Trans Widows Escape Committee 2- The Trans Widows Strike Back..

[TinselAngel]

The previous thread is nearly full, so here is a shiny new one.

I'm thrilled that this took off enough to merit a second thread.

This is a support area for women who are, or have been, in unhappy relationships with male partners who are transitioning, or exploring their "gender identity"

If you are in that position-

1. You are not alone
2. It is not a situation that you should be expected to tolerate, let alone celebrate.
3. There is always a way out, if you want it. The thread is called Escape Committee for that reason.

Another lurking widow chiming in. I'm also outraged on your behalf. I don't mind the term Transwidows in the least. to you all.

Wow abby, that is such an inspiring and interesting story. I am increasingly incensed that we believe victims of domestic abuse, and victims of sexual crime, but there is a feeling that victims of this kind of emotional/financial abuse are/will not be believed more widely, for political reasons. Hearing your experiences, and again the depressingly familiar nature of it all, is so valuable for us - thank you to all the new lurkers who are contributing. It feels as if we are growing and mobilizing. All credit to Tinsel - without you overseeing this we would not be talking.
Looking at the research trial, it seems we really should get involved, as it claims to be looking at the support needs of partners of transitioners. I have a bad feeling about it all (and that it will end up concluding that we primarily need educating... my workplace are bringing in GI to do a training day presumably to tell us the difference between sex and gender, and the horrific damage inflicted by misgendering… sigh). I would love a large number of transwidows to join it to shine a light on the hidden abuse element of all this.
Interestingly I've found out that my ex has now moved into academia (one of many reinventions) which has to be the safest, most cosseted place for someone like him to work, surrounded by people wearing pronoun badges....

Hi everyone, a lot of you know my situation but something new has come up and I wans wondering if anyone else has experienced issues within FDR and hidden or non transparency?

What's FDR?

Financial Dispute Resolution

No sorry- you could try posting on the Legal Matters board?

I love the idea of a book. I would be glad to contribute (I'm a published author and did a successful Kickstarter), but would have to do so anonymously, as this could endanger my job in academia.

I'm going to spend Sunday afternoon reading @abbys0meth1ng's book....

Fucking hell. The chapter on Gaslighting.

I'd urge anybody with an interest in this issue to read it.

abbys0meth1ng

Available on kindle:
The Cross Dresser's Wife - Our Secret Lives https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005VTK4QK/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_GoJQCbK7H20RM

Tinsel, Gaslighting was my contribution. I see the same patterns over and over. And I hear the same arguments. It's enough. Going to an agp for insight is like going to an addict for help in understanding addiction. I hope it helps someone.

I thought it must be abby, judging by your earlier post.

Anybody on this thread who is still in their marriage, or any lurkers, I would really urge you to read it and see if any of it sounds familiar.

I'll just share two extracts from the book here:

Thanks for recommending that Tinsel and abby. I definitely need to read this. I’m a bit scared to tbh because I am still married and the more I find out about this, the more depressed I am about the future and our children. We’re one more lie away from me walking.
To be fair to my Dh, he has never ever suggested that I am involved in any cross dressing. But he lied to me by not telling me about it for more than a decade and he is now putting pressure on me to let him do it when i’m not around. I agree with his therapist that it’s not healthy denying who you are but I’ve told him that it’s something I won’t tolerate at all and I mean it. I don’t feel guilty in the slightest about these boundaries. Once he starts, he’s out of control and needs to do it more and more, and the lies get worse. I don’t want that in my life so it’s cross dressing or me.

You have every right to be scared mashed, the situation that you are in is terrifying.

On the other hand. What's the worst that can happen? Imagine if you do split up, being free of all the worry about escalation and being in charge of your own destiny. My experience was that the thing I feared the most (splitting up), was the thing that saved me.

You have firmly asserted your boundaries, and good for you. Don't let them be chipped away at (this is where abby's account is useful).

However, even within these boundaries you need to decide whether your situation is tolerable. Are you happy or are all your instincts screaming that the situation is wrong. Is there cognitive dissonance?

Something abby's account reminded me of was how my health started to break down in the last couple of years we were together, and how it began to improve as soon as I left.

If I'd have read abby's chapter when I was in your situation, I'd have found some comfort that my situation was not as bad as hers (and fuck me she had it bad), but with hindsight, the pattern of escalation was the same.

Sorry not Mashed, @Yewneekusername

I've been at this for a while now. Maybe my advice is getting a bit harsh?

No Tinsel, you are on the money. I divorced a man I was married to for less traumatic reasons than this but it was a very profound decision to make and your words are absolutely true about imagining life free of them and how much your health will recover. It's all true. You are right Tinsel.

Feel the fear and do it anyway. The rest of your life belongs to you.

I can't get over how things have changed in 20 years, maybe they haven't but I do believe that at least then the general public would have been more sympathetic to our plight! If one more person makes the stupid thoughtless remark of, well at least he's happy now and all I want to do is scream back with every fibre of my body, what right did he have to rob me of 28 years of my life. We were his beard, our children didnt ask to be the victims of his subterfuge.

I spoke to a lady from the the 'Beaumont Society' once she said it would be difficult coming to terms with who he now was but that my life would be richer and the relationship although different, deeper. SERIOUSLY!

I read the gaslighting chapter last night and OMG! That poor girl. I can see similarities in the manipulation but that was horrendous.

Today I discovered that he has drawn monies from his business accounts to pay for his gender reassignment and facial feminisation surgeries, I am seriously in disbelief. I wonder how HMRC will view that.

Since the TV program, 'The Making of Me' several ladies have contacted me with how difficult and intimidating they are finding working with him. They live in fear that if they make their discomfort common knowledge that their jobs could then be at risk. Why has the protection of the few been allowed to impact and shadow the lives of the many. Political correctness seems to have destroyed common sense.

I spoke to my mother in law, first time in 3 years, he has told her that I was the one who led him into this life he has chosen. That I was the one who purchased his clothes, make up etc..... She actually said to me, that according to him, I had full knowledge and was wholeheartedly supportive of him. That they (his family) couldn't understand why I was so devastated, destroyed and broken just going by what he had told them and he had advised them to distance themselves from us. He obviously didnt want us lifting the veil on his secret life.

He told me, along time ago that he would declare himself bankrupt rather than let our children and I get anything. He also told me he would discredit me to his family, as it turns out he almost succeeded but our truth has fewer holes and is more credible. Funny that.

His poor mum, doesn't even know that he's had the ops. She thinks he's purely living as a woman. God love her! I didnt tell her, she's in her seventies and she deserves her innocence. She told me that she gave birth to a son and he will always be her son.

I feel the same way Tinsel!

That's why I'm so hesitant to say anything. I don't want to kill hopes or squash dreams of the women in relationships with these men. By the time they reach out for help, they are often confused, anxious, and depressed. Leaving a long-term relationship, breaking up your family, placing yourself and kids at financial risk, losing your home, your friends, your partner...these are big, irreversible steps. And ones that can never be taken lightly.

I have a very hard time knowing what to say to women caught up in this mess. I want to help them, but I don't see a way clear without a lot of pain. But there are different kinds of pain. There is the pain of leaving and the pain of staying.

If I had stayed, I would have ended up in a mental hospital. I would have lost my kids no matter which choices I made. My husband was very abusive, manipulating, and demanding. I would have been gaslighted to the point where I would have broke. I was almost there. This was not about clothing choices. It was about messing with my mind. He was capable of doing whatever it took to keep me there with him and isolated. Suicide threats, accusations of child abuse, threatening to take my kids from me, deliberately causing me to doubt my memories, my thinking, my values. It took me a very long time to get back to a new normal.

I guess my position is that if a woman wants to get out, I will encourage her. I did not stay because I was strong. I stayed because I was weak. I was afraid...of everything. And the longer I stayed, the weaker and more confused I became.. I only became strong through leaving, come what may. I will never again allow someone else to do my thinking for me, to coerce me to go against my instincts, to dismiss my feelings.

But the women who want to stay? I can't offer them comforting words, but I can urge them to trust their instincts and their eyes over the words they are told. I can offer them my story. I can let them draw their own parallels, if there are any. I am aware that my ex is perhaps an extreme example of an abusive autogynephile, but the underlying dynamics, the manipulation involved are just shades of grey IMHO. I have seen too much to be taken in by righteous anger or protestations of innocence. Just keep your eyes open.

Leaving or staying is a really difficult and individual decision. Women who are financially-dependent or have young children seem to be in a far worse position than I was. There were pros and cons to breaking up, but for me it was an overwhelming gut feeling that I could and would not tolerate his behaviour.
Cons of divorcing:

• financial (big-time) - I survived thanks to family helping me secure our home, and getting a full-time job which fitted round things
• loneliness - despite my current feelings about my ex, I miss him at times when the kids have problems, or do something great. Attending school events and parents' evenings alone and feeling I stick out like a sore thumb (particularly as I live somewhere where pretty much everyone knows my bizarre secret)
• time - I now carry responsibility entirely for my kids since they opted to stop all contact with him. I have to be there for them, do all the running-around
• practical - the rare things he actually did (he spent most of his time focussed on his own hobbies and interests, and towards the end spent hours online using a highly secretive search engine I found out about afterwards, presumably planning his new life) - computers, bikes, the crap I'm not good at
• so my social life has suffered as I am really worn out, and once I've done earning, and looking after kids, I have little energy left
• my health has both worsened and improved - I am tired and slept really badly for about two years and really neglected myself as I needed to prioritize my kids who had a very hard time in mental health terms. Pros:
• total freedom and independence
• massive sense of strength and being able to deal with anything, having got through this nightmare
• great relationship with my children - I'm sure we are closer because we went through this
• not having to feel anxious, bad, suspicious about my husband, his chronic unhappiness and restlessness, his remoteness and secrecy. That was really stressful and corrosive
• not having to feel angry that the other adult in the house wasn't pulling his weight - it's hard doing everything as a single parent, but doing everything when someone else is around and NOT HELPING is far worse!
• clarity, no grey areas, no 'trial periods' or negotiation. No boundaries to monitor and worry about - he started breaching agreements IMMEDIATELY (what are these women's pants in the washing?) so I know I would have been on alert all the time, and I'm entirely free from that
• sex/relationships: I'm far too tired/fat at present, but maybe one day I will be able to have a relationship with someone I fancy, who isn't dressed up in women's clothing, and focussed entirely on himself
• I was able to give a vital message to my kids (esp important for female children I think) that you don't have to put up with mistreatment, and can strike out alone and not be afraid. It took me about two days to work out I wanted to leave; for others it clearly takes months/years. If you do stay, I think you just need to be realistic about what's in store. No relationship is perfect, and people tolerate all sorts of stuff including these behaviours. If you can, and you weigh up that you need to stay, or wait longer to leave (in which case, plan a good escape particularly financially and bide your time - I considered this for a while but couldn't tolerate it), you need to get to a state of acceptance about the reality of your situation. It does appear that the vast majority of men doing this do escalate their behaviours, and can't be 'counselled' out of it, but if you can accept this, you would be like many people who stay in relationships for financial/practical reasons and do okay.

By the way Tinsel, you don't sound harsh. The repetitive, identical stories on this thread suggest there is a grim reality to being in this situation, and we will support anyone going through this whatever decision they make, but I guess people happy to stay/accept don't use this thread as they can use the multitude of alternative support services for 'partners of trans people', which don't deal well with the unhappy, 'misgendering' amongst us who don't want to be re-educated or criticized, but supported in the reality of our experience and feelings.

Love and support to you all.

My heart goes out to you all

There is such strength and light here and it shows how women can reach out to each other in love and support without judgement or pressure.

While I don't want to lay this on too thick, because the situations are very different, I have to say that I have been struck by seeing echoes of patterns and themes on this thread that many of us parents with trans identified children will recognise.

Is it ok to add a post as a woman who hasn't experienced this?

Just to say I have a great friend who's a twenty-years-clean drugs and alcohol addict.

She works with addicts now to help them recover (desist?).

She says 'we are lying, deceiving manipulators who will do and say anything to get our next fix'.

Her words sound so similar to what you're going through.

I wonder if there have been any studies on similarities between addicts and AGP etc?

Do they get the same rush of anticipation and gratification as an addict craves?