Trans Widows' Escape Committee 4 - A New Hope

Mine accused me of loving "him" more than "her"

@MaureenJSL YES I am bi sexual and it was repeatedly used to shame me. The two female friends he struggled to criticise personally he eventually resorted to accusing me of having relationships or affairs with.

He would coerce and pressure me into things with other people and then accuse me of fancying them etc. He cant accuse me of having hidden that side of me because everyone who knows me knows it.

He will do that with everything. That feeling you describe about the stability for LO. I felt it every time he took another good thing away, did a 180 or dashed another hope I'd held onto.

He will do it constantly until you have none of those little hopes left.

@Milotic I’m feeling very ground into the floor right about now. I did buy some things for the dressing ages back and helped with hair a few times. I wasn’t over enthusiastic but was accepting because I don’t care much about conforming to expectations of feminine/masculine dress.

Seems everything I say is twisted and when I try to untwist it I just get more pile on.

Is it also a recurring theme to have your sexuality (in my case hetero) trashed? Like that by accepting gender non conforming activity (because maybe you just don’t care about gender roles and it doesn’t impact your sexuality) you somehow have lied about your sexuality? I never introduced myself as hetero but kinda figured it was self-evident. Apparently not and yet another thing to be slammed for. And also very offensively twisted to equate my sexuality with a disgust for other sexualities. They couldn’t get why I kept fighting that. Because it is offensive to me as it is an outright lie! So yes I will get hung up on it.

The confidence I had started to gain that at some point we would all be in the other side of this and maybe form some sort of friendship and provide something stable for the little one has crumbled. I was so calm during the tirade even though I was treated like I was raving. I stuck up for myself even though I kept being told how terrible I am. But now I feel broken all over again. There doesn’t have to be a bad guy in this but they seem determined for there to be one and it to be me. I really feel like I’m being baited but at the same time am watching myself fall for it.

And when I say he didnt have that to be angry about I mean I went out of my own accord buying him things I spent hours and hours on him being the person he wanted to be. He never ever had to push for anything to do with being trans. I did it willingly and I ground myself into the floor doing it.

@Thelnebriati

Mine didnt even have that to be angry about because I genuinely enjoyed the cross dressing. I'm actually good at that style of make up. I supported it whole heartedly day in day out. I was happy with it for a few months.

I have my own identity issues and I often express them through dressing up and make up.i take a lot of cre over myself. I have hair extensions I'd get my eyelashes done (discovered magnetic ones on lockdown tho!) I'm a nail tech and I'm good at it. I did all these things for him.

And after a few months the nice traits started dropping off. I remember noticing. I remember wondering which would be next and nothing when that happened too.

My ex outright told me that it makes him feel hatred towards me because no matter what
No matter what make up, hair, clothes, surgery he gets he will never be me.

He said I'm perfect and everything he wants to be and never will be and it makes him overwhelmingly jelous.

I cant work out whether it's a split personality. Or the male persona is a trap. Because I honestly thought he was perfect. I wouldnt have done the things I did for anyone else.

I defended him with my life. I threatened a strange man with a knife for hurting him. I got into a fight so bad with another girl, defending him, and when she hit me I was holding a mug of tea. I hit the girl in the face. With the mug of hot tea. I couldve gone to prison. I have never ever felt so ashamed and traumatised in my life. I've never seen so much blood.

AND STILL the girls own sister was CRYING in the road begging the police "dont take her back to him dont take her away from me hes going to kill her one day"

I havent had a physical fight since I was at school. When my exs sister attacked me in the street I restrained her. I was stronger. I had the upper hand and I chose to hold her still instead of hurt her. And that was someone I really disliked. I'm not a violent person.

There is no point paying attention to their complaining about you not supporting them because it doesnt matter what you do. You name it I did It. They hate you for being born female. Nothing more.

@MaureenJSL

Yes. All the time. Everything was my fault no matter what.
He would bait me all the time. Even the police pointed out when he was showing them his "proof" of what an evil transphobe I am that it's not illegal for me to answer him. They also pointed out that I had already told them word for word exactly what I'd said before they saw that video.

He has now reached the point where he literally tells people EXACTLY what he did to me but with the roles reversed.

People have told me and I know theyee not lying because they're telling me my own experiences. They wouldnt know things like that if he hadnt told them.

The paradox is you aren't supposed to give in to their demands because that places them as the dominant role and you in the submissive 'female' role.
if you give them what they want they find it unsatisfying, the reality never matches the fantasy because they have to push to get it. So they end up angry, resentful and unsatisfied whether you give in or not.

@QuinnMovesOn this seems very similar. He seems very stuck on my not mentioning clearly and loudly that I got no satisfaction from pegging him while he was dressed up. I wasn’t a strong person and did the stereotypical thing of doing things your partner wants and just putting aside your own satisfaction. I’ve been standing up for myself more and now I keep getting knocked down for anything from before where I had not advocated for myself. And of course I’m not supportive enough. Like this is the only thing happening in my life. What does he want me to do?

Maureen, definitely yes on the "trying to make it all my fault." My ex said things like us getting divorced was all because of me not being understanding or having enough info (so endless lectures on transgenderism), and also "your only choices weren't yelling at me or silence." And blaming me for not being enthusiastic enough about his cross-dressing for sex. Which to me, just illustrates more how all of this was a sexual fetish that got taken to an extreme. He didn't cross-dress for anything other than sex.

I can't even imagine being married to that person now, or letting him treat me that way. I feel like I have had to completely rebuild my life, but I genuinely think I would be dead from extreme stress or suicide if I had stayed in the marriage any longer than I did. I feel very fortunate to have escaped the marriage as relatively easily as I did.

Has anyone else had him try to make the situation your fault? That you are the liar because you did not oppose enough to things in the bedroom you were not comfortable with? I feel like there is major gaslighting going on and an attempt to bait me big time. I’m remaining completely calm yet am being yelled at that I’m being insane.

And re Fathers Day. My ex moved 100 miles away and hasn't seen DC for months or paid maintenance other than the occasional £20. Despite telling a CAMHS nurse off for referring to him as Daddy in a meeting about DC's mental health, and corrected her to say he isn't her father, he is her "parent", (wasn't brave enough to say mother!) he emailed me yesterday on Father's Day asking DC to ring him or email him. So refusing to be a father but still wanting the adulation of Father's Day?!

Thelnebriati yes! My ex has spent years trying to become me, not physically because I'm blonde and busty and feminine, whereas he's 6 feet tall with a big nose, angular face massive hands and feet and extremely skinny legs and nobbly knees and a receding hairline. He may have had his genitals reassigned and breast implants, but he's instantly recognisable as a man in make up. He has taken up various causes and political activism that I'm involved with, but of course it all came tumbling down and he was ejected from groups for lying.

I've heard from a woman he had an affair with while we were married, that unbeknownst to me, he used to dress up in my clothes and photograph himself and proudly declared he looked better in them. And the rage was because he didn't.

Father's Day here in the UK was very much on my mind... It seems to get bigger every year much as Halloween did. Difficult reminder for my kids, painful, although I suspect I worry about it more than them. The whole concept of a father is thrown up.in the air by this, and the loss and rewriting of one's own life story by another person comes into sharp relief. I hope all you wonderful women and mothers were okay today.

It makes me feel sick too and it's a very lonely experience that I feel most women do not experience with abusers that do not have this identity stealing aspect.

It's interesting you say that @MaureenJSL as my ex's ex is the opposite of me and doesn't do make up etc. She weighs about 17/18 stone. He goes for being thin. And I'm very slim. All the women he wants to be like have similar features and taste to me which are all the opposite to her. And I've never had the feeling he actually wanted to be her. Just more that he didn't think anyone else would let him do the cross dressing.

With me it's like the need to be me overtook any ability to appreciate me and went from there. Even before he wanted to be female again. I told him once he was giving me female vibes. I just didn't click on it was my own personality he was mirroring back at me.

@TinselAngel agreed. I am starting to see why they wouldn’t like us finding each other and discovering all the same themes coming up.

Father’s Day in the US. Sending strength to those working through today and helping children work through what now is a very changed holiday.

Sounds like STBX (make that S a someday rather than soon) is planning that the child will call them by the new name eventually. The most I can do it use the first initial of it. Right now daddy is still ok since they are so little. Somehow the statement made it just a notch easier for me to detach from him. I have made it clear that he cannot have mother’s day and cannot have the title mom.

Mine has only done this a small amount. I’m heavyset and he’s been working on becoming rail thin so opposite there. There are a few shirts of mine he wears that are from when I was smaller but I have found current things of mine in his area a few times and take them back. There is one dress, one a wore to an event we went to together actually, I kept finding. He claimed he just didn’t realize (several times) and I finally just hid it. I get so annoyed when those shirts are worn but I had given them so I have no energy to go into it now.

@Iworkmiricles same here with the job. Says it would be at least a year or more before being feeling able to work as a ‘girl’.

I am very lucky to be the one that manages the finances and from here and elsewhere have learned to take extra caution in that regard.

Overall the roommate approach is going ok. I’m no longer managing his to-do list/appointments as I’d expect an adult roommate to handle themselves.

Thank you, I've been biting my tongue about that one since you started these threads because its one of the things that makes me feel sick and used.
It also explains other things like their epic rage outs when we make a boundary or say 'no'.

Was anyone elses partner obsessed with them? Like BEING you?

I think that's why they pick you to have a relationship with in the first p[lace, they like the way you look. They pick us because when we have sex with them it makes it easier for them to imagine being us.
The financial abuse is also a very common theme but it does tend to get overlooked by the more outrageous stuff.

Was anyone elses partner obsessed with them? Like BEING you? I can't get my head around it. I've known some toxic men. But this is like he thinks he's me.

This is common fetish behavior.
One woman's brother changed his name to her name as part of his transition.

Even down to the things I was watching. He hated tiger King and threw several tantrums about how much I talked about Joe exotic. Said it and I was stupid. Then as soon as I left changed his profile picture to free Joe exotic.

There's like two people giving him attention and one of them is considered the village idiot.

He doesn't seem to have a proper personality it's like he stole my identity. I've changed how I look and style myself to get away from it.