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?

I'm still about, DH pulled the manipulative suicide threat card when I asked him to get help. It's all been a bit grim. Probably fast forwarding us to our end though.

He's been in a mental health unit for depression and porn obsession since my last post. I would love to tell you his treatment is working, but I seems he just has a new vocabulary with which to explain, at length to me, about how I'm the one with problems.

Totally outing, but fuck it.

Good luck all.

Ugh

@birdbandit I hope that's at least given you some time to yourself, and to maybe start getting your ducks in a row for the future?

Bird

birdbandit
You have a lot of us on here backing you if you do decide to separate. I am in awe of your willingness to stand by him despite his self centred pursuit of his own wishes.
Don't mean to come over as patronising but do you lurk on the relationships board? There's some fantastic advice and resources on there in terms of both strategies and finding the inner strength to separate from abusive gas lighting men? And of course, you are not responsible for his threats of suicide - that's a classic technique abusive men use to keep women in line.

Oh please don't misunderstand me, I'd leave this wank*r in a heartbeat if it didn't mean losing my kids for 50% of the time.

It's likely he will go soon. He sees me now as the source for all his stress/anxiety/depression, that he attempts to alleviate with porn and crossdressing. Weirdly, he also has the "been going it since childhood" story going, and I haven't known him THAT long.

Everyday I'm herding those ducks.

I'm not a legal expert but are you sure he'd get the kids 50% of the time if you didn't agree to it? Particularly with a recent hospitalisation for mental health.

My ex is still quite involved with our daughter but she only goes to him EOW, and this is all he wants as any more would curtail his new life.

birdbandit
Hmmmmm. A parent with a known and identifiable porn addiction may not be the 'parent of the year' that they believe that they are.
Not wishing to teach Grandma to suck eggs etc, but I hope that you are recording every single incident where boundaries are crossed in ways that children could be cognisant of. That's safeguarding!
So using the family computer, cloud storage, phone calls / emails / that children may be able to come across MAY be evidence that this person is not a parent with appropriate boundaries. Just a thought....
Screenshot and record (in a safe place) everything.

I'm currently going through the court process because DD aged 8 doesn't want to see Daddy dressed in a flamenco dress, sky high heels, a bunch of flowers on top of his head and drag queen levels of make up. Second hearing just before Christmas. Judge totally 100% on the side of DD's wishes and feelings and tore a strip off ex's aggressive barrister for their ridiculous demands and accusations with absolutely no consideration for DD's emotional well-being. Your ex will not get 50/50. The kids come first.

That's great news imablackstar. It's reassuring to hear that a judge will take a child's feelings into account.

birdbandit - unless ex can show he protects the DCs emotional well-being and their wishes and feelings are met he won't have them overnight at all.

I guess we'll see. The only thing I care about at all is the kids.

He's out of the Priory now, and talking about renting a separate property, to give him head space to deal with his many issues.

I will keep calm, and get legal advice. For my own piece of mind, I want to see how he improves, now he is getting treatment, and give the drugs time to work. Opportunity for him to make a coherent decision/statement about what he wants.

The kids though. Christmas was awful, and the kids are now aware that things are not good. My children are 9 and 6. They love their dad. The eldest is clearly really stressed, anxious about our future. He has cried saying that he doesn't want us to get divorced.

My heart tells me that I can't allow for them to share our shit. That if I just suck it up then I can keep my children full time.

How do folk who get divorced manage this? It feels like I am prioritising my feeling over theirs. It's going to be shit either way.

You are not prioritising your feelings over theirs. Your husband is unlikely to change and may even ramp it up further because he seems like an abusive narcissist from what you've said. It will likely become untenable at some point. You won't be able to repress your own feelings forever. Your children will pick up on the tension. Sorry if that sounds harsh

The children will suffer more being made to witness him abuse you for the next 15 years than have divorced parents like over half their peers

I didn’t want to read and run.
I fear for the teens who are being told that this is all normal and to be encouraged.

Love and strength to you all. May the new year give you all what you need and want.

birdbandit
I don't mean to be harsh but reading your posts it is obvious that he is an excessively abusive man. Have a read again of your first post - he has encouraged you to sleep with randoms from the internet, he verbally abuses you, has isolated you, criticises you to others, is evidently cheating on you, point scores with the children and threatens suicide (classic coercive behaviour) as well as having an extreme porn addiction.
You are being seriously abused. PLEASE speak to Womens Aid - they will support you and talk you though how you can deal with this.
www.womensaid.org.uk/about-us/contact/
You will also find lots of help on the relationships board which has lots of posters with experience of leaving abusive men. People here will also support you as we understand how hard it can be to leave an abusive relationship.

Guardian etc, yes absolutely you are all correct.

I'm not saying I will or should stay, just that it is hard to make the emotional jump from staying to keep the kids near me, and recognising that despite what will be a traumatic experience for them, divorce would be better for the kids in the long run.

Absolutely birdbandit. This will need huge reserves from you - and from the sound of things, he has considerably depleted them.
I am in constant awe at how many women summon up the courage to leave abusive men in the face of awful circumstances. Do you have any real life support that you can draw on? `Have you been able to speak to anyone about what is happening?
Keeping his 'secrets' are another way of isolating you and I understand that this is not an easy issue to broach.
And one last 'difficult' question - are you certain that your children are safe (in terms of not being exposed to age inappropriate issues?)
I'm not suggesting you answer this on here but sometimes when we're stuck in a toxic situation and 'firefighting' , it helps to stand back and look at what our children are seeing and aware of? And sometimes we realise that it's not OK and that can give us the impetus to make changes.

I reached trans-peak a while ago, thanks to Mumsnet threads. I guess I’m like a number of Mumsnetters in not (so far….) being personally affected by the trans issue, but I’m not so oblivious that I can’t see that it isn’t just an intellectual debate, but that it has already affected so many women and girls to their disadvantage.

But it’s the utter arrogance of the men described in posts on this thread that shows the issue in such a stark light. It’s not just that it’s all about them, it’s also that everyone else in the universe has to fall into line with their fantasy.

There are couple of threads in AIBU which show that many people are still debating the issue on an intellectual level. (Though I hesitate to use the term “intellectual”, because many responses indicate that they are still not thinking about the personal, emotional effect on women.)

But for husbands and fathers to expect their wives and children to be players in their fantasy really goes beyond what should be acceptable in a reasonable society. It’s not a what-if, hypothetical situation, it’s what’s happening in what should be the safest place, the family home.

The Family Court has already been tested on this. I don’t want to say more, or even include links, but I think there will be more cases where the effects on children when the father becomes “a lady” will have to be first and foremost. But that will mean social workers and Cafcass not being blindsided by the current PC thinking that is being pushed by trans activists and seems to pervade throughout all official guidance.

(Actually, I’d have to go back through the Family Court judgments to see who first refused direct contact and then who reversed that decision on appeal. I really do hope that that the reversal wasn’t by Chief Justice Judge Munby because he generally has a clue or three about the best for the children.)

Anyway, I think your stories should be heard. I don’t want to link on those AIBU threads, because these are not my stories. But you should be heard. Because you can’t avoid by not using women’s spaces. And just by typing that, I’ve had the sudden reinforcement of the reality that the home is not your space or your children’s space – it’s his, isn’t it? Yet another lightbulb moment. How many will it take for society to wake up and count the cost of pandering to these arrogant men?

At his worst he was trying to bully me into sleeping with randoms on the internet or from his approved list, so that he could dress up as a maid and serve us tea. When I told him no he threatened to kill himself.

Yes, bananas. That's just like being gay.

I think if I were bisexual, I would still prefer not to be lied to etc.

bananas, I'm bisexual and really, really offended that you are suggesting that what these men are doing is anything like being gay. It really isn't. If you want a proper discussion about why it isn't we probably need a new thread so avoid derailing this support group.

To everyone else, I'm so sorry to read what you are going through and I hope you find happiness is 2018

I'd second that a new thread should be started if people want to debate hypotheticals.