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!

Excuse me for butting in. I lurk and learn.

I wondered if this medical opinion might be relevant?

"If one conceptualizes “understanding” as something like “empathy,” it will not take you very far in comprehending autogynephiles. Their emotions and cognitions do not map readily onto those of non-autogynephiles."
Ray Blanchard PhD
https://twitter.com/BlanchardPhD/status/1487146605102964737

@TookABigL

I really don’t mean for this to come across as a condescending ‘told you so’ but if you scroll back you will see that women here warned you/predicted the total personality change.

(Perhaps ‘persona change’ is a better/more accurate description?)

You seem like a very caring person so I realise it’s easier said than done, but you really are best doing what you can to move on with your own life - your ex will likely only ever look back when in search of a reliable safety net.
You deserve a full life, you aren’t merely a support person for others.

IMO chameleon behaviour/mirroring definitely plays a part, both pre and post transition. It might not be deliberate or conscious. And since we were expecting a normal courtship and relationship, we take it all at face value.

www.transwidowsvoices.org/post/respite

New story on the website today. It's number 20!

I had a similar experience with my ex. Very bewildering how he seemed to completely 'disappear' when he switched to this totally unrecognisable person in pursuit of his 'authentic self'. It was very, very weird. I'd been with a man who didn't own a mirror. Suddenly there was one in every room. He switched from a tea drinker to a coffee drinker.. and weirdly, was instantly cured of certain medical complaints that the NHS had been very expensively treating for years. I was told bluntly " he's gone and he's never coming back " and indeed that was the case. He never came back. Even when he was dying.
Loads of other red flags and as a trained general nurse and intimate partner it seemed obvious to me that he was in serious mh crisis. He'd stopped taking his meds about 4 months prior so I was very disturbed to realise his shrink, gp etc were egging him on and enabling him.

I witnessed this too, not only in my ex’s like/dislikes but a total change in his personality. And I thought about it a lot, how shocking it was, and do have a theory, if anyone would like to hear it.

It goes back to the Jungian shadow. So, this man had very poor male role models, grew up in a hypermasculinist culture (not US), had a hypercritical mother etc. He was primed for MH issues IMHO, and may have had some trauma related to being held up to an unrealistic standard for masculinity. So, all of the ‘feminine’ impulses (by the standards of those strict gender roles) he had were suppressed, and they went into the shadow, where all of the impulses we have as animals but which aren’t acceptable in culture go. And, down there in that subconscious soup, they kind of melted and congealed with all of the other stuff down there, much of which should NOT be brought into society for very good reasons.

It’s like one day, he walked into his shadow and pulled the 'feminine', or what he sees as feminine, self out, but a WHOLE LOT came tumbling out besides. And he went to live there, not in his top-side, culturally appropriate self. He became his shadow. I’d imagine it IS very freeing to do this! We can tell what they were repressing by how they bring out this self that's been in the shadows for so long.
And, it makes sense from a perspective of a bunch of weird sexual stuff coming out besides, totally warped ideas of what a woman should be, and suddenly adopting habits and likes that he made fun of ME for because they were too ‘girly’ (projection, much?). Through that lens, my experience makes more sense to me. I think, as a culture, we are grappling with our shadow generally. Which is a totally different thread, but food for thought.

What do you all think?

Please watch this newly posted YouTube video (20mins) from the Genspect conference in Killarney on 29th April. Dr Joseph Burgo, a co-director of Genspect, on "Autogynaephilia and th sexualisation of shame". :

Although I don't have a lot of time this morning I watched the first few minutes. I don't know if I'll go back to the listen to the rest. Coming from the other side of the experience, as the wife, who was exposed to all kinds of behavior meant to render me compliant, the opening bid for sympathy didn't sit well with me. I'm sure Mr. Burgo is caring and sympathetic therapist for men with AGP; I wish transwidows had such an advocate in the profession.

I'm not a fan of Genspect given they seem to believe AGP is innate.

This totally resonates *Tookabig". My ex behaved in a consistently cold and unempathic way towards my children and me from his announcement onwards. I attribute it partly to the disconnection of secretly researching, networking and planning that consumes so many men doing this, which meant by the time he told me, he had mentally moved on and 'left' us all. He was rapidly buoyed up by supporters putting comments like 'Hot!' against clearly ludicrous social media posts of him dressed up, and by his growing obsession with his appearance and clothing. I have never quite worked out if he was always narcissistic and hid it, or it exploded with this big decision. It has helped me to accept I will never know (even if I asked him frankly he told so many lies I would not trust him). Whether the seeds were there or not, the reality is that you, like many women, are now dealing with an entirely self-obsessed person. The greatest shock for me has been that this also extends to children who no longer come first, and whose needs are trampled by those of the adult male. So you may want to ponder it, but freedom can come from not giving it your precious time and energy. Men who transitioned since the media storm around Caitlin Jenner are double fuelled by the mass validation and celebration all around them. But those left behind see it as it is. Many of our friends, and his previous friends regard him still as male, and a cruel, entitled idiot spending his time creating his new hyper'feminine' persona and posing for the social media camera instead of being a father. It's all very hollow and rather pathetic compared to reality.

@TinselAngel Dr Burgo has taken in depth histories of these 3 patients and is viewing AGP through the lens of shame. I had never heard of Dr Burgo, but having watched his speech I am following him on Twitter and seeing how this different viewpoint develops. My now dead Trans ex-H was so deeply ashamed that he never said to me more than 2 sentences about his transsexualism. My stepson (different mother!) confirmed that shame was the most salient trait in his father/my ex-H. I think that Genspect are keeping an open mind.

@socialworker222 My trans still-H used to send emails to my/our two children. He wanted to be an "older brother" to them. It was extremely unhealthy and irresponsible. I intercepted these emails because I had the children's passwords. I printed them out. Then we went through them sentence by sentence, word by word and I explained: "This is a lie, this is a half-truth, this is a manipulative statement". I introduced them to textual analysis at 10 and 12, much earlier than normal. He did not come to visit them once. Seeing this behaviour through a more detached eye, they were much more searching and then critical of his "non-parental" behaviour. I broke their natural affection for their "father". He didn't behave like their father. He was an irresponsible child of a peculiar, malevolent and manipulative sort. They thanked me eventually when they reached their mid- twenties, and have been able to develop emotionally and in their educational and professional lives without his cloying narcissism.

I wouldn't recommend other women take this approach because aside from anything else, you'd risk being accused of parental alienation.

@TinselAngel I made the point that he was NOT a father to them: he behaved like an "entitled child". I know that you and I differ on this question. I lived in fear for about 4 years that my Trans then-H would go to Court.... but he didn't. I think that he recognised somewhere deep down inside him that he had hurt everyone in his/my family by his outrageous, tormenting behaviour towards me. I would never, ever hand over the most precious people in the world to be his "playthings". It has worked out well for my children. And he had 16 years from the time he left to the time he died to show that he understood something of our point of view. He never said a word that was compassionate or showed any empathy. He was a cold, manipulative, dangerous man. I would never ever have allowed him to have time with them unless he was supervised by a responsible adult.

Not sure if.you said you have kids Tookabig? Anyway, I hope you're okay. Beyond the wondering and bewilderment, it's really sad and disappointing that people change in this way.

This is key to why we call ourselves Trans Widows. Our husbands, as they were, are dead and gone,

Some of what you are saying relates, I think, to the concept of the anima in Jungian psychology. The anima is, as you suggest, the unconscious feminine persona. What seems to have happened is that the unconscious has risen up and swamped him; taken control. But because it is a shadow element - it is immature, raw, unprocessed and unmediated.

When I see very camp, waspish gay men ( and many drag acts), I often feel I am witnessing a case of possession by the anima. The anima can be a very negative female image ( bitchy, emotionally turbulent, manipulative.....)

@RebelliousCow Thanks for your insight on this. Its difficult for me to parse the two honestly, in my ex's case. Because, yes, some of the behaviour was a bunch of that catty, mean girl negative aspect of the 'feminine', but other parts of it felt less feminine (in the Jungian sense) and just straight up antisocial evil (shadow). It's like the emergence of that other persona somehow opened up a door into the abyss. And living with that day to day was shocking and terrifying, what he was suddenly capable of. So, perhaps it's a mix of the two, or we can simply say it brought many other traits to life which were very unexpected.
Another weird aspect of this was that, as time went on, like clockwork, he'd mention a Thing He'd Never Do (ie shaving his whole body, doing his brows, growing his nails, going out outside the clubs, etc etc etc the list was endless). And it seemed to me he meant it at the time. That was his line. And yet, in almost exactly three months, that's what he'd be doing. Another aspect of masculinity lost, another grieving process for me. Another boundary broken, another cycle begins. It was exhausting. But, I still ask myself, was he lying to me about that from the start? Or, as these wheels got set in motion and his pursuit of these dopamine hits escalated, did the 'host personality' (I've heard it called this) just get crushed under the wheels with the rest of us?
A friend of mine had an ex that appeared to completely disassociate when dressed, and spoke (very negatively) about himself in the third person when using a feminine name. She literally didn't know who she was talking to in those moments.
I suppose what I'm trying to convey in short is that it's pretty annoying when activists say, it's the same person underneath. Like, no, as this condition progresses, it is not the same person. They get, like, eaten or something. Again and again, it appears to be the 'shadow' aspect of this person, like their negative, emerges, and this new persona also appears to have no moral compass. I often ponder what the spirit behind that transformation is.

I broke their natural affection for their "father".

I find that very chilling.

@Bunshine - would you consider starting a thread about this? I find it really interesting and I expect it will be interesting to a lot of posters too (but us non trans widows try not to post here too often, we are here to read and learn in quiet support).

@determinedtomakethiswork I did put the word "father" in inverted commas. He had been their biological father in the past. But later it was clear to me that his behaviour became so irresponsible towards his children and so hostile towards me that he was NOT a father in his behaviour - he wanted to be an "older brother" to them?! He even said that! He simply could not be left alone with them without a responsible adult to supervise because he didn't understand his role. I helped the children to understand and their affection turned into curiosity mixed with bewilderment: like me, they asked themselves: "Why is behaving in a way that no other father does?"
I think that my decision is harsh, but logical. It ties in with other contributions above.
We witnessed all a complete breakdown of personality.

Sorry for intruding but in case anyone is interested Michael Knowles has uploaded an interview with Tracy Shannon a Trans Widow on Twitter (YouTube has censored it). I know Knowles is a devout Christian (and there will always be the accusations of everything’s about the Religious Right) but we all know this situation affects people across the board.

Any idea why my post might have been deleted?

I didn't see it...??