Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

MNHQ have commented on this thread

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 ··· 38 39

MNHQ have commented on this thread

Feminism: Sex & gender discussions

Trans Widows escape committee

972 replies

TinselAngel · 01/12/2017 15:55

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?

OP posts:

Thanks

Share

Report

UnderTheDesk · 07/12/2017 21:31

My ex was a poor musician rather than a high-earning ITguy, but in everything else he followed the script. I was with him for 8 years and tried so hard to be cool about it, but I just couldn't.

I left him ten years ago, but I've never talked to anyone else about it until now.

Thanks

ohfortuna · 07/12/2017 21:47

I found that link very interesting and informative StopMakingSense
I note this:
Autogynephilia is basically a sexual orientation, and once present does not go away, although its intensity may wax and wane.
So no hope of mutual reciprocal sexual relationship with an AGP man

This distinction between autogynephilia and other types of gender dysphoria really does need to be more widely understood
It seems to me that autogynephiliacs are being Machiavellian in many cases

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 21:47

@UnderTheDesk yep. I tried hard to be OK with it too. I was convinced if I tried hard enough I could keep my family together. I made accommodation after accommodation but it was never enough.

OP posts:

Thanks

ohfortuna · 07/12/2017 21:53

For so long crossdressers have been lauded for their courage and bravery, but all along it's just been a way for them to get their jollies
They had us all fooled, people tried to defend them from 'bigots' who laughed and pointed but really they were having a laugh at the rest of All Along

Thanks

abbey44 · 07/12/2017 22:00

TinselAngel and UnderTheDesk - that was me, too. I tried everything, made so many compromises and allowances, and every time I thought we'd reached a balanc, the goalposts were changed. Mostly presented as a fait accompli. And then, to be accused of being unreasonable, bigoted, selfish...I could never win. I loved him so much, I'd have done practically anything to have made it work, and looking back, I can't believe some of the lengths I went to, but you can't make it work single-handedly.

It's interesting to see just how many similar themes appear in so many accounts. I wish I'd been able to access this then.

Thanks

ohfortuna · 07/12/2017 22:01

Another quote from the blog post link to up thread
Autogynephilia remains a largely hidden idea because most people–including journalists, families, and many males with autogynephilia–strongly prefer the standard, though false, narrative: “Transsexualism is about having the mind of one sex in the body of the other sex.” Many people find this narrative both easier to understand and less disturbing than the idea that some males want a sex change because they find that idea strongly erotic

Thanks

whitehandledkitchenknife · 07/12/2017 22:03

I am so glad that this thread is helping. What courage you all have. Like PPs, I support you and stand shoulder to shoulder with you.

This feels like a massive example of the way in which women are expected to facilitate men. Gas lighting par excellence.

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 22:13

@abbey44 - I tried to find sources of support online but there was nothing, apart from the Women of The Beaumont Society group, which as I think I said earlier, terrified me.

This is going to be an increasing problem and there needs to be a support group. I'm just not sure I'm brave enough to run it.

OP posts:

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 22:19

And yes. Changing goal posts describes it completely.

I've just remembered when my ex started taking (with no prescription, ordered online) a drug that is primarily prescribed for prostate problems but can also have the effect of arresting hair loss.

It was supposed to stop him losing any more hair (he hated being balding). One of the common side effects of this was impotence. I said, bearing this in mind, maybe he should have consulted me, his wife, over it. He just shrugged and said he didn't care. His hair was more important.

OP posts:

Thanks

abbey44 · 07/12/2017 22:32

Tinsel - jeez, were we married to the same man?!

Although no, mine ordered hormones mail-order (it was very early days of the internet) to get rid of body hair. Parts of his beard disappeared, which looked very odd when he didn't shave, and his legs were smoother than mine.

The Beaumont Society...they were less than helpful. I was told that my husband's "journey" was none of my business and that I was wrong to try and influence him against it. I wasn't doing anything of the sort - I wanted to know how I and the children were supposed to deal with what was happening. Or, to be more accurate, to wonder what was happening. Nothing in my life to that point had prepared me for anything like that. It wasn't marriage as I'd expected it to be.

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 22:35

The shaving of the body hair was one thing I never could bear.

OP posts:

Thanks

GuardianLions · 07/12/2017 22:37

I think Blanchard believes both transsexuals and AGPs are sexually motivated. He believes transsexuals are gay men who are turned on by the thought of men fancying them the way heterosexual men fancy women, and AGPs are hetereosexual men who are turned on by imagining themselves to be a woman (and also bisexual men who dress up as women in order to go out and get shagged 'as a woman'). He doesn't subscribe to the 'poor gender dysphoric' explanation for transsexuals/AGPs. I think that is why he was so aggressively harassed by academic AGPs. I don't know what he thinks of trans identifying females though.

Thanks

RedToothBrush · 07/12/2017 22:38

If you don't feel up to a support group don't underestimate how little in MN can make a difference. Breaking the taboo just on this thread, probably it's making more than you realise.

Thanks

abbey44 · 07/12/2017 22:44

I remember one afternoon when the boys were very small and we had my FIL staying with us. My ex was in England, "on business" at Royal Ascot, or so he'd told his father. In reality, it was Ladies' Day and he was there in a double-decker with his TV mates on a day out. (He'd been to Selfridges personal shopper for his designer outfit, which had cost ££££, incidentally.) The little added frisson was that the company chairman (his immediate boss) was also there, as a guest of HM The Queen.

I was, understandably perhaps, a little twitchy that afternoon - FIL had the telly on for the racing, pointed out Big Boss in the royal carriage, all the while lecturing me on how unsupportive I was of my DH, who was working so hard to provide for us. I had everything crossed that the cameras wouldn't light on the bus full of rather flamboyantly dressed laydees as I wouldn't have been able to keep my mouth shut about just how hard his DS was actually working that day.

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 22:52

Yes. I remember the terrible anxiety when he started " working away" ie going out en femme. I was so scared he'd get beaten up.

The first time he did it, we had an agreement he'd text me when he hit in to say he was ok. Of course he didn't. He blamed it on being in an underground club with no mobile reception. But clearly he just didn't give a shit by that point.

Looking back I think that's when he met his current partner. He said he had to go out without his wedding ring, because it was a "man's ring".

OP posts:

Thanks

imablackstarnotapopstar · 07/12/2017 22:55

My DD feels very strongly that this is just another instance of her father "making bad choices" like the time she caught him in bed with another woman and had to tell me about it. The courts from what I can tell so far are very supportive in general of trans parents but they are also really only concerned with the child's rights, wishes and feelings and their emotional and physical safety.

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 23:07

Fucking hell @imablackstarnotapopstar

OP posts:

Thanks

abbey44 · 07/12/2017 23:09

That's a lot for a child of her age to have to deal with...

Thanks

TinselAngel · 07/12/2017 23:10

Just a tad.

OP posts:

Thanks

thesamesamestory · 08/12/2017 04:43

I've never told anyone. Part of it is the humiliation, part of it is that we have a lot of right-on friends who would call me a TERF and worse for not cheerleading my husband 24/7.

My husband claims he has told his pentecostal Christian parents but I don't know if I believe him. He also contacted a gay friend of mine (and only mine - husband has met him once) and started sending him messages about gender and sexuality and whatnot. My confused gay friend promptly contacted me asking uh, why is your husband emailing me about his genderfeels?

Thanks

Datun · 08/12/2017 09:10

As far as I remember, the Beaumont Society were instrumental in changing the law in 2004 to make it legally possible to change sex.

I don’t know much about them. But from what people have said on here, they seem to be fairly tooled up with the Kool-Aid.

Thanks

TinselAngel · 08/12/2017 09:40

I just had a look at the Women of The Beaumont Society Yahoo group (which is for partners of cross dressers) I've never unsubscribed although it's set to go into the Spam folder of an old email account.

It looks like it's become almost dormant due to the ill health of the administrator (who is elderly and whose husband is an old fashioned cross dresser), but one comment that was there said that the support groups for cross dressers have been taken over by very political trans activists. Quelle Surprise.

OP posts:

Thanks

EmilyHowardsWife · 08/12/2017 09:56

Beaumont Society was the first thing I found online about 15 years ago now. I remember feeling guilty and wrong to be feeling my feelings. Told that CDers are not into gay sex, told that there would probably be no escalation, told that I should just relax and be cool - go shopping, have an extra special gal-pal!!!! Yes, my husband doesn't have gay sex (just fantasies about it) but the escalation is there (all be it slowly and drip by drip - this cycle he's added hip padding and breast forms with larger/more realistic nippes and needs to be shaved at all times now).
BIG thanks for all the advice and just being allowed to say how I secretly feel. Moving forward in how I'm dealing with this as I wouldn't have even dared post any of this a year ago, so I am moving towards my own "authentic self" and truth.

Thanks

Farinthepast · 08/12/2017 10:09

I feel for all of us, carrying this around - especially when you are having to shield children .

If, as seems to be the case, our partners have been AGP and we've been unaware of their sexual fetish when deciding they were our life partners, I just wonder how many sexual fetishes your right-on friends would be prepared to accept thesame?

Thanks

Farinthepast · 08/12/2017 10:13

Emily, have you been dealing with this for 15 years? I know my mental health was shot after a few months. I hope you can find your truth very soon!

Thanks

Flip

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 ··· 38 39

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.