'I don't want to seem like an abused wife but I felt I had no power. I had to go along with it — or divorce.'
I don't mean to dismiss her experience at all, I know trans widows and families have an awful time. But divorce is the power they have. There are other situations too where women have no power - their H is cheating, gambling, doing drugs or whatever and it's the same - their choice is to go along with it or divorce. Divorce is totally reasonable. I wouldn't stay with a man who decided to announce he was a woman for a second. Not because I'm transphobic, but because I'd be bloody insulted, I'm a rational person and I couldn't be doing with someone pretending to share my experiences who simply can't. Just as if he decided to larp anything else about me, like my job, or an ethnicity or disability he didn't have. That would be it and I would consider that a totally reasonable grounds for divorce.
The idea that you should stick by a man who "comes out" as a "woman" needs to be totally dismantled.
If you don't buy that he's a woman, then you're dealing with a massively frustrating and insulting pretence.
If you do buy that he's a woman, well you didn't sign up to be with a woman, and if you're straight, it's no longer for you.
Of course stay if you actively want to, but either of the above are perfectly good reasons to end it IMO. I know it takes time and is not that simple because of kids, controlling behaviour etc (as can affect divorce in general, there are controlling narcs who aren't AGP too), but articles like this that big up that they're still together and best friends blah bah aren't helping.
If a woman wants to validate her husband's "true self" or whatever that doesn't require still being with him/his partner.
I fully admit that I have more to learn and that may be why I don't understand why so many of these women stay. Or is it that only some do and they're the couples that get all the media attention?