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.

Just dropping in to say I had EMDR waaay back in the early 00's before it was really know of in the UK. My counsellor had trained in the US on an exchange programme.

It was very, very effective. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Weezol that is brilliant. I've, so far, only heard good things. I've had CBT for anxiety but heard CBT doesn't work for everyone.

Thanks for all the good wishes to kick the thread off.

Moving on now, let's hope some new trans widows are able to find us and have the benefit of our hard won wisdom 😬

Also just letting @EmilyHowardsWife know we have a new thread and she is often in our thoughts.

That sounds like I don't want all the existing trans widows to keep posting, which of course I do!

We know you still love us Tinsel 😁

TinselAngel, cheers for the new thread, thank you for all that you do here!

We know you still love us Tinsel

Also, laughing at the idea of my ex doing housework. Though less funny is yet another similarity between all of these exes... the sexual submissiveness.

I am so glad to be done with my idiot ex. Hugs and support to all of you who aren't out of the relationship yet. Life will get better.

Though less funny is yet another similarity between all of these exes... the sexual submissiveness Yep and that also being fake

I've had EMDR (and PTSD). The PTSD is related to past experiences, and helps you reprocess the past trauma and see it in a more detached way. The EMDR helped me with one (very significant) part of the trauma that was in the past. However the trauma was ongoing, due to legal fallout. EMDR didn't help with that, but the EMDR therapist was also a shit hot and very intelligent counsellor who talked me through all my ongoing trauma, and encouraged me to break ties with the abusive people who were causing me trauma, and to stand up for myself. I will always be so grateful to her for that. I guess MN can take the place of a great counsellor for getting sound advice to stand up for ourselves as women!

Sunkisses good to hear you broke out of that awful situation.I do agree MN can sour us on but professional help is also very good. We think nothing of paying to get our boiler or car fixed but sometimes shy away from professional help for our minds. Well done for grasping that nettle and getting free.

spur us on.

I dunno - I feel quite sour at times

I guess MN can take the place of a great counsellor for getting sound advice to stand up for ourselves as women!

Wholeheartedly agreed.

If it weren't for all the years I spent in hermitage, seeing no one but devouring Relationships, AIBU, and FWR, I'd be in a far worse situation now. MN recalibrated my brain. I may not be able to implement everything I've learnt right now, but I'm in a much better position mentally than I was before, and I'm much more able to understand and maintain healthy boundaries.

I know we laughingly call this place the radicalisation portal, but it really is. It's a hotbed of good old-fashioned second-wave consciousness-raising. I love it.

If it weren't for MN I'd still be doing my best to be a good little sex-positive libfem, stuck in a messed up co-dependent relationship with an emotionally-illiterate fetishistic manchild, blaming myself for not being able to just accept and be happy with my lot, and subsuming my own sexual needs for the sake of someone else's orgasm while hating myself for feeling shit about it.

And I don't think I could have taken in the information I needed to sort my own head out as much as I have, not from a single individual - it was the repeated exposure to the mindset that we deserve better than this that did it.

Tyro I second that - MN taught me about The Script (ex had a number of affairs and shagged lots of ow before he decided he was a new better version of woman himself), gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, FOG (fear, obligation, guilt), going grey rock, CPTSD, and opened my eyes to a lifetime of bloody manipulation.

It's like the matrix - once you can see it, it's obvious.

Reading these, I sometimes with my husband would come out with SOMETHING, anything, he just bottles it all up and doesn't speak to anyone about it, no counselling, that I am aware of.It would make it so much easier to move on, if there was something there to show, to say "look, this is what you want, fine, so get on with it" rather than it sitting there in the background, on the quiet. It's like he has told me, but is still keeping it secret from me and my children. All the advice from people is walk away, but that is so much easier said that done. He doesn't communicate with anyone out side our home, expect one person who runs a support organisation, but that's not regular, or I don't think it is, I honestly don't know. How can I kick out the father of my children with nothing (He doesn't have a job) when there is no one there for him? Because it's not about him, it's about what it looks like to my children and the example I setting to them about kicking people out with nothing and no where. This is turning into a bit or a ramble, but if you know what is going on, you are doing better than me.

Saw this and thought of you lovely women

Lumpy that's amazing! Where on earth did you find that, where it hadn't been censored? Love it

miricles I guess it isn't about kicking anyone out, but about working out what you're prepared to tolerate. As an adult, he should presumably be able to be independent (and get a job or be signed off sick?). I actually think I modelled something positive to my kids by leaving, ie that you don't have to put up with unreasonable behaviour, and that (at least in my case) adult women can start again alone. Women often model staying in abusive and unacceptable situations because we think we should (I'm not in any way dismissing real financial reasons etc). Sounds like you would feel cruel/unreasonable leaving the relationship. Which makes you a kind person. But I wonder how long you can put up with it? Plenty of women tolerate all manner of sh** until the kids leave home. Maybe it's about working towards what you want to do. But you are not his carer, are you? Your welfare is of equal importance and if he has health/financial reasons to not be able to live independently, that is still not your responsibility and is what services are for. Apologies if I'm making assumptions as I don't know the details of your situation.

Ps Miricles I recall yours was starting hormones which looked likely to be a turning point... Hasn't that happened yet? Mine got them very quickly...

Because it's not about him, it's about what it looks like to my children and the example I setting to them about kicking people out with nothing and no where

Reverse this.

If you put up with the crap, are you teaching them that women should be doormats and men can be enabled to avoid taking responsibility for themselves? Do you want them to see you you as someone it's fine to take for granted?

It's OK for you to show them, that they have a right to put themselves first if they are deeply unhappy and someone is taking advantage of the situation.

Would you like them to be miserable because you'd taught them that self sacrifice was the most important thing in life?

There are times when selfishness is a good thing and you should put yourself first; it not always just a negative thing.

Think about the social conditioning you are highlighting here.

If that's all that's holding you in that situation, you perhaps just need to look at the situation from the outside with fresh eyes rather than from the inside where you feel beholden to others.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Thanks for your replies, @socialworker222 no he hasn't started the hormones, There was another health problem highlighed as the results of the routine blood tests, but that seems to have been a storm in a teacup, so he is back to square one. They said that they would see him in August, and he did have an appointment, but I suspect he didn't go to another one. He actually left the house, so I found a bra, tights, and things in his drawer, but haven't said anything. I will read your replies properly when I have more time, but thank you for remembering me.

Lumpy I spotted that one the other day; it didn't half make me cackle.

I think one of the most important things I learnt from MN is: it doesn't matter whether he's being intentionally malicious or abusing you on purpose. What matters is the effect on you.

miricles my ex is completely incapable of holding down a job. He reckons it's due to depression. I have sympathy - I struggle to work due to my MH so I know what it's like - but the difference between us is, I went to the doctor's, I got myself on ESA, I found my way to the appropriate therapy services and am engaging with them. He just sits on his arse feeling gloomy and doing nothing about it.

First time I kicked him out, DD was too young to need an explanation. Some years later he ended up on my sofa because he'd failed to pay his rent - didn't want to see him on the streets so said he could sleep there temporarily while he sorted himself a place.

I then spent about a year slowly going completely demented while he sat on the sofa doing fuck all about the fact he was technically homeless - because I didn't want DD to see me abandoning her father to live on the streets.

Finally got drunk, chatted honestly to my support people about what was going on, got psyched myself up, and told him to give me the keys back and gtfo. He went and slept on a mate's sofa and had sorted a new place within a month.

DD always gets the same explanation: I don't know why daddy does ABC, but it makes me feel like XYZ, and I can't live like that, so I don't; and daddy is a grown-up, it's up to him to look after himself.

You wouldn't be kicking him out with nothing, miricles. You'd be kicking him out with a social security system there to pick up the slack. And if the horrors of universal credit don't get him to pull his finger out and take some responsibility, well, that's his problem.

I've spent all day thinking what I'm going to call thread 4, this thread has started off so quickly!

Dawn of the TW? TW Strike Back? Or do we want to go pacifist? TWEC:We're Still Here, TWEC: Still Not Buying It.. much to think about