).

About two months after his declaration, he came home from therapy one day, lay on the bed, clutched a pillow, and said, "It's going to be so hard. Won't you lie down here and comfort me?" Instead of telling him what I now know to be the right thing to have said, which was "We're divorcing and I am no longer available of the proper person from whom to solicit wifely care" I lay down and held him.
Huge mistake. This "comfort" led to more in the next few weeks, and then sex. And suddenly we were at the "how can we salvage the marriage and make this work" point.

At two and a half months after his declaration, I was due to leave town for two and a half months (I'm an academic, as is my now-ex, and had spent my summer breaks away for some years, with his blessing--another one of those "oh, now I know why" realizations).

Over the summer instead of working on my writing project I combed the internet looking for information on transness, while fielding sexts and unwanted selfies from my then-husband, as well as his over-the-top declarations of love. Eventually I found the work of Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence on autogynephilia, compared my then-husband's "symptoms" to Bailey's typology, and Bingo! They all fit. I emailed my then-husband to say "I think I've found an explanation for what you are." He responded in a fury (displaying exactly the "wounded narcissism" Lawrence describes), but eventually decided that yes, he was an autogynephile.

I now think he did this because he had realized that he was never going to pass as a women, and did not want the experience of living as "an ugly woman" (his phrase); nor did he want to give up his prestige and male privilege at work. So he decided that because autogynephilia is a sexual paraphilia, he could confine his urges to the bedroom with me and wouldn't come out but remain closeted to all but me. (I should add that in his phase of a rush to declare himself trans and begin living as if he were a woman, he had asked me to begin telling our colleagues at the university...I refused.)

He visited me for a few days in the summer, and at that time we had sex. Lots of it, with him living out his sexual fantasies. He seemed to vacillate between a vision of himself as a hetero sexpot passive "I need you to f*ck me" womanstockings and garter belts, shaving (he asked me to shave his legs), dildosand as a lesbian. He actually had two names for these two female personas.
Before he returned home he declared that he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I was skeptical, as for the three years before his declaration, he had made it clear that he was unhappy and "things needed to change" for us to remain married. I told him I wanted to try, but it would require transparency and communication, especially as he would not rule out any future changes to his person, like hormones, and I needed to be able to make decisions about my future.
I returned in the fall to house/cat-sit for a colleague who was living abroad for a term. He stayed in our house, but came over, almost every night, to indulge his sexual fantasies, which as time went became less and less satisfying to me. He also began acting out behind my back, although I'd said that a condition for me was that
When I returned home at Christmas-time, I saw just how complete his home masquerade had become when I was not living there. His behavior and dressing was not confined to the bedroom, and he began trying to accustom me to that His thinking had also become more bizarre, too, and he expected me to accommodate that as well: "women are short," he declared (shades of the "women are smooth" claim I'd heard that summer when he wanted me to shave his legs), and he was tall, so I had to stand on the stairs to kiss him; and because "women are short and men are tall" when a woman tilts her head back to kiss a man she is exposing her throat, being vulnerable." Everything, that is, was gendered.
Any question of mine, any discomfort, was met by him as an attack, and eventually he clammed up and refused to talk at all. Communication ceased, to be replaced by his acting in secret behind my back and by attempts to manipulate me into acceptance of more and more.
It took me about a year and a half from his initial declaration to know that I couldn't stay, and about another year and a half before I finally said I'm done, and moved out. Our divorce happened eight months after I moved out, and that was a year ago.
That's enough, I guess, although as all of you who have been through this know, I've only skimmed the surface of my experience.

I watched Shannon Thrace' TedTalk she did in 2017.

It doesn't mirror my experience, but does touch on similar issues - the demands to be accepted as a woman, the isolation, the tranny porn, the cross dressing etc. I experienced domestic abuse in the relationship as well, but more because I was female than anything else.

I'm seeing my counselor on Wednesday and I think I might have the courage to talk about my experience in that 11 year abuse relationship. I guess I'll find out when I turn up.