Trans Widows Escape Committee 3: Rise of the Trans Widows

[TinselAngel]

Less than two years have passed since the first TWEC thread and now its time for a third.

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

Remember: women talking to each other is a powerful weapon!

Regulars- do post here to get the thread going.

Lurkers- now would be a great time to de-lurk.

Sorry, using the wrong name here. It's socialworker222. Duh.

Just to show it's me...

Hi @Figurefox So far Mumsnet have respected our experience and allowed us to use correct sex pronouns for our ex's/ husbands, so don't worry about pronouns

social I've got a nice Christmas with my Mum and M&S xmas food planned.

I recall spending most of the "last Christmas" day looking at availability of rooms in the local premier inn and fantasising about being there instead.

Thank you tinsel angel and coldwatershock. I’ve been here for a while. Discovered in 2014, started divorce in 2016, divorced in 2018 and now just waiting for the last part of the court order to be completed by ex (who has caused delays at every step of the way). Kids were all just into teens when we started. Now coming out the other end of teenage years, all with a very strong view that their father has a mental illness.

How did you discover it Figure, if you don't mind me asking?

It would be so interesting to hear more from children of transitioners wouldn't it? I suppose we'll have to wait 10 years until more of them are adults. I've yet to come across one who buys into the idea that their Dad is really a woman.

To ask where the trans inclusive mums are at? http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/3774048-To-ask-where-the-trans-inclusive-mums

Interesting case study of the lesser spotted self obsessed late transitioned narcissist

I had to walk away from the trans inclusive mum who fathers children.
They were waving more red flags than a North Korean parade.

I would hug you all if I could.

Interesting to hear about those who's husbands have taken on their identity: eg stealing their baby names, taking on their volunteer jobs ect...when becoming trans.To me, this smacks of a narcissists MO tbh: They don't have an identity so they steal fragments from others. Especially the wife who is their closest competition.
Sounds like in these particular cases: they are pretending to be trans in order to find further areas to 'win' against their partner.

Makes me wonder how much of the 'trans' community is actually made up if cluster b's, trying further to imitate and take down their partners. Of course, there could be trans-men in this category too.

My female narcissist friend took on my hobbies, took on my likes and dislikes, flirted with anyone I liked and even cut and styled her hair like me before I finally cottoned on and ran. So that's what came to mind from some of these posts.

It's an insult yo their partners and people who are genuinely trans, that these bullies are allowed to manipulate in this way.

Pinkbonbon, the estimate I read some years ago was 80% of males who cross dress and/or identify as women are co-morbid with NPD.

Hmm doesn't sound legit though. I mean very rare for NPD to actually be diagnosed in the first place (not that the disorder is rare). Even rarer for people to self identify as having it.

Then again I guess lots of trans people have to go to therapy before transition though, so maybe that's where it was being spotted...?

It wouldn't particularly surprise me, knowing how rife it actually is in society and the extremes narcissists go to though.

My thoughts are with the ex of that particular one. Maybe she's on here!

Wondering what if anything my son knows or guesses eats at me, because I don't know what he might think of me if he does know.

@WalkedAway

Not a transwidow, but I found the original thread while processing my feelings following certain revelations. I can't say I understand your situation, but the above words re: your DS made me cry. You are you, his loving mother; not the lies told by your husband, not the life forced on you, not the shame that currently shrouds you. Whatever or however he thinks as he processes the separation, I guarantee - he will still see you.

I will revert to lurking, and simply wishing over the internet all the very best to you, and anyone struggling.

I'm glad MN seem to have decided that giving a probable domestic abuse perpetrator, narcissistic supply, is not a good thing.

@GinnyLane
Thanks for your caring support. One of the insidious effects of living with a husband who decides he's transgendered and begins acting out a stereotype of woman is the toll it takes on one's own sense of oneself as a woman. The pressure exerted by my husband to push me into an expression of gender that suits his was subtle, and began even before he had declared to me that for three years he'd been "exploring whether [he] could be transgendered" (his words when disclosing his belief to me). So there is an effect of the "lies forced onto [one]," and shedding them and refinding/redefining myself is one of the challenges I have faced in the nearly twenty-one months since I left.

As for my son's perceptions: as long as I feel I cannot be fully honest with my son, my relationship with him is in my estimation compromised. This at the least makes me feel as if I am in hiding, and hiding something from him, and that creates a distance between us, in that I feel shame at feels like a deliberate deception because I am consciously withholding vital information from him.

It's bad enough being their secret keeper when you're together Walked, it's completely unfair to be put in this position after you've left.

Remind me how old your son is?

I believe your DS is an adult @WalkedAway ?

So absolutely no reason to keep the truth from him. Your ex is just trying to avoid the truth making him look bad and possibly deliberately trying to damage your relationship with your son.

Don't go along with it, tell your DS the whole truth, he deserves it and your loyalty should be to him. Bollocks to your ex, he has forfeited any rights to consideration by you

I understand the sentiment that I don't owe my ex secrecy; nor do I believe that telling the truth is "outing." I know I have the right to tell my story, and I have said all alongand told my exthat I want an honest relationship with my son (his enraged reaction to that told me all I needed to know about how precious his closet is to him).

However, at the moment I have my reasons for waiting. I'm currently away from home caring for my aging mother, and my son is in the final terms of a degree program which my ex's sister is helping pay for, so I don't want either to derail my son or endanger that support. But by summer's end, when I have returned home, and my son has his degree in hand, that conversation will be had, come hell or high water.

Yes there's nothing wrong with choosing the right time

I know I was meant to be lurking again... but just for you all. There is no right time, and I think that's why the hurt experienced by the trans widows is so great - I get the feeling that you (plural) feel that you are inflicting it on others, including your children. You are not. You did not choose your grief. You did not choose to lose your husband. All you can do is help to clear the way of acceptance, if you feel that you have the strength.

Please know that lurkers like me are on the sidelines, cheering on any and all decisions that you feel you can make, because this (unlike everything else "owned" by your husbands)

Apologies, sent too soon.

... because this is your truth, and your truth alone.

#istandwiththetranswidows

"Clear the way of acceptance"? Not sure what you mean. I do know that any discomfort I ever voiced was met as an attack and a sign that I did not "accept" my ex's transness. (Or my ex as a transgender person.) The fact is, I extended myself in ways to him that few people ever do, and he wouldn't extend himself to me at all. When your spouse thinks a session of sex in which he doesn't dress up in women's lingerie and change several times, but during which he lies on his back and lifts his knees and cries out "I need you to f*ck me" is "heterosexual," you have nothing to work with.

By the time I left I understood that a man who wanted 100% acceptance from me, meaning him acting as a woman 100% at home, and my treating him and "enjoying him as a woman," but who continued to enjoy his male power and privilege at work didn't fully accept himself.
What my son does with the information is his to deal with, and my biggest regret is that I am going to have to place him in the situation of having to process this information about his father because his father is too much a coward who wants to have his cake and eat it, too. I fear very much that my son will reject me as the bearer of the news, because, "kill the messenger," and I will end up being the one to decenter his world while his father cowers at home crying "some things are private" and turning me into the meanie who outed him to his son.

It's not our job to "clear the way of acceptance" and whether we chose to or not has nothing to do with strength.

Hello, all. I'm doing okay. Or really, I am better than okay: my ex did the whole "you shouldn't divorce me because after I transition I'm going to be this amazing and wonderful human being" ... and now I have third party confirmation that now two years into transition, my ex has become even more selfish and uncaring of others than before. So any tiny amount of doubt of whether I shouldn't have divorced this narcissistic ass is completely gone.

Also, I'm reconciling myself to the fact that my ex is not dealing with his serious medical problems and probably will die at a relatively young age as a result.