Trans Widows Escape Committee 5: And so it continues...

Although I don't have a lot of time this morning I watched the first few minutes. I don't know if I'll go back to the listen to the rest. Coming from the other side of the experience, as the wife, who was exposed to all kinds of behavior meant to render me compliant, the opening bid for sympathy didn't sit well with me. I'm sure Mr. Burgo is caring and sympathetic therapist for men with AGP; I wish transwidows had such an advocate in the profession.

Please watch this newly posted YouTube video (20mins) from the Genspect conference in Killarney on 29th April. Dr Joseph Burgo, a co-director of Genspect, on "Autogynaephilia and th sexualisation of shame". :

I witnessed this too, not only in my ex’s like/dislikes but a total change in his personality. And I thought about it a lot, how shocking it was, and do have a theory, if anyone would like to hear it.

It goes back to the Jungian shadow. So, this man had very poor male role models, grew up in a hypermasculinist culture (not US), had a hypercritical mother etc. He was primed for MH issues IMHO, and may have had some trauma related to being held up to an unrealistic standard for masculinity. So, all of the ‘feminine’ impulses (by the standards of those strict gender roles) he had were suppressed, and they went into the shadow, where all of the impulses we have as animals but which aren’t acceptable in culture go. And, down there in that subconscious soup, they kind of melted and congealed with all of the other stuff down there, much of which should NOT be brought into society for very good reasons.

It’s like one day, he walked into his shadow and pulled the 'feminine', or what he sees as feminine, self out, but a WHOLE LOT came tumbling out besides. And he went to live there, not in his top-side, culturally appropriate self. He became his shadow. I’d imagine it IS very freeing to do this! We can tell what they were repressing by how they bring out this self that's been in the shadows for so long.
And, it makes sense from a perspective of a bunch of weird sexual stuff coming out besides, totally warped ideas of what a woman should be, and suddenly adopting habits and likes that he made fun of ME for because they were too ‘girly’ (projection, much?). Through that lens, my experience makes more sense to me. I think, as a culture, we are grappling with our shadow generally. Which is a totally different thread, but food for thought.

What do you all think?

I had a similar experience with my ex. Very bewildering how he seemed to completely 'disappear' when he switched to this totally unrecognisable person in pursuit of his 'authentic self'. It was very, very weird. I'd been with a man who didn't own a mirror. Suddenly there was one in every room. He switched from a tea drinker to a coffee drinker.. and weirdly, was instantly cured of certain medical complaints that the NHS had been very expensively treating for years. I was told bluntly " he's gone and he's never coming back " and indeed that was the case. He never came back. Even when he was dying.
Loads of other red flags and as a trained general nurse and intimate partner it seemed obvious to me that he was in serious mh crisis. He'd stopped taking his meds about 4 months prior so I was very disturbed to realise his shrink, gp etc were egging him on and enabling him.

IMO chameleon behaviour/mirroring definitely plays a part, both pre and post transition. It might not be deliberate or conscious. And since we were expecting a normal courtship and relationship, we take it all at face value.

@TookABigL

I really don’t mean for this to come across as a condescending ‘told you so’ but if you scroll back you will see that women here warned you/predicted the total personality change.

(Perhaps ‘persona change’ is a better/more accurate description?)

You seem like a very caring person so I realise it’s easier said than done, but you really are best doing what you can to move on with your own life - your ex will likely only ever look back when in search of a reliable safety net.
You deserve a full life, you aren’t merely a support person for others.

Excuse me for butting in. I lurk and learn.

I wondered if this medical opinion might be relevant?

"If one conceptualizes “understanding” as something like “empathy,” it will not take you very far in comprehending autogynephiles. Their emotions and cognitions do not map readily onto those of non-autogynephiles."
Ray Blanchard PhD
https://twitter.com/BlanchardPhD/status/1487146605102964737

This was of course tested in Maya Forstater's case.

I'm with you @TinselAngel about censorship by Mumsnet. I really don't see why Moderators should not allow us to write anything, anything at all provided it (1) does not name an individual accused of a crime, (2) does not advocate terrible things like Holocaust denial, etc. You know: the list of writings which are generally accepted to be defamatory or incendiary.

Estrogen does have a very profound effect on men's brains as well as body. In the last 4 years before he left us my now dead Trans H behaved like he was drugged: woozy and barely capable of understanding me. I have a photo from this period. That didn't stop him taunting, and tormenting me 24/7. In fact the tormenting got much worse. I am now sure that he was secretly substituting estrogen for the (declared) finasteride which he took for his prostate problem. He didn't cross-dress. He was proud of his "small feet" and "shapely legs", details which I didn't understand until after he had left. His secrecy was a huge additional problem to me.
Our children (now 27 and 29) say that he was "invisible" in their lives. He never suggested or did anything for them.
Paul/Elizabeth's behaviour was not overtly narcissistic. His tormenting was, I now realise, his way of driving me away and breaking his (third!) marriage. He planned and executed a deliberate deception on me. He had hatched a plan to weddle money out of a naive younger woman. That was me.
My relationship was very different to yours with your H.
The psychological effects of estrogen should be investigated properly with pharmacology trials. This powerful drug corrups the mind. Of course.

I'm not obliging anyone to do anything. I'm just offering links to other organisations which I found helpful. Maybe others would like to look at them. There are different perspectives available.

Well, I cannot say that it was all this group, but I have to say that I was standing on a cliff and just needed a little nudge- so ty transwidows! I had a work trip for a week last week. Left him a letter before I left asking for the divorce. The weeks leading up to it I contacted a lawyer (whom i had already contacted twice in the past), retained her and filed! Whew! I am currently on the hunt for a rental so I can get the heck out! So close to finally being free from all of this after 20 years! Sadly/not sadly my stbx said that he has come to the conclusion that if I cannot accept him for who he is then he was going to leave anyway HAHA Whatever lol Question for you all, probably a common one, but our children are confused. I remember my folks splitting and not really knowing either, but my 12 year old wants answers :( We're just not sure if this is all age appropriate. Thoughts??

He actually is in his 20s! And this is what disturbs me so much: I did know him, very well. We were together for 8 years before transition (9 if you include the transition year).

We would have long talks about our values, the future, what we wanted out of life. He used to be so kind and caring. I used to tell him he was like Jesus, he was so empathetic.

It’s like a switch went off. And now he seems incapable of empathy. I don’t think this is his “real self”, I truly think something broke in his brain. It’s crazy to me that someone having a mental health crisis is just being given hormones. He got hormones before he was able to see a psychiatrist. And when he saw the psychiatrist (suspected bipolar), she just said she couldn’t be sure about a diagnosis, and to just wait and see how symptoms progress.

Unless the “nice guy” act lasted 9 years, I don’t think he just dropped it. I think something happened to his brain when he started transitioning. Something in him changed. It wasn’t just the need to become a woman, it was all this extreme self-centeredness, this inability to empathize.

He used to be the most empathetic person I knew. He used to say empathy was one of his most important values. Now I don’t even think he’s capable of empathy.

@TookABigL I'm sorry. This is who he really is., The previous personality was "acting normal".
Hindsight is a great thing. In retrospect I think that I didn't know enough and I married someone who was an enigma, who gave incomplete answers to questions I asked.
I was lucky that I went to see a consultant psychiatrist who knew us as a couple (she is the mother of my son's then best friend at school). She said that my now dead Trans then H was "something of a psychopath". And she advised me and my children to keep our distance. This was excellent advice.
I am so sorry for your situation. Of course you are in total shock. By all means continue to watch him for a while, but he is not a guy in his twenties. He will not change. At his age this is a permanent disorder and, as we know, the psychiatrists are only going to reinforce it. Please join gender-critical feminists like Women's Rights Network and Sex Matters, to change the public and professional perception of GD. I want to persuade the medical Royal Colleges to take this mental disorder seriously and tackle it with psychotherapy, not irrelevant surgery and cross-sex hormones. The medics are not applying basic critical thinking.

Is it possible he just dropped the nice guy act, and the person you are seeing now is who he really was all along?