Trans Widows escape committee

[TinselAngel]

This is a second attempt to start a thread for women who have been, or are still in unhappy relationships with Trans partners.

Having got out of a marriage to a man who transitioned shortly after we split, it would be good to be able to support others in a similar situation.

I know there's a few of you out there?

*practical

I'm not affected personally either, so I hope women who are affected don't mind me posting here.

I wish you all strength and a future full of hope.

I've not checked in here for a while, but my heart continues to go out to those who are living through the horror, and especially with children.

The suicide threats were never ending in my marriage after he made his announcement, and I do remember once screaming at him to "just fucking do it then" as, by that stage, my own mental health was in pieces. I likened it to being worse than a bereavement because I had lost the man I loved but wasn't able to acknowledge this due to the humiliation.

I wish you all strength to overcome your fear and move to a better place in your life

I don't want to butt in or say something ignorant or stupid but I do want to tell you women that many of us hear you. I hear you.

Tartanhare. I hear you, totally get everything you posted. One of the ways I use this space is as a way of journaling what is happening in my own life so I can read back and see that I'm not mad and this is real. The pink fog comes and goes (gone at the moment). But it will comeback.
birdbandit hope you are keeping strong, thinking of you.
To everyone else a big thank you for your support and sharing your experiences. I have to be careful when I post, but I do listen and take onboard all the advice.
I believe the MTT are mentally unwell (not PC to say, but hopefully not illegal yet), because they all follow the same pattern in their behaviour and obsessions and only by having their family and friends document their behaviour can we see this (they are not as special or unique as they think they are).
Daily Strength have a section for Trans Partners, feel for all those poor women. More of us out there than anyone knows. Unfortunately this site has been taken over by the trans handmaidens, but interesting to read the usual pattern of manic depression, narcissism and Asperger's.
Daily Strength Trans Wives

@EmilyHowardsWife phew looked at the site you linked to, very supportive wives! How sad. I wonder when wives actually say that they no longer need to support a man who can never make them happy. Life is just too short! (But I am not a wife or widow to trans so maybe I do not understand).

This doesnt affect me personally but i just wanted to show my support. This is the most heartbreaking thread ive read on here and i have been an MNer for six and a half years.

These men are abusers.

I used to work in a sex chatline office 17 years ago taking payments for calls and doing the calls and one of the lines was a domination line and some of the callers wanted "sissification" I remember one in particular who sent photos of himself in underwear to the PO Box and a lot of the other girls found the photos funny but it made me feel uneasy and a bit sick TBH.

this is as close as i have come to it and i have no idea whether he wanted to transition or not. im pretty sure (well as sure as i could be because we didnt ask as not our business) that he was single.

I am absolutely horrified at what is on this thread.

Several years ago in Easy Living magazine which doesnt exist any more there was an article written by a woman whose husband came out as gay (not trans) but there was emotional abuse there He was critical and nasty about her appearance and her weight but she was a size 10. There were other things too. I really wish some of these defunct magazines would put all their old articles online after folding.

Now he wants to kill himself as I'm not enlightened enough to be free of gender boundaries .
He wants to donate our savings to Mermaids in his will. Ffs

My story:
I have known for 6 years. In that time it has been pushed from a little bit of cross dressing because he liked the patterns to now wanting to take hormones.
We were married 11 years before he told me and were trying for children. (I joined mumsnet for the conception/baby name boards and stayed for the conversation).
Looking back it may be a blessing that fertility wasn't my friend.
He told me on a Saturday night as I was cooking tea, tea that got taken out of the oven the following Tuesday.
I cried, he cried and I told him I didn't want to see. This wasn't good enough for him as he felt he had the right to be comfortable in his own home, fair enough, but it made me uncomfortable.
He started to shave his body hair and bought underwear, make up and clothing, I even donated him some of my less worn clothes. This seemed practical on a financial level. Now very few of my clothes are safe. I find leggings and tops by the side of his bed. We have slept in seperate bedrooms for 3 years now.
I started to find knickers in the washing basket and left on the bathroom floor the house would be a tip when I came home from work but his eyeliner was perfect.
A couple of years down the line he wanted to go out dressed, we attended the Sparkle event together. He loved it- I didn't. I had several weeks off work with stress. During this time he contiued to dress around the house. He now also had wigs but was growing his own hair. I really tried hard, I am still really trying hard. We became regulars in the Gay Village, I looked for support there but there was only support for him. I was part of his suppport system nothing more.
Every boundary I begged for has been breached, eroded little by little.
We are little more than flatmates, I work, he doesn't as he finds it too stressful. If I ask him to do a share of housework it's because I want him in a feminine role.
I have no life

Sorry if that was long, it's actually the really short version!!

Oh, TartanHare ,that sounds so painful.
What's keeping you in this relationship? - not meant judgily.. Just wondering.

@TartanHare

I am so sorry to hear your story. May I ask how old you are, why your fertility failed and why you stay?

I am sorry if this is really nosy and you are very welcome not to answer.

XXXX

Oh Tartan

You don’t have to live like this. You don’t deserve to feel like you have no life lovey. I can’t believe you are better off staying with him than leaving. Sorry if this is an insensitive question, but do you still love him?

Tartan.

What makes you stay with him?

Why do I stay?
Even I'm not sure, on a bad day it's hell but sometimes, just sometimes, the man I love appears.
I've moved far away from my family when we married. I finally built a life here. I cant afford to stay on my own.
It started as just the odd bit of cross dressing and I think its just happened bit by bit so I didn't really notice. The first time out was hard, but it got easier. I wanted to make it work so I pushed my own boundaries. We met some interesting people and had some laughs along the way. Not all of it has been awful, but the further he goes the more I struggle.
I am more educated about the issue too

How many bad days? How many ok days?

Never be put off making a change by " can't afford to" - where there's a will, there's always a way, even if it means straightened times.

Your life is your own.

Tartan a lot of your story is familiar. Particularly how every boundary you have put in place has been eroded.

You have been the most amazingly supportive partner- right down to financially supporting him, let alone how you've gone into the Transgender scene and tried to enjoy it.

I bet you've been made to feel it isn't enough though, when clearly you couldn't have done more?

Your situation sounds desperate. I'm just wondering- what's in this relationship for you right now? It's clear what's in it for him- but what's benefit is it bringing to you? X

"I've moved far away from my family when we married. I finally built a life here. I cant afford to stay on my own."

But aren't you now working and cooking and cleaning for two?

If you were working and cooking and cleaning for one and had downsized could you afford to live there?

@TartanHare I am going to lie it on the line here and if I overstep the mark, please tell me.

Is this the marriage you want? Have you deiced not to have children or are you still secretly hoping it will happen?

I had a daughter in my late thirties and then we adopted a son in my late forties. In between I had a lot of fertility treatment, including donor eggs.

I was really desperate to have a family and I tried very hard. At times being a mum had been just about the hardest thing I've ever done. Ironically, it is my birth child who is more of a handful than the adopted one! (It's not normally that way round!)

Can you imagine bringing a child into your marriage, by birth or by adoption? Can you imagine your husband being a dad in this situation?

Whether you still want to be a mum or not, I just wanted to say, please go for the right reason or stay for the right reason.

Maybe a good reason to stay would be because you still love him and feel loved by him, can see a future and a way ahead.

If you do not feel this and cannot see this, can you see an alternative future?

If I have spoken out of turn I do apologise. In some ways the 'trans' issue is not really the main thing, the thing is he is making you unhappy, he is making you do all the work to bring in the finances and he is making you do all the work around the home.

If this does not change, can you cope with this as your future?

Thinking of you.

I am 39. We have been together since I was 14. I have never been in another relationship.I truly loved him.

I can't cope. I cant leave. There will never be children as he refuses to use his penis for sex. We couldn't adopt as there is no way I would bring a child into this. I will have no family support when they find out I didn't leave straight away. I have nothing. Theres only one option left but I tried that and I'm not brave enough to see it through. So the cycle continues.

He says that if I learn to see things his way it will be ok. He sees us as a lesbian couple, If I stay while he transitions he will go back to work. He promises the earth.

I don't want a wife though

@TartanHare thank you for replying and thank you for sharing.

Please, please, do not do anything silly, your life is so very valuable.

You can make a choice, you can stay and watch the man you love change into whatever he is planning on, or you can leave.

I don't blame you for not wanting a wife and not wanting to be in a lesbian couple. If you had wanted to be in a lesbian couple you would, presumably have found a real live woman.

" I will have no family support when they find out I didn't leave straight away."

It is a terrible shame you do not feel you can rely on your family. It may be that your assumptions are true, in which case you may need to rely on friends; or they may just surprise you. But you know them well.

"I have nothing." My dear you have something, you have your health, and strength, which has enabled you to earn a living and keep you both, to cook and clean for this man, and you have managed to brave this terrible, terrible shit storm which must have been so very hard.

I have no idea if they will be any use but can you speak to women's aid?

www.womensaid.org.uk/

0808 2000 247

Or the Samaritans

www.samaritans.org/

Call us
116 123 (UK)
116 123 (ROI)

EMAIL US
[email protected]

I just want to send you a hug in the middle of the night and say, stay strong, you are worth so much more than this.

I can really relate to this thread, thankfully I wasn't married to the man I was with, although deeply in love with him. I discovered the truth accidentally coming across emails he had sent on hook up sites. For some bizarre reason I decided to stay with him, even helped him

He follows the same pattern that others have layed out, possible autism, no social skills. He does differ in that he barely earns a wage (self employed and CBA to work) he relies on family (was me once upon a time). In addition to the autogynephilia he seems to want some kind of mother/child dynamic where he is taken care of and gently dominated. He never came out with this but threw out enough hints that a 2yo could join the dots.

I believe that he is relatively early in this journey, from this thread though I can see where it ends up. Even this relatively short relationship destroyed my mental health, even now I miss him so much. One thing that piqued my interest is that a pp described these men as Machiavellian, I always found it that the one non star trek/Douglas Adams novel ex owned was the prince by Machiavelli! Should have run a mile for all.

@TartanHare please speak to Woman's Aid you can leave him, you work, you're in separate rooms, you can file for divorce.

What is your financial position, renting or mortgage?

Can you access counselling via your GP or work. He is abusing you when you leave and build your life again you will recover you will feel stronger. You are worth so much more than what you have now

Tartan, if you don't mind me asking, you said you were 14 when you got together - how old was he? Because without wanting to do the armchair psychoanalysis thing, something strikes me as terribly off reading your account if how utterly emotionally dependent on being with him you are, and I'm wondering if there's some sort of back story of having been groomed. Ignore me if this is wrong or steps over the line into areas you don't want to talk about.

I thought this blog may be of interest. The blogger is the wife of a transitioning man and she is speaking openly about the need for a debate, and self id's as a terf.
It's not my blog by the way, and yes this is my first post under this name - have decided I need to use a different name for my posts on trans to reduce the chance of being identified.

lizardyoga.wordpress.com