Trans Widows' Escape Committee 6: The Next Generation

[TinselAngel]

Welcome to thread 6.

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 a reason.

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

The main event this year outisde the thread will hopefully be the release of Vaishnavi Sundar's film about Trans Widows- Behind the Looking Glass

If you would like to donate to help Vaishnavi finish the project, details are here:

Please feel free to say "Hi" below, even if you are not a trans widow, to start the thread off.

Sorry this is escalating as you start married life. You say he's a good father so I assume you already have children together? You may need to decide what you are prepared to tolerate. Him privately dressing up? Him going off to do it with other people? Sexual activities you don't enjoy? Is this something you would tolerate if it was private and controlled? If so be prepared for it to take over more than you had anticipated. If not, you may want to talk to him now and lay down your boundaries and limits including whether anything is a deal-breaker. It's extremely likely to increase in terms of his time, spending and extent so I would think about this now and share how you feel.

Sorry @Stressed78I had a failure of reading comprehension about you already having children.

Hello All, just here to vent my emotions. My ex told my kids about him last week. Like the kids of today, they are ok with it. They had already guessed it several months ago but didnt say it to anyone. Is it normal to feel sad and depressed that they have so easily accepted his ideology but I am unable to? I just feel lost. It will be a year that we have separated but I still have the huge sadness inside me. I cry many times but dont know for what. Even if you return him back to me with million pound wouldnt want him. Sondont knwo why I cant move on. Can't forget what he has done to my life. How can I move on?

It’s still very early days for you. You poor thing, your whole life has been shattered into a million pieces. Everything you thought was real wasn’t. It’s no wonder you are struggling.

My son’s kids appear to have accepted him as Lizzie, the youngest even calls him Lizzie. Both me, my other sons and his wife are really struggling and we are three and a half years on. I don’t know how you move forward but things do feel less acute with the passage of time. Sending much love and strength. ❤️💪

Oh my 3 and half years! I dont know where I will get the strength from. Each day these days isna struggle mentally.

This is my first post on here and a very hard one to write. My husband has been gender questioning for a while now and I feel so lost and alone. When we married I knew he had a kink for women's clothes but he said that's all it was. Over the years it has grown to him calling himself non-binary and looking at female hormones. He never spoke to me about any of this, I had to find out for myself and each new discovery coincided with unrelated stressful periods in my life. I have not been able to talk to anyone else about this for so long and I am struggling so much. I don't know how to process this and move forward, I don't know what to do. We have been together 9 years.

After I found out about the hormones I told him I wanted us to split but he wants us to try couples counselling. We've been going to the couples counselling and I have now been allowed to talk to some of my family about this but I'm still finding it so hard. Love and respect to all the other women dealing with this, I don't know how you find the strength.

I’m so sorry to read what you’re going through @ChickenHut . You must put yourself first, do not let him decide and dictate what you can and can’t do. I can’t believe he’s not let you talk to anyone. That is all kinds of wrong. He’s clearly making everything about him.

Couples counselling is not the right fit here. You need to find someone to talk to purely for you. My advice is for you to pursue separation.. Don’t put up with this shit show for another second.

Thank you @Groutyonehereagain. I think the hardest thing is that there is no room in most spaces for people like me to express their emotions unfiltered. It is exhausting to need to edit your thoughts and wrap them in caveats so I don't offend. But if I can't express what I feel safely then how can I process it?

Right now for example I feel so resentful that I have had to spend so much of my time in trans forums to learn all the slang they use. I am so angry I have had to search for what tucking and DIY mean at a time when I was just shattered with grief and depression. My husband has a health condition and cross sex hormones would not be prescribed without a cross disciplinary health team. I am furious that I had to research that and point it out to him. I am so angry that I had to spend months of my life doing this and being on guard for any signs his identity was changing at a time when I was struggling so much to cope with anxiety and depression. But I cannot express this anger anywhere else. When I brought this up in couples therapy the counsellor implied I had made myself anxious by looking too far down the road and these were things he might not do. But he had already bought stuff to do some of them!

@ChickenHut I hear you and you are absolutely right. As pp have said you definitely need a personal therapist and you need to find one that is going to see things from your point of view. It must be so difficult, bon courage

Honestly @ChickenHut , stop right there. You don’t need to spend another second immersing yourself in the trans world. This is not YOUR monkey. Cut yourself free and live your own life. Your trans husband will be getting ample support from the trans community. You need to actively seek your own support.

@ChickenHut I hear you and feel.for.you. i am still processing my grief and all I can see is what inwas doing for my ex. Sadly they dont care about us anymore. They are the victim and everything is about them. You dont need to point out anything to him, concerns about his health and learning the language. You are doing it because you love him. Sadly I did that too as the thought of not having him in my life was painful.

I am.planning to go back in therapy and found this lady https://kellyoliverdougall.co.uk/. As other therapist didnt understand me and all they said was I will get used to it and they couldn't say anything anti trans :/

Sorry to hear it's so hard Angry. It's still early days. It's very hard navigating the children's reaction and decision about whether to accept the new version of their parent, particularly if it differs from yours. Of course they have to find a way to survive it and keep both parents but it's really painful and aggravating. Ultimately talking to other people incuding therapy (interesting you found someone who seems to specialise in these situations), remembering that whatever the children do you are still their mother and the person who didn't change, cause distress and confusion, and put them first, and trying never to criticise the other parent (that's the ideal apparently,, most people seem to manage it to some degree...) is the way to stay sane.

Thank you @TheAngryLioness and @Groutyonehereagain . I have also started looking for therapy for myself. I'm hoping I will be able to unpack all this pain in my heart. If I didn't love him it would be easier I think, I could just leave then. Sending you both love and support.

Agree with the others Chickenhut. You are quite right to look ahead as you can see where this heading and on here we know your story invariably ends in transition. You need to consider what you would want to do if he goes ahead, what your 'red lines' are, if any, and plan for a life without him if there is a level this reaches where you will want out. Really important to talk to your own friends and family think about money and property (I assume you don't have kids?) and stop planning for and helping him with the transition unless you plan to stay with him. Your energy needs to be on protecting yourself and your own future. He will seriously be fine as your research has found
So so much support for men doing this now, so little for those around them unless they are on board. Put yourself first. What do you want to do? 💐

Trans Widows Voices has a list of sympathetic therapists, if you send us an email - address on website.

As you are finding Chicken but, the psychological effects of this are brutal on you.
Talking about YOUR feelings about this will help you realise what is good for you. I think doing a little research I to Trans matters will help you decide what you can and cannot tolerate.
Being sympathetic is one thing but NEVER take responsibility for his attending appointments etc. That is on him.
Mine had been on hormones two years working away from home for long periods. He fell ill and I was called to nurse him. Teenaged girl legs! Cushions of baby pink flesh where his olive skinned cheeks used to be....I made my decision early but it was no less painful.
Pursue your therapy, guilt free and putting you first.

My ex is now on mounjaro! He is very overweight and tall. So now he wants to be a slim tall asexual lesbian 🤔

Is he an “asexual lesbian” because no lesbians want to have sex with him?

Thank you @TinselAngel, I have a therapist appointment set up for next week, I found her on beyond trans website. But if that doesn't work out I will send you an email. @TheAngryLioness my husband says he wants to be androgynous, I don't know why. But the clothing etc. he buys is very definitely sexual and feminine. @Tygadlas and @socialworker222 thank you for the good advice. You are all helping me feel less alone. Thank you.

Glad to hear you're going to try out a therapist Chickenhut. Understanding what happened to me as loss rather than a rejection, was enormously helpful. You kind of lose the person but they are still here, a complex grief. As for the clothing, it's a bit of a sign for me that something else is going on as repeatedly we see older transitioning men dressing in a certain way that very few women of their age do. Sounds like you may be planning to stay with him, so do make sure you are at peace with how your life will change.

Speaking from experience I’d strongly recommend making judgements based on what your own eyes and brain are telling you, rather than on how he represents or categorises things to you. I think most of us here have been gaslit about such things.

TinselAngel. Very true.Your gut becomes your best friend.
One of the wisest bits of counsel I got was judge a man by his actions, not what he says! This is particularly relevant in dealing with someone trans.They are so good at appealing to your emotions or reason, then doing the most appalling, non- trustful things. You can begin to doubt your own sanity.

I ignored my gut so many times because I trusted him.