Husband transitioning help!

[quote LifeIsAGameYouCannotWin]@OhHolyJesus male dominated field and working from home. [/quote]
Thank you for coming back to this.

The only thing I will say is make the priority your child, not your husband. When your child asks questions about what it means to be male and female, and what daddy has done to his body, and when you find yourself torn between telling the truth or instead describing the ‘artificial reality’ that transitioning people seek to create, please choose to tell your child the truth.

If possible get your husband into therapy. Because transitioning is not going to solve his problems.

I only read the first post so apologies if there have been other updates that make this comment irrelevant but, I think you will have a better experience of this than other people may have as you are starting from a place of compassion and acceptance that he is who he is.

I have a friend who transitioned a good amount of years ago, it was a very difficult decision as he was a family man and very involved with his kids… and still is. The kids, now teenagers, still call him dad and are still very close. His, or her,, life has changed a lot, Nice fulfilling job, lots of hobbies and sports, has a good friendship group (old and new) and now a husband of ten years.

I don’t think, however, that you will be the best person to support him on this as you also need space to mourn the person who he is no longer going to be. He will need his space to grow into his new persona and you will need your space to rebuild your life as well.

OP this is about you and what you feel and want to do. You have plenty to consider and difficult feelings whatever you decide to do. Just beware people trying to guilt-trip you, pressure you to be 'kind' and 'accepting' if you don't want to be. Anecdotally (there doesn't seem to be stats anywhere) at least half of partners don't stay so if you don't that's fine and a fairly normal and reasonable decision. There is heavy emphasis on the victimhood of trans people (still waiting on those suicide stats sources...) but you are not responsible for him, his choices and his timing. I hope you can stay on-topic whatever you try to do and just be mindful of the emotional blackmail and pressure from elsewhere and possibly him going forward. Good luck to you.

I have no personal experience of your situation, but I have read a lot of accounts from people who have/have wanted to transition 'have always wanted to be a girl' and the ones I have read have had done life experience/trauma that hadn't been addressed. Therefore I'd be making sure DH had had done quality therapy, for his sake & mine.

This is just not what happens in the current climate of affirmative treatment unfortunately. Transitioners don't spend time having thorough therapy as part of the process.

Once the decision has been made, expect things to progress rapidly.

Start planning your own life and begin to distance from him, OP.

Don't be blackmailed into supporting him through this when it will cause you much distress.

I'm very sorry you're going through this.

I know you said he discussed it before you had your DS, but I think you said, not before you were married?

If that's correct I'd feel very angry that my choice to be in a relationship with a man who was happy being a man had been a lie.

It's hard when you love someone, to just detach from them.

I have no personal experience of your situation, but I have read a lot of accounts from people who have/have wanted to transition 'have always wanted to be a girl' and the ones I have read have had done life experience/trauma that hadn't been addressed. Therefore I'd be making sure DH had had done quality therapy, for his sake & mine.

Not to change his mind as such, but to make sure that transitioning is the solution to how he feels (so often it appears it's not).

I wouldn't make any decisions until that had happened.

If at the end of that he decides to transition, I'd end the marriage, support him as a friend and live my own life which doesn't include having sex with a trans woman.

As for your DS I'd say it's better when he's as young as possible. Kids these days are so much more accepting, try not to worry x

Hello! This is Emma from Children of Transitioners and yes that's me in the Object! YouTube video. I also did a podcast interview with the Straight Spouses Network.
It's a long thread and I may not have caught everything.
In my experience children can pick up on something being wrong, even when the adults are pretending. I remember from a very early age having weird dreams that my parents were really monsters (because they were clearly pretending to be something). In retrospect, we were clearly the 'weird' family. For example, I was best friends with the boy next door and was devastated when they moved at the beginning of the summer holidays, only to discover in September that they had moved to an identical house a few streets away! No children were allowed to come to my house.
And then of course I learned later that all the time my beloved Daddy was miserable and 'living a lie' and the whole thing had been a kind of mirage.
In retrospect, the grief I felt at losing my father and the strange atmosphere of my childhood affected me deeply. I have also received many emails from women whose children are in trauma because of their father transitioning. For these reasons, I would recommend splitting up as early in the transition process as possible, but of course you know much more about your situation than I do.

I'm very glad I didn't stay with my ex and end up spending a lot of time on a thread talking about what a hard life he (and people like him) have when the matter in hand is a woman who is in that situation asking for help and support.

OP I'd suggest asking yourself whether that's what you want to end up doing with your time.

Funny how this thread has now become about the poor tragic transitioning man. It was supposedly about the impact on and dilemma of a partner...

[quote picklemewalnuts]**@katepilar, yes. Perhaps kinder than he deserves. He is turning the life of his wife and child upside down. He entered a marriage while knowing he was not who his wife thought. He's putting his desire to change above the status quo.

Imagine OP unilaterally decided to join the forces and get sent around the world leaving her DH and DC to reorganise themselves around her new role.
Or decided that food should be eaten raw and no one in the house was allowed cooked food.
Or decided electricity was dangerous and wouldn't allow any electrical devices in the house.

Perhaps they aren't direct parallels. It's hard to think of an equivalent change OP can force on her family. Make no mistake about it, for him to transition is to force huge change upon his family. [/quote]
Your comments show a complete lack of understand of what it means and feels like too be a transexual.
Many transmen (and women) are denial about their feelings, they are under no illusions that transitioning will be easy and many love their partners and their children and face a huge dilemma about changing the "status quo". I know of quite a few who rightly or wrongly wait till their children have grown up, and even their partner dies before acknowledging their feelings. Gender dysphoria is not like unilaterally denied to join the forces and get sent round the world it is like a cancer thats constantly eating in to to you and haunting and stalking your every waking moment it impacts on your identity your decisions you job every aspect of your life. It will never go away, some choose to hide it from themselves their families their friends etc other live a 1/2 and 1/2 life appearing to the outside world to be male or female when inside they are struggling but behind closed doors dress as women and take hormones and others come right out and transition. I doubt theres a transexual out there particularly a married one with children who wouldn't do anything to take these feelings away and live a normal life if it was possible.

@LifeIsAGameYouCannotWin I think it probably is hard for trans people. I am straight and I actually don't mind a man who wears a dress or make up but a male that says he's a woman - no thanks. Neither would I be attracted to a female who said they were a man. I'm sure some don't mind (I think that's pan sexual) but not sure what percentage of the population they are. It's not really your problem though - it's his

@user1481840227 sexual orienatation is exactly that. You can be whatever gender you like but lesbians are females attracted to females. If you want another word for a male that identifies as a woman but is attracted to females go for it - but lesbian is taken. Ps I am not a lesbian

[quote LifeIsAGameYouCannotWin]@Artichokeleaves thank you for your kind words! It looks like trans people are not welcomed in any dating pools, straight or gay.. Hard to find a partner[/quote]
This isn't entirely true... he's very likely to end up with another trans person if he's single. But more importantly I'm not sure why you're speculating about life for him when your dilemma is about what you want to do? At some point, unless you've decided to invest entirely in his project, you will need to face how you feel and what you want to do. I'd suggest you make some tentative plans (ie legal/financial) so that if you decide to leave you've done the groundwork and know next steps. If you opt to stay, you've lost nothing. Taking some action may help you take some control of what will likely rapidly go out of your hands.

Sounds like you haven't yet decided and will need some time. Posters here calling this 'anti trans' of course aren't listening to the lived experience of women in your position who didn't want to stay, or experienced terrible impact along with their children. (They generally don't have curiosity, compassion or interest in anything other than the mainstream celebratory view and are interested only in the experience of the transitioner). If you stay you will find lots of support groups for partners attached to the main trans charities. If you stay you accept that your husband really is a woman and that he is the main focus of your life, and that will probably take priority over yours and your children's needs for a long time to come. He may well not face negative attitudes in the current climate and people are likely to bend over backwards to accommodate him socially and at work. That was certainly the case with my ex husband who has not suffered at all in the ways you fear.
If you don't like being with him, whether sexually, or because you end up feeling betrayed, or because you are likely to have to entirely centre your life and finances around him, Transwidows is one of the few places where women who didn't want to stay and made the 'strong' decision to leave can talk and share experiences. You could do with a neutral person to talk to. If you stay for the time being just remember there is a compassionate space for women who don't buy this, or like it, and who found the self-centredness and disregard for the feelings of others in these relationships intolerable and unacceptable. Good luck.