Trans Widows Escape Committee 5: And so it continues...

[TinselAngel]

Welcome to thread 5. A virtual prize for anyone who can guess the geeky sci fi reference in the thread title.

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!

In four years we have gone from starting the first thread, to launching a website, to be invited to give evidence to a government inquiry, which is pretty spectacular when you think about it.

Thanks to all the women who have told their stories and particularly to those who have stuck around to help others. Thanks also to @socialworker222 who remains nice cop, to my stern cop.

Do say hello to start the thread off!

I really struggle w dh's mother. I love her dearly but she's a very conservative Christian who vocally opposes anything lgbtq. I just don't know how to deal w her. I know she's his problem so to speak. But our relationship is very special and it kills me that she won't know why, for sure I'm ending things. I made an appt w a lawyer for next week. Typed up the letter. Taking small steps. I leave for a work trip in a few weeks and during that time my kids will be w my mom. I was thinking of leaving him a letter since he'll be home by himself for a few days to cool off.

it kills me that she won't know why, for sure I'm ending things.

That's his fault though, not yours.

I’m the mother of a man who claims he has gender dysphoria. He has three children and his wife has told him to leave. He’s in the process of doing just that.

I have really struggled with the whole damn situation. Your MIL will be devastated, shocked and bewildered about what’s happening. It’s akin to a bereavement, where did my boy child go? Why is he doing this to his wife and family? Give her time @midlove38, for the shock to pass but rest assured she will know in her heart why you have to leave. 💐

midlove38
If you look at my recent posts about a partner offering himself for transgendered ministry, you might realise just how enmeshed the Church is in LGBTQ reception at the moment. Unless your MIL attends an evangelical church she will have been introduced to the notion of diversity.
Yes, this apparent mystery of leaving her son will ask her to question your relationship. Do not overlook the fact that quite often others notice strange dress patterns and behaviours. Maybe she isn't as unaware as you think.
The lawyer is a smart move. He will apprise you of the recent No Fault divorce. Have you considered a counsellor, too, as another neutral space? Just being away from home will help focus your thoughts.

@Cholumenosoapy I'm in the situation that you describe. I am the wife with the children and fall out. I just wanted to reach out to you as I know there is practically no support for us, the other family members. You are very welcome to pm me if you want to. x

@AngeredAndConfused I agree with you 100% It is a living hell trying to cope with this situation as the wife and mother left bringing up the children. My life has been turned upside down.

There is absolutely something wrong with my ex. He’s become wildly vain and self-centered, which is so unlike his previous self. I feel like the words “vain” and “self-centered” don’t even begin to describe it. Like when I see him he can’t help but talk about himself and how much he likes himself. He talks about all the changes he’s seeing, his new clothes and how good he looks in them, how much he’s passing (he’s not), how good his voice is (it’s not). It’s ALL he talks about. I really feel like there is something wrong with him, and not just the trans stuff. Like his whole personality is different. He’s just become… awful. Narcissistic.

He’s been intentionally manipulating me and taking advantage of the fact that I still care about him despite all the shit he put me through (he cheated). Like he’ll go out of his way to imply to me that he has or is going to fuck someone (we live in a very LGBT area so he’s had no problem finding dates). Or he’ll intentionally lie and then change his story later. I have no idea what the hell is wrong with him.

Did this happen to any of you? The trans thing was wild enough, but this shift in personality is so much crazier. It feels like he’s suddenly become a narcissist, totally incapable of empathy and obsessed with talking about himself.

TookaBigL:
Yes, I would say that the self-regard was part of the whole transification my spouse underwent when he began thinking he was "a woman in a man's body." Very vain about his legs, in particular. No empathy. And everything was about him. I saw a counselor and when I described his behavior she said he sounded "a bit narcissistic."

It's part and parcel of the same phenomenon, in my experience.

Is it possible he just dropped the nice guy act, and the person you are seeing now is who he really was all along?

@TookABigL I'm sorry. This is who he really is., The previous personality was "acting normal".
Hindsight is a great thing. In retrospect I think that I didn't know enough and I married someone who was an enigma, who gave incomplete answers to questions I asked.
I was lucky that I went to see a consultant psychiatrist who knew us as a couple (she is the mother of my son's then best friend at school). She said that my now dead Trans then H was "something of a psychopath". And she advised me and my children to keep our distance. This was excellent advice.
I am so sorry for your situation. Of course you are in total shock. By all means continue to watch him for a while, but he is not a guy in his twenties. He will not change. At his age this is a permanent disorder and, as we know, the psychiatrists are only going to reinforce it. Please join gender-critical feminists like Women's Rights Network and Sex Matters, to change the public and professional perception of GD. I want to persuade the medical Royal Colleges to take this mental disorder seriously and tackle it with psychotherapy, not irrelevant surgery and cross-sex hormones. The medics are not applying basic critical thinking.

Unless the “nice guy” act lasted 9 years, I don’t think he just dropped it. I think something happened to his brain when he started transitioning. Something in him changed. It wasn’t just the need to become a woman, it was all this extreme self-centeredness, this inability to empathize.

He used to be the most empathetic person I knew. He used to say empathy was one of his most important values. Now I don’t even think he’s capable of empathy.

He actually is in his 20s! And this is what disturbs me so much: I did know him, very well. We were together for 8 years before transition (9 if you include the transition year).

We would have long talks about our values, the future, what we wanted out of life. He used to be so kind and caring. I used to tell him he was like Jesus, he was so empathetic.

It’s like a switch went off. And now he seems incapable of empathy. I don’t think this is his “real self”, I truly think something broke in his brain. It’s crazy to me that someone having a mental health crisis is just being given hormones. He got hormones before he was able to see a psychiatrist. And when he saw the psychiatrist (suspected bipolar), she just said she couldn’t be sure about a diagnosis, and to just wait and see how symptoms progress.

Please join gender-critical feminists like Women's Rights Network and Sex Matters, to change the public and professional perception of GD.
Activism is not compulsory for trans widows. It's putting too much on victims of abuse to task them with changing perceptions.

Well, I cannot say that it was all this group, but I have to say that I was standing on a cliff and just needed a little nudge- so ty transwidows! I had a work trip for a week last week. Left him a letter before I left asking for the divorce. The weeks leading up to it I contacted a lawyer (whom i had already contacted twice in the past), retained her and filed! Whew! I am currently on the hunt for a rental so I can get the heck out! So close to finally being free from all of this after 20 years! Sadly/not sadly my stbx said that he has come to the conclusion that if I cannot accept him for who he is then he was going to leave anyway HAHA Whatever lol Question for you all, probably a common one, but our children are confused. I remember my folks splitting and not really knowing either, but my 12 year old wants answers :( We're just not sure if this is all age appropriate. Thoughts??

he has come to the conclusion that if I cannot accept him for who he is then he was going to leave anyway

Hahaha! Funny he never thought to mention it until after you did

It is confusing and upsetting for children, there's no way around that, but it's not us that is confusing and upsetting them.

I have asked why my post below has been deleted.

I'm not obliging anyone to do anything. I'm just offering links to other organisations which I found helpful. Maybe others would like to look at them. There are different perspectives available.

I'll try rephrasing it. With regards to the changes in personality, we shouldn't underestimate effect of the removal of testicles in "bottom surgery" and the long term use of cross sex hormones on the brain. Plus the relentless social media affirmation about how well they pass.

Estrogen does have a very profound effect on men's brains as well as body. In the last 4 years before he left us my now dead Trans H behaved like he was drugged: woozy and barely capable of understanding me. I have a photo from this period. That didn't stop him taunting, and tormenting me 24/7. In fact the tormenting got much worse. I am now sure that he was secretly substituting estrogen for the (declared) finasteride which he took for his prostate problem. He didn't cross-dress. He was proud of his "small feet" and "shapely legs", details which I didn't understand until after he had left. His secrecy was a huge additional problem to me.
Our children (now 27 and 29) say that he was "invisible" in their lives. He never suggested or did anything for them.
Paul/Elizabeth's behaviour was not overtly narcissistic. His tormenting was, I now realise, his way of driving me away and breaking his (third!) marriage. He planned and executed a deliberate deception on me. He had hatched a plan to weddle money out of a naive younger woman. That was me.
My relationship was very different to yours with your H.
The psychological effects of estrogen should be investigated properly with pharmacology trials. This powerful drug corrups the mind. Of course.

This thread is clearly being heavily monitored today.

Given I've had my first deletion on it in six years.

I'm with you @TinselAngel about censorship by Mumsnet. I really don't see why Moderators should not allow us to write anything, anything at all provided it (1) does not name an individual accused of a crime, (2) does not advocate terrible things like Holocaust denial, etc. You know: the list of writings which are generally accepted to be defamatory or incendiary.

This was of course tested in Maya Forstater's case.