I haven't posted before, because I don't feel I have much to offer in the way of support. But I can transcribe. And I think it's important for anyone idly clicking on this topic to know that this is being discussed more and more in mainstream media. (But if the article goes online at Women&Home, a link would be better - excuse the typos, and I'm not sure I've got it all in the right order.)
While the media seems to be full of transgender stories with happy endings, it hasn’t been like that for my family. It feels to me as if there is little curiosity about the unhappy endings for people like my children and me, whose husband and father decided he was a woman, and who rapidly prioritised expressing his new identity over everything, and everyone else.
For every person who appears on daytime TV proclaiming they’ve accepted their transpartner, I wish them well – who who’s listening to the ones who aren’t happy about it?
There is very little research on relationship breakdown around transition, but it appears that about half of intimate relationships end either when a partner announces they are transgender or during the transition process. Thee women who don’t stay in these relationships discuss their experiences hidden online, for fear of retribution.
Many call themselves “transwidows” and they share very similar uncomfortable truths. Often, they’re regarded by trans activists as narrow-minded, intolerant people who didn’t love enough. They may even be labelled transphobic or TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), and subject to harassment and death threats. For that reason, it has taken me some time to summon the courage to write this piece.
My husband told me after 20 years of marriage and with teenage children, that he had decided he is a woman, and that he intended to dress as a woman, take a new name, and seek medical treatment in the near future. I was stunned.
I asked him if he was unhappy with or disgusted by his body, but he wasn’t. Had he felt depressed or suicidal? He hadn’t. he simply wanted to align his outward appearance with his “authentic” identity and didn’t envisage this should be a problem for our children or for me.
He said he had felt this way since childhood but “buried” it and “did the things men do” to try to keep his real feelings at bay. One of those things was marrying me and having our children. He said he had kept his plans from me for several years, as he wanted to be absolutely certain.
This means, of course, that he presented me with a fait accompli. His utter excitement and joy at finally coming out seemed to override my concerns about my or others’ reactions and rendered him seemingly oblivious to the possible consequences, including loss.
From that moment on, I learned I was not meant to feel this bad, let alone say it out loud. I was not meant to mind or be critical of his decision and its timing. I have come across transgender young people and have great compassion for them – those I have met would say I was non-judgemental, kind and helpful. But this felt entirely different, it was my husband. A father who, despite my attempts to avert this disaster, said he could not possibly delay it, or find a different way of containing or managing his feelings.
I was dazed. I didn’t feel I could tell anyone, I felt irrationally ashamed – that my marriage had hidden this secret for years, that I didn’t know, and that there might be something wrong with me in all this. I felt used, grief-stricken and angry. Our entire family history was thrown into doubt. How much of it was a lie? Had he known on our wedding day? I wish he had shared this from the start and wondered if that would have made this less shocking and painful. Maybe it would always have been terrible, although it might have lessened the secrecy and lies.
Night after night, he and I talked. He seemed detached, devoid of empathy for my distress and anger. It was as if he had already gone, changed, moved on. This only worsened my feelings of betrayal, as I suspected he’d been planning it for a very long time and telling me was the last thing on his list, rather than the first. I only seemed to connect with him when I pointed out that I was not a lesbian, which would make his expectation of my staying unfair, if he really was a woman. I am bewildered and fascinated by his view of what it means to be female. He is obsessed with the clothing, the make-up. He described to me a profoundly man’s-eye view of what it means to be a woman, and appears jealous of and desperate to conform to old-fashioned and sexist ideas of womanhood. He wants to wear skits and make-up and remove all his body hair. I find hidden women’s magazines with airbrushed images on the cover that we used to agree gave unhelpful messages to our teenage daughter. His interest feels fetishistic, a fantasy, a million miles from my life as a middle-aged woman.
I am uncomfortable with this as a feminist with a daughter, and I can’t imagine her growing up with that kind of role model living in our home, after trying to bring her up free from these stereotypical messages.
I believe his demands are unfair on our children as they have no choice or control over the change happening at close range. Transitioning can be a self-absorbing process and I questioned how that could work in a family home where we had thus far put our children’s needs before our own.
Secretly I worry about the children’s future relationships and trust in others’ reliability. I feel terribly sad that, no matter what he tells them, they may always feel they were not enough to stay for.
I decided that I couldn’t do it. And I didn’t have to do it. I went to see a counsellor. She reminded me that leaving gave my children an important message that women don’t have to stay with an intolerable situation or fear being alone.
I told my husband he had to leave and I made an appointment with a solicitor. She commented that I was the fourth woman she had seen in this position and expressed bewilderment at why, in every case, the man assumed their partner would stay with them.
Telling our teenagers the whole truth was the only part of the unfolding nightmare on which we agreed. He said he suspected they knew something was wrong. But they had absolutely no idea.
We called them downstairs one evening; they entered the room smiling, wondering what the surprise would be. It was the absolute worst moment of my life. We told them we were breaking up and they were shocked. He told them he wanted to be a woman. They cried for nearly an hour without speaking. I sat and cuddled them. It was devastating. It would be many months before they were able to bring themselves to talk about it.
He moved out of the family home. He didn’t want to take any wedding photos or pictures of the children when they were small. I found this ridiculously hurtful, and took it as proof that we didn’t matter any more and were being discarded for his new identity.
I wonder if his memories of us as a family belong to someone who no longer exists. It felt as if he was destroying someone we loved. A “transwidow” online says “…it’s like a strange woman just upped and murdered your husband one night, then moved in and expected you to not only be in love with them, but also to celebrate the death of your spouse with them.”
My husband promised with our solicitors that he wouldn’t change his appearance around the children or have “female” paraphernalia on show at his new house when they visited for an agreed period, so that we could work together to talk with and prepare them for his transition. I assumed he would work with me to help them through it slowly and carefully.
But he broke those promises. He didn’t wait, nor did he talk to the children at any point. He just went ahead. They visited for a few months, then started to make excuses not to go. One morning when they were due to visit, they broke down and were terribly, shockingly distressed. They told me they no longer wanted to see him.
It emerged he’d been dressing as a woman with no warning, preparation or discussion, and there had been women’s clothes and makeup all around his house. One of the children had slept in a room with a rail of “mini skirts and sequin dresses”, they felt uneasy, hurt and angry. They worry that their peers will call them transphobic if they discover they have a trans father whom they opted to stop seeing. But they took back control, stopped going and said they felt relieved.
We are now all estranged from this person. We thought we were getting “Dad in a dress”, but we got a new person who behaved in ways that the man we knew and loved never did.
There is no happy ending. And unfortunately we are not alone.