KitKat,
   I'm so sorry you're going through this, and having to worry at the same time about your children.  Your husband exhibits all the signs of being an autogynephile, or "a  man in love with the idea of himself as a woman," which often manifests first by secret crossdressing and masturbating while crossdressed or imagining himself as a woman.  As the gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia progress, transition is often something autogynephiles idealize as the ticket to becoming the woman they dream of being (the majority of men who transition are autogynephilic, and that rate is higher for men who disclose at his age or later).   I wouldn't get too hung up in his changing ideas of who he is, except for the kids (more below on that): the basic fact is that he has a sexual paraphilia and you have been caught up in it.  
   That he is confused about who or what he is and what he wants suggests that telling the children now would be premature.  Certainly it wuld be a mistake to tell them before you are able to go to a therapist for yourself--not a gender therapist who will follow the trans line, but one who specializes in trauma and ideally one who is conversant with the psychological condition of autogynephilia.  The one thing to remember is to cease seeing any therapist who suggests you need to ease his transition or adjust yourself to it.  
  You need support for yourself: a psychologist, a lawyer (to understand what your financial situation will be in a divorce and to protect your assets--"transition" is expensive, and it sounds as if your husband is already making purchases you don't know about, and friends and family, and NOT your mother in law if she is going to urge you to "love him through it."  Take it from me, and from others on this site whose partners/husbands have gone down this road: there's no loving them through it.  He's on a hiway with no off ramp.  
   I would recommend educating yourself by reading the work of the psychologists J. Michael Bailey ("The Man Who Would be Queen) and Anne Lawrence, who is transsexual ("Men Trapped in Men's Bodies).  You can download Bailey's book for free, and Lawrence has a website where you can read some articles.  (Be forewarned that the transactivist community hates them both because nothing is so threatening to a male who wants to believe he can be a woman than hearing that he has a condition that affects only males.)  There are other resources out there, but these are the best place to start to get an overview of autogynephlia, and you need to see this from an educated perspective.
  
   
 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 30, 2018 2:35 pm)