KitKat,
     I and most of the other women on this list whose husbands decided they were trans have experienced the same set of selfish and self-centered behaviors as you are seeing with your stbx, and have had the same recognition that our spouses could no longer be counted on to be thinking about what was right for us as a couple or for our families as a family--they were thinking only and at all times and in all stiuations of themselves.  It's maddening and unfair and hurtful and damaging to us and our kids and they do. not. care.  The only person they care about is themselves. 
     What I found helped me a lot in dealing with my stbx was to stop thinking of him as a rational human being and partner in my marriage, and to start seeing him as a disordered person with delusions, including delusions of grandeur, which included his narcissistic and entitled belief that I was under some obligation to embrace and support him while failing to acknowledge that he had blown up our marriage or appreciating that he had dealt me a blow of world-changing proportions.  He had no empathy for anyone but himself.  
    The truth is that our spouses blew up our marriages when they decided they were trans.  But instead of recognizing that they changed the terms of our marriages and that they are therefore under an obligation to free us from our marriages and to do so in the most gentle and generous terms possible because they owe us that consideration, they assumed that it was our job to adjust ourselves around their new reality and that everyone in the family would reorder their lives around their own new (ever-changing) needs and selves.
    You have to begin to act from the understanding that your stbx's agenda will always be himself, and himself only.  Don't expect him to be reasonable; don't expect him to care about your needs or those of the children.  He doesn't care about you or them apart from what he wants and what you can do for him. Yes, it's unreasonable.  Yes, it's unfeeling. Yes, it's infuriating. But once you understand that, really understand it, and apply that principle, you can approach him with a little more emotional detachment.  Once you stop expecting him to act like a human being and realize he's become a deranged person who is no longer your partner, except legally, you can predict what he'll do in any given situation.  Think of him like a specimen; as Rob said once, "Observe, don't engage."  (Emotionally.) 
    I don't have any specific advice for you about his demand to tell your children.  I assume he wants to do this so he can openly dress in front of them and begin to force them to accommodate him in his new persona?  All I know is that because he doesn't care about their needs and believes that they must adjust as he wants them to (see...delusional and disordered thinking) you're not going to be able to counter what he wants if the only way to do so is by negotiating with him; he doesn't negotiate, he demands.  And what he thinks is that what he wants he should get and that the children must adjust to him.  He doesn't care about their mental health.  
   Reframe his gaslighting baloney.  Remember that he is acting from his psychologically disordered belief that he is entitled to whatever he wants.  He says you don't care about him because of how easily you are giving him up?  Counter that in your head with: HE rejected you when he decided he didn't want to be a man!   
  Have ready what you will tell the children If he does go ahead and tell them.  I've read advice to spouses whose marriages have broken up from cheating that they tell their children something along the lines of "daddy/mommy wanted to date another man/woman, and married people aren't supposed to have dates."  Perhaps you might have ready a line like "Daddy decided he didn't like being a man and wanted to be a woman, so he can't be my husband (or your father?) any more."  And adjust that to make it age appropriate as needed.  The info about porn, etc, should not be shared with your kids, even if you're using the threat of it to keep your stbx in check.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (October 18, 2018 5:49 am)

Walk- my kids are 17, 14, 13 and 10.

I’m also concerned my oldest may also gaslight her siblings along with their dad.  She defines herself as a gay atheist who advocates for anyone in the LGBT community which is who all her friends are.  She has already tried to sway my other kids to her agenda including trying to get her brother to join her group of friends.  It’s going to be a very tough road ahead for me and my kids!