Trans Widows' Escape Committee 4 - A New Hope

[TinselAngel]

Who would have thought we'd make it to thread 4?

Let's have some mutual pats on the back for the amazing support women on these threads have given to other trans widows, and the accidental consciousness raising that has come about as a result of this community.

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!

We now have a website which has been very well recived, and if any women who have contributed to these threads would like to write their story for inclusion on the website that would be wonderful.

Do post to get the new thread going. Links to the website and previous threads will follow.

As ever our thoughts are with the women still stuck in these relationships- check in, we do worry about you.

And re Fathers Day. My ex moved 100 miles away and hasn't seen DC for months or paid maintenance other than the occasional £20. Despite telling a CAMHS nurse off for referring to him as Daddy in a meeting about DC's mental health, and corrected her to say he isn't her father, he is her "parent", (wasn't brave enough to say mother!) he emailed me yesterday on Father's Day asking DC to ring him or email him. So refusing to be a father but still wanting the adulation of Father's Day?!

Has anyone else had him try to make the situation your fault? That you are the liar because you did not oppose enough to things in the bedroom you were not comfortable with? I feel like there is major gaslighting going on and an attempt to bait me big time. I’m remaining completely calm yet am being yelled at that I’m being insane.

Maureen, definitely yes on the "trying to make it all my fault." My ex said things like us getting divorced was all because of me not being understanding or having enough info (so endless lectures on transgenderism), and also "your only choices weren't yelling at me or silence." And blaming me for not being enthusiastic enough about his cross-dressing for sex. Which to me, just illustrates more how all of this was a sexual fetish that got taken to an extreme. He didn't cross-dress for anything other than sex.

I can't even imagine being married to that person now, or letting him treat me that way. I feel like I have had to completely rebuild my life, but I genuinely think I would be dead from extreme stress or suicide if I had stayed in the marriage any longer than I did. I feel very fortunate to have escaped the marriage as relatively easily as I did.

@QuinnMovesOn this seems very similar. He seems very stuck on my not mentioning clearly and loudly that I got no satisfaction from pegging him while he was dressed up. I wasn’t a strong person and did the stereotypical thing of doing things your partner wants and just putting aside your own satisfaction. I’ve been standing up for myself more and now I keep getting knocked down for anything from before where I had not advocated for myself. And of course I’m not supportive enough. Like this is the only thing happening in my life. What does he want me to do?

The paradox is you aren't supposed to give in to their demands because that places them as the dominant role and you in the submissive 'female' role.
if you give them what they want they find it unsatisfying, the reality never matches the fantasy because they have to push to get it. So they end up angry, resentful and unsatisfied whether you give in or not.

@MaureenJSL

Yes. All the time. Everything was my fault no matter what.
He would bait me all the time. Even the police pointed out when he was showing them his "proof" of what an evil transphobe I am that it's not illegal for me to answer him. They also pointed out that I had already told them word for word exactly what I'd said before they saw that video.

He has now reached the point where he literally tells people EXACTLY what he did to me but with the roles reversed.

People have told me and I know theyee not lying because they're telling me my own experiences. They wouldnt know things like that if he hadnt told them.

@Thelnebriati

Mine didnt even have that to be angry about because I genuinely enjoyed the cross dressing. I'm actually good at that style of make up. I supported it whole heartedly day in day out. I was happy with it for a few months.

I have my own identity issues and I often express them through dressing up and make up.i take a lot of cre over myself. I have hair extensions I'd get my eyelashes done (discovered magnetic ones on lockdown tho!) I'm a nail tech and I'm good at it. I did all these things for him.

And after a few months the nice traits started dropping off. I remember noticing. I remember wondering which would be next and nothing when that happened too.

My ex outright told me that it makes him feel hatred towards me because no matter what
No matter what make up, hair, clothes, surgery he gets he will never be me.

He said I'm perfect and everything he wants to be and never will be and it makes him overwhelmingly jelous.

I cant work out whether it's a split personality. Or the male persona is a trap. Because I honestly thought he was perfect. I wouldnt have done the things I did for anyone else.

I defended him with my life. I threatened a strange man with a knife for hurting him. I got into a fight so bad with another girl, defending him, and when she hit me I was holding a mug of tea. I hit the girl in the face. With the mug of hot tea. I couldve gone to prison. I have never ever felt so ashamed and traumatised in my life. I've never seen so much blood.

AND STILL the girls own sister was CRYING in the road begging the police "dont take her back to him dont take her away from me hes going to kill her one day"

I havent had a physical fight since I was at school. When my exs sister attacked me in the street I restrained her. I was stronger. I had the upper hand and I chose to hold her still instead of hurt her. And that was someone I really disliked. I'm not a violent person.

There is no point paying attention to their complaining about you not supporting them because it doesnt matter what you do. You name it I did It. They hate you for being born female. Nothing more.

And when I say he didnt have that to be angry about I mean I went out of my own accord buying him things I spent hours and hours on him being the person he wanted to be. He never ever had to push for anything to do with being trans. I did it willingly and I ground myself into the floor doing it.

@Milotic I’m feeling very ground into the floor right about now. I did buy some things for the dressing ages back and helped with hair a few times. I wasn’t over enthusiastic but was accepting because I don’t care much about conforming to expectations of feminine/masculine dress.

Seems everything I say is twisted and when I try to untwist it I just get more pile on.

Is it also a recurring theme to have your sexuality (in my case hetero) trashed? Like that by accepting gender non conforming activity (because maybe you just don’t care about gender roles and it doesn’t impact your sexuality) you somehow have lied about your sexuality? I never introduced myself as hetero but kinda figured it was self-evident. Apparently not and yet another thing to be slammed for. And also very offensively twisted to equate my sexuality with a disgust for other sexualities. They couldn’t get why I kept fighting that. Because it is offensive to me as it is an outright lie! So yes I will get hung up on it.

The confidence I had started to gain that at some point we would all be in the other side of this and maybe form some sort of friendship and provide something stable for the little one has crumbled. I was so calm during the tirade even though I was treated like I was raving. I stuck up for myself even though I kept being told how terrible I am. But now I feel broken all over again. There doesn’t have to be a bad guy in this but they seem determined for there to be one and it to be me. I really feel like I’m being baited but at the same time am watching myself fall for it.

@MaureenJSL YES I am bi sexual and it was repeatedly used to shame me. The two female friends he struggled to criticise personally he eventually resorted to accusing me of having relationships or affairs with.

He would coerce and pressure me into things with other people and then accuse me of fancying them etc. He cant accuse me of having hidden that side of me because everyone who knows me knows it.

He will do that with everything. That feeling you describe about the stability for LO. I felt it every time he took another good thing away, did a 180 or dashed another hope I'd held onto.

He will do it constantly until you have none of those little hopes left.

Has anyone else had him try to make the situation your fault?

It's only really dawned on me recently, the injustice of "But you don't love the real me", as a criticism.

No we don't love the "real" you, we love the version of you that you presented to us at first and that we fell in love with. How are we to blame that this turned out not to be the "real" you?

Mine accused me of loving "him" more than "her"

@milotic that’s awful that things kept being invented. I never tried to hide or lie about my sexuality I just never would have guessed it wasn’t obvious. I thought a lot last night and I feel I have an idea of where there is a miscommunication (centered around my why my sexuality didn’t factor in for me until the declaration of being a woman). But I don’t know if it is even worth it to try and explain with them. All my attempts to explain myself have been met with twisting and adding words because they say it is a part of the connotation.

@TinselAngel I keep being told that they aren’t going to really be any different. Yet there is a whole new name and they apparently weren’t the true person they were inside until the counselor told them what the issue was.

What I mean when I say I was open etc. I mean I actually was happy to date transwomen. I'm bisexual with a preference for feminine traits. Not too bothered about the packaging. People knew this about me. So he struggled to say I'd never been open that way. He just shamed me in other ways. I actually remember being glad I never let him assume I was straight because I knew exactly how hed have used that.

What is he seeing a councillor for?
A councillor isnt qualified to diagnose anything. All the do is listen and take notes. If you are under psychiatric care they may feed back to your psychiatrist.

I've said a few times I believe these men had an identity disorder similar to my own.

It is an addiction to your own ego. It also makes us some of the most manipulative people you could find. I manipulated councillors for years I made it seem like my mum was the crazy one.

My mum was having heart palpitations while I stood there acting like nothing had happened telling a police officer she was imagining it.

Councillors dont diagnose anything. He is lying about it OR he manipulated and dragged the words out.

Yes only a counselor and one specifically for gender identify so I can’t imagine there was any assistance with unpacking all issues and then helping navigate and see if he current course of action is truly the best for him. His current course of action could be the best for him but if so not because someone just affirmed each thing he chose to say. I didn’t know until just before the sessions that he had chosen to speak to someone and not until after that it was not more general of encompassing him as a whole person. It was very good to take the step to speak with someone but I had incorrectly assumed it was more for anger issues and such. For myself I did take the next step in seeing what my work offers in terms of mental health assistance and will get something booked.

If anybody who lurks on these threads and is techy could see their way to archiving them for me, I would be very grateful

Tinsel, it depends on what you want. A "web spider" program would capture all the content, but it will be somewhat haphazard, effectively they'd be saved as individual web pages. So archived, yes, but not an especially useful archive.

Plus some manual labor is involved, as otherwise the spider software will capture everything that's on a link to these pages, and I do mean everything... so I or someone would need to babysit the process to make sure that a link to, oh, Wikipedia, doesn't then cause it to try to download the entire Wikipedia site!

Has anyone else had him try to make the situation your fault?

Mine once uttered "I need to turn into a woman because you were never feminine enough!"

Apparently there's a quota every straight couple should fill?

@TinselAngel sounds like an excellent idea. Not my type of techie though. @QuinnMovesOn think the spider could be used for ensuring the data exists then used later to create a more useful archive?

@kettlingur mine at least suggested the same. And with it a knock to my size that taken with what it was in response to makes me wonder if they feel I’m less of a woman for it. Or at least we’re trying to make me feel that way.

Kettlingur yes mine said I was completely unfeminine and too fat for sex. I was the same size as when we met (very average) when I was the most beautiful woman on earth. But I didn't dress like he does now - ie, mini skirts, fishnets, thigh high stiletto boots, very low tops, huge amounts of make up, very long red nails, very long hair extensions etc. So I wasn't a feminine woman after all.

MonkeyBusiness for my ex-husband I suspect it was my age - I aged out of being feminine quite early. He now dresses like a schoolgirl, an unfortunate look for a middle aged male.

I am back after a few months of contemplation over the lockdown and I feel so much better. I was able to find an attorney to file divorce for me online since courts are still closed here. The ex has agreed to no-contest divorce and will let me keep the house and she moves out. I do have to give her some $$ but its better than giving her half the value of the house, which would be considerable.

Triggering content My ex now thinks she is a Female Dom and has had dates with men, and is having sex with them, not for money, just for the power trips. After she told me she had stopped meeting men online, she started up again and had cam sex with a few. I was gobsmacked and disgusted. This really made me realize, my husband is not here anymore. I have to separate legally from this person. She is spending money on sexy fetish gear like there is no tomorrow, and then says she has no money for house things.

And then she still gives me the big guilt trip and says if I would become lesbian with her, she would not need to meet these people. I know she has multiple accounts and is chatting with men. She would not give up that thrill now that she has had a taste of it.

Gosh - writing all that out, makes it sounds truly bizarre right? Not acceptable to me at all.

Isn't it weird when someone throws their whole life away just to concentrate on.. their dick?

Mine doesnt even seem to be about sex. He let's men have sex with him but he doesnt get anything from it and cant get it up for them.

I genuinely think this "female personality" is actually a result of him dissociating as a child due to his step dad sexually abusing him and telling him he was a girl, acted like a girl, had a girls body etc.

This is no different than my own mental disorder and it makes everything much harder to process for me. It makes me dissociative when people twist reality. I've also done it since I was a child. But my experience was traumatic not toxic (house fire, everyone fine thankfully, but it was my fault and i couldve killed us all).

It is BAFFLING to me to see someone with the exact same symptoms I do and one being treated as a mental illness and one not.

He behaves exactly how I behave when I'm encouraged to dissociate. I couldve ended up in prison for the things he caused.

It makes me question my own reality, sanity and mind. My brain has a shooting pain in it whenever I try to make judgements. It's like its anticipating traumas as a result.

They're such poison.