Husband transitioning help!

Also "Ooh I could jump over a dolls house."

I used to love Stu Francis on Crackerjack.

But guess what. Walking away was the number one best thing I ever, ever did with my life. Ever did for my child. I knew I wasn't happy day to day with his alcoholism. But I'm someone who is very easily able to content myself in a shitty situation. To find happiness in small things even during bad times. Then I left. It was terrifying and painful. But it was also glorious. It was only through getting out of the marriage that I realised how much it had been hurting me. How it feels to actually be really happy. The only bad part was realising how very much of my life I wasted trying to fix something that was beyond my power to fix. Eking happiness out of a miserable situation instead of just leaving and having an abundance of happiness every day.

So yeah, maybe you will find more happiness in your marriage than you will if you leave. It's possible, I can't say for sure that you won't. But so many of us have had the experience of feeling very like how you do now. And have eventually made the terrifying painful step we tried to avoid for the longest time only to realise that the reward for leaving is immense.

I'm interested in what the husband actually means when he says he wants to feel like/live like/be a woman. And would a good therapist help explore this?

Just a guess, but I doubt "living as a woman" means giving up his job for the first four years of the child's life, then getting a crap paid part time job just to fit around school hours and doing all the family's life admin and the majority of the household chores.

OP; this must be so overwhelming, I do hope you have some time to process your options.

One thing I've realised in middle age is how many people stay in mediocre or outright shit relationships, such is the fear (or logistics/expense) of being single. It's a shame society places such value on being in a couple.

It's been said before, but bears repeating - imagine what kind of reception OP would get if she were the one transitioning to be a man. I wonder how many people would expect the husband to be kind and centre OP's needs?

Eee I could rip a tissue
🤦‍♀️

I’ve been reading Eels Could Rip a Tissue this whole time. (My brain: yes, they probably could? Especially since it would be wet. But why highlight this fact in your username?)

Thank you for making the world a tiny bit less mysterious.

The very second they start saying that the dad is now 'mum' if you actually bothered to read my point.

Yes @RedToothBrush the OP mentioned her DS calling his father "mum". That's what prompted my comments ad your magnificent post about the well-being & rights of @LifeIsAGameYouCannotWin's DS.

But as the OP clearly shows in her posts she loves her partner,

Those of us who left also loved our partners. I loved my husband even after I left him, until his actions made it impossible for me to do so any more.

Please don't portray this a some kind of indication of how much we love.

Those of us who do leave though generally come to realise it was the version of our husbands that they presented to us initially that we fell in love with. Not the almost entirely different version of themselves that they become.

I know it wasn’t the Krankies who actually said Eee I could rip a tissue but that’s the image that comes up in my head every time I see the username.

For people who weren’t watching kids TV in the 80s, Google Jimmy / Jeannette Krankie. I’ll leave it there.

It’s great that you can bring your experience the OP needs to see different perspectives. Obviously if it’s your life partner it’s exceedingly traumatic. IME many people are keen to advise you to LTB engage a lawyer and take him (it’s usually a him) to the cleaners. But as the OP clearly shows in her posts she loves her partner, ending their relationship may not at present be the right answer. As I’ve found the person with gender dysphoria often is struggling to make the right decisions for themselves and their partner, the partner is also struggling to make the right decision for themselves and their partner inevitably when it’s your life partner it causes considerable heart break uncertainty and sole searching. It’s hard to make the right decisions especially if the decision is to leave when you love them.
Having gender dysphoria is one aspect of a person personality admittedly a big one but they can still be good fathers and caring husband I have many many happy times with my husband we have so many positives in our relationship walking away is an exceedingly painful option.

You sound very kind but honestly, I think you need to focus on yourself and your child now, not on him, and think of your futures.

It looks like the usual suspects are desperate to drag yet another thread into discussing 'what the FWR posters are like' so shall we just skip past that and back to the actual OP's question?

It's literally there.
Yet again, EeeeI, it's the dishonesty I can't abide.

And what's the 'match' you're talking of? You think femininity 'matches' being a woman?
It doesn't.

@Strugglingwifeofatrans yes. But not as a life partner. I have almost 40 years of supporting a transwoman through their social transition and facial feminisation surgeries. I have even more experience having been the intimate support for another friend who has had many, many operations including the incredibly invasive phalloplasty.

And have written about them a fair few times here. They are the people I get my views on 'being trans' from.

As I said, sometimes you get the oddest of answers from people you might see as being adversarial!

@EeeICouldRipATissue

It's very odd when you're a recognised (by a parliamentary select committee!) authority on something, but nobody on a thread wants to listen to you about your actual area of expertise Not sure what this is about?. Is it a form of '' don't you know who I am?! '' Er, no?! With a if so You're posting in here, just like other people with transitioning partners are. They can post too with their viewpoint and different experience to you

The wealth of knowledge acquired regarding, for instance, the laws around the spousal exit clause, how it's misunderstood due to misrepresentations, etc. The different organisation who claim to support women but often don't. The way manipulation can work - similar to The Script so often invoked on the relationships board.

And, of course, the sheer volume of information garnered from so very many of the women she supports who are facing the same situation as the op.

Which is why her authority is recognised by Parliament. Which also speaks to her credibility. Not just as a transwidow but as one who represents the experiences of many other transwidows.

That's the beauty of mumsnet. Women sharing their knowledge for the benefit of other women, especially when they have so much of it.

The link posted by Empressaurus reveals that even women’s organisations are directing transwidows to therapists who are trained to ‘re-educate’ them into supporting their husband’s wishes rather than their own needs.
committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/36734/pdf/

[quote LifeIsAGameYouCannotWin]@socialworker222 thank you for sharing your experience. I find a lot of stories on transwidows are centered about finding out and leaving. I'm more interested about the life after. How people treated them after even if separated, how they treated children, what story to tell children. It's nice that your exDH felt accepted and accommodated. How are you now? Did you feel that people felt sorry for you?[/quote]
In response to your questions OP, the impact on us all was entirely negative, financially and emotionally and there was not the happy ending you are seeking. We are all estranged from my ex and my children's lives and mental health have been greatly damaged by his actions and handling of his decision. He took no regard or care for the children's feelings and broke repeated agreements about handling it carefully and sensitively. I'm afraid I can't give you the happy story you explicitly say you want to hear. Those stories are all over mainstream media, but areas like Transwidows document a very different side to the experience. Re-reading your first post, you clearly believe your husband's narrative and feel sorry for him and people in his.position. you have already decided to support him but maybe not stay. People with a less rose-tinted view of this experience are just warning you of the pitfalls. Maybe it will all be rosy and happy for you but it certainly wasn't for me. And yes many people felt very sorry for my children who experienced appalling emotional damage and continue to live with the impact of their father's mid-life crisis to this day. The lack of interest in how children and teens really feel when this doesn't work out, is staggering. So I may have little to offer you beyond warning you gently to explore your legal and financial position just in case you need it... many transwidows experience a rapid change in personality in their partner once the transition juggernaut hits the road. And many find that agreements around respect and boundaries are rapidly ignored as transitioners focus solely and delusionally on themselves. If you want a full range of narratives and lived experience, you can't just attend to the daytime-tv happy-afterwards, love-the-inner-person stories as they are not the full picture I'm afraid. Hence the people on here trying to gently warn women to protect themselves and their children. Sadly this has turned into a side argument about whether trans people are victims and how sorry we should feel for them which was not apparently what you were looking for.

”MN's wise and experienced transwidows will be able to offer helpful advice on this.”

Yes, and if you actually read the thread the link has already been given several times

I meant transwidows might be able to advise on finding a therapist who didn’t simply ‘affirm’ his wish to change gender. Given the pressure on professionals to toe the genderist line, people might share this information in private messages.

When your husband wants to change gender that is a big deal and has an adverse impact on everyone including the children. Many adults put children first in all kinds of areas of their life. Deceiving a woman into marriage if you might be trans is appalling in my view and I saw the same about gay/bi men as well who do not disclose it before getting engaged.

However once people are in this situation eg a woman wanting other lovers (who realises she cannot be faithful to one man as she is very polyamorous) or a man wanting to change gender or whatever it might be obviously there is a right to change things and a right for the other person to divorce so I would put legal issues high on the top of the agenda and see a solicitor.

@EeeICouldRipATissue but you don't match up. For the vast vast majority they are not seen as women they are seen as transexuals. Aside from a small minority They don't look like women. So how does that actually resolve their gender dysphoria? Whether you present as a man or as a transwoman you won't look like a woman so surely it's better for his wife and child that he presents as a man?

Plenty of mothers haven't given birth. Adoptive mothers, the non-birthing mum in a same-sex couple, some stepmothers. I have two mothers. One of them have birth to me, but the other is just as much my mum.

As people have said, they're all female, and none were previously known as "dad", or provided the sperm that made the child.

Oh it’s you. Wotcha.

For any one who’s wondering wotcha talking about, Tinsel, here’s the link to the parliamentary select committee evidence.

committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/36734/pdf/

@LifeIsAGameYouCannotWin, further up you say ‘ a good therapist should be our absolutely first step’.

He needs a good therapist to work with him to sort out where his is at.
You may need a good therapist to help you come through this.

That’s two separate independent therapists.
Not a single therapist as ‘our’ therapist - therein danger lies as you are not in need of a couples/relationship therapist.

Your ever pedantic Auntie