Trans Widows' Escape Committee 4 - A New Hope

To answer some of the questions, the DC are primary age. They do remember him as we used to visit back and forth even after he stopped living with us. I have told them he can’t live in a family setting because of his ASD, which really is the root of the problem. One positive outcome is I’ve noticed the DC are now especially kind and patient towards the ASD children in their class.

I don’t need to divorce unless I decide I want to be with someone else. It just feels wrong and unfinished. I am financially stable and ex wouldn’t be entitled to anything. House is mine and I always paid for everything. I don’t exactly know where he is, beyond that he is dossing with some friends in another city. I did enquire about divorce without him knowing, and the advice I got was that it would be far easier if I would just contact him. He’s not going to contest it – how can he? I’m just being a coward because interacting with him makes me ill and stressed and I don’t have any relatives nearby to rely on.

@TinselAngel And don't worry that your kids will think it's all OK if it's not. Kids are quite good at judging their parents behaviour! They've got you giving them a good example and a steadying influence.
You’re right, I need to keep telling myself that, sigh.

@SeasideM My heart goes out to you and anyone still stuck in such a painful situation. I could not have borne it. They do lie to others, but primarily I think the lie is directed at themselves. I asked ex when he started to have these feelings, because I swear there was no indication whatsoever. He told me that as a teen he fantasised about being a girl in a lesbian relationship. It was about a year later that I found out that is classic AGP. That was such a moment of discovery for me (I’d never heard of AGP). In his case, he got led into it through his ASD – he’s vulnerable, looking to fit in, feels a failure at life. He said he was telling a friend how he felt and that friend asked if he could be transgender and invited him to his house to try on some women’s clothing. That was all it took. Now he feels it’s right for him but I know that’s because he’s found a group of people who welcome him without judgment (for now) but it isn’t going to solve his problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has now made up more of a back story.
Another reason I don’t want to tell DC is I am hoping he may get bored of it. He would have done by now, were it not for the support he gets from the group. So yes, the fawning and validation without question does further confuse and ramp up the narcissism.

@TieYourCannons welcome to the thread. I’m still inside my situation so I’ve not much to offer but know you have a lot of support here. It is so difficult and stressful to manage not only your own emotions about all of this but also to figure out what is best for the DC. Since it has been so long since he left the family do the DC recall that interests and picked up and dropped?

Has anyone else found that they lie to others such as stating they came to their decision through therapy when they never went to therapy but just to a confirmation place to get a thumbs up for their self ID? It’s jarring to have both places like here where there is understanding for what I and DC are going through and then also the total opposite of those that have zero thought to any of it and just jump in line fawn on him (which just seems to amp up the narcissism and the associated behaviors).

Hi Cannons I can relate to your wanting to keep peace/stability and quite liking him falling out of contact. It can feel much easier. You have to weigh up whether action, resolution and getting this cloud off your life is better than biding your time. Trouble with the latter is that you're living on a knife edge waiting on him. At any point he could want to contact the kids (how old are they btw?). Or as likely, the kids will ask quesrions as they get older. I can see why you are sitting out your life waiting for the kids to be adult, to protect them. But as many of us have found, kids survive this. Some are okay with it, some are very damaged by it, but secrets can be very problematic. I'm assuming you don't want or need the financial clarity of divorce which often drives action? You can sit tight, but you then have to accept this limbo state and the background stress it causes you. Sounds like you're in a better place than a few years ago and successfully bringing up.your kids, so don't forget what an achievement that is. Many of us have found transitioned partners to be shockingly self-absorbed and -often after a bit of posturing about being their father - absent, unempathic to their kids' feelings around this issue, and frankly pretty useless. So you may find he does reappear but not for long. Your kids will then know the truth, you will deal with it, and then you are much freer. What benefits are there for you in divorcing?

That's good! Take care you and wishing you better days. Good friends for you here.

Thanks. I must remember that not everyone is a night owl like me . I'm feeling better already.

Wow, cross posted

Hello TieYourCannons, well done for posting! The women on here are amazing, you'll get a lot of support and there is also a website which Tinsel flagged up a while back. Bear with them a while as it's late, they'll come through, and give you all the support and advice you need.

He just announced it all of a sudden. There was no discussion about how it would impact the family, how I might be feeling. It was like 'guess what I'm a woman now go away and deal with it.'

Thanks, Tinsel. The thing about the divorce is not that I seek his consent, as I have ample grounds even if we hadn't lived apart for so long. It's more a case of once he gets the notification he will feel like I've won and that he has to get something in return. At the moment it's like he's forgotten we exist, but once I reach out to finalise things, he will likely start asking about the DC. For that reason it feels easier not to address it....but it isn't a long term solution I know. So when do I do it? Now and bring down a lot of stress on my head when I'm trying single-handedly to run the family on my own or leave it for as long as possible, with a bit of luck until the DC are grown so that they will know for a fact that he isn't interested in them?

When all this came out two years ago I was broken. I've never been in such a bad place. Crying day and night, unable to work or look after DC. Thankfully I had a relative staying at the time, but I couldn't tell them what had happened. Things got better because he backed off. I'm afraid to bring all that down on myself again

Thank you, OvaHere :)

I didn't want to read and run. I'm glad you posted @TieYourCannons

I'm just a reader of this thread but you'll get some great support from Tinsel and the other women here, even if all you want to do is chat and vent a bit.

To clarify, it's been 2 years since his 'transition' and no contact, but 6 years since he left the family home.

Hello everyone. Long-term MNer (that’s how I found this thread), NC for this. I’ve been lurking FOREVER and procrastinating about whether or not I should post. I guess the thing I have to ask myself is ‘What do I want?’ In other words, what do I hope to gain by sharing my situation with others? Advice? A hand-hold? To rant? To help others? Maybe all of those things and none, because most of the time I don’t even think about it (he’s gone) but I can’t keep away from trans threads and then I get wound up and angry all over again.

Well that was a paragraph of waffle. Let me start with my greatest concern. DC don’t know what their dad has become. I don’t want them to ever know. It would be easier if he had died. If he ever comes back into DC’s life it will mess them up because he has a whole host of personality and neurological disorders which mean that prolonged contact with anyone invariably leads to heartbreak for that person. He has fallen out with his entire family. He sees the people who love him as enemies, and casual acquaintances as his best friends. He cannot read people or situations (ASD). He flits from one obsession to another, and when he’s done with one he drops it completely (that goes for people too).

I am glad he has walked out on both me and DC, but what if he takes it into his head to turn up one day? It’s been over 2 years, but what if he starts demanding access? DC are hurt by his abandonment but if he pops up again it will be even worse because he won’t be able to sustain contact. He’ll never be there for them emotionally, and I don’t want them thinking it’s ok to be a sex-obsessed AGP with no qualifications, job, home or future. That’s NOT the life I want for them.

I want to get divorced but I don’t want to contact him because he might start making demands like ‘I’ll agree to a divorce if you let me speak to DC’ even though he doesn’t want to be married to me or talk to DC, it would be a bargaining tool.

Am I making sense? Can anyone help me put things in perspective? Should I just leave things as they are and hope he never comes back? It feels like the sword of Damocles. And what happens when DC are old enough to demand answers and demand to see him? What if he tells them I forced him to stay away? It’s not true, but you know how they manipulate things. Or what happens when he realises this is just another persona which he abandons and becomes ‘he’ again? That won’t make everything ok.

I found you via a mention on FWR. I am aware of a young adult who has DID. The father dressed as a woman as far back as this young person can recall.

And that's a lovely message Asking... It is great to know there are women out there thinking about us, understanding our positions and showing us that kind of compassion.

Darn. Can't remember. Definitely not via Twitter and I wasn't already on MN bit joined because of the thread. So I must have Googled I guess...

I found you because of a mention in another thread here, no idea which.

Not being a trans widow, all I can do is read, mark, and resolve never to ignore it if anyone I know is in a similar position, and never to fail them if they are.

I am enormously grateful to all here for helping to show me something I feel I need to know about, so I can try to make things better rather than worse for anyone suffering it. Thank you all.

Blimey. I say it again. You just described my ex. I think your analysis is spot-on. Blaming others, and the lurching into new things is so familiar. Despite supposedly finding The Answer, mine continues to cycle through hobbies and looks, and Pinterests bizarre 1970s childhood 'girl' stuff which his teenage children find frankly 'creepy' from a middle-aged adult. Fascinating.
Always good to remind those behind us on this journey that you can get out and get happy again...

Regarding what was real and what was fake, I don't think there has ever been a real authentic person. For whatever reason they were so damaged before their personality formed, they became an empty shell who absorbed whatever persona they felt would serve them best at that time and changed the outer appearance to fit that.

My ex changed who and what he was many times in his life as a man and was deeply frustrated and angry when it didn't work out and blamed those around him. Now as a woman he is still changing persona and style at least once a year, currently advertising himself as a spiritual vegan yoga teacher (always been an atheist, never did yoga and never been vegan).

I look at how happy and rewarding my life is now while he is still deeply unhappy and alone. The previously attractive man, who had many women on the go at the same time in years gone by, has been surgically destroyed and he no longer has that to use as narcissistic supply.

Wow East coast you just described my ex ... One of the most painful parts of it for me was the years I spent trying to make him happy, fulfilled and improve our relationship, always assuming it was me/us/something that I could improve for him. Realising I couldn't have changed things, and he wasted good years of my life, is painful and something other women on here talk about often. Life with a damaged, self-absorbed and eternally-dissarisfied person erodes our own happiness and confidence, which is of course why getting free has to be better even if a slow and terrible process.