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March 15, 2021 1:27 pm  #1


How to Find Support

So... I've spent the past year in denial, but I can see here I'm not alone. My wife of 31 years told me they were transgender last year (I have to keep correcting my gender pronouns in my typing). This was during the height of COVID, so its not as if there wasn't enough other stress to focus on. But I've pretty much spent the last year in denial. Most of the time its as if it never came up. Other times its front and center. I'm struggling to be supportive of their change in lifestyle while realizing that I'm just not comfortable or able to continue to pretend that nothing has changed, nor am I really comfortable being the spouse of someone who is transgender. That's my hang-up, but it is what it is. But I don't hate them or want nothing to do with them anymore. I've been with them for more than half my life. 

So the question is, what is the best way to find a support mechanism to figure out how to deal with this and proceed? I'm a pretty private person. Even posting this was difficult. I think I'd deal better in a one-on-one support model at least to start, although I do see the value from this site on finding peers.

I'm very tech savvy, so I thought it would be easy to find support online. While there's a LOT of stuff on the internet (including this group), I found it very hard to actually find a therapist who has any specialty in this area. I found plenty of them for people who are transgender, but none in my part of the world (USA-NJ) that seem to focus on the spouse.

Any ideas on how to go about this?

P.S. Just finding this group and seeing how many people have gone through this has been comforting in itself. It's harder to suffer on a deserted island.

 

March 15, 2021 2:45 pm  #2


Re: How to Find Support

My ex declared he was transgender after 32 years of marriage.  When my spouse first disclosed, I felt as you did: that I wished him well but didn't want to be the spouse of a trans person, as I didn't want my life to be "all about trans."  I did end up staying for three years, after he asked for my "comfort" in what was a difficult process for him.  Unfortunately, he became more and more demanding, and less and less forthcoming, and I, for my part, grew less and less happy the more I learned about the way he defined the woman he wanted to become.

I think it's pretty common that we feel as if we have to issue a disclaimer to justify our decision that we want to end the marriage, but it's not so much a "hang up" about your spouse's decision as it is a rational response to your spouse's decision and the changes you are being asked to accept and to undergo.  My personal feeling is that when a spouse wants to alter such a fundamental understanding of the marriage it ought to be expected that the two people will divorce rather than that the spouse of the transgendered person is under an obligation to stay and adapt.  If it gives you any reassurance, every single person I ever told why I was divorcing understood completely why I would divorce, and they were sorry for what I had gone through.  

 You are right that finding a therapist with experience helping the spouse of someone who has decided they are transgendered can be challenging.  A therapist who specializes in relationship trauma may be your best bet.  You can certainly ask any therapist you call for a consultation if they have experience in this area, and I would suggest you make that question specific: "have you counseled spouses who have undergone the specific trauma of having a spouse come out at transgender."  That way you weed out those therapists who think their job is to "help" you to "acceptance.  

This article might be of use to you:
Donna Chapman and Benjamin Caldwell: “Attachment Injury Resolution in Couples  When One Partner is Transgender”
Journal of Systemic Therapies, Vol 31, No. 2, 2012, pp36-53
(full text of article available online)

I'd also recommend you read the article by Omar Minwalla on the "sexual secret basement" that longwayhome posted a link to (I've copied the url below).   Minwalla is very good on the injury we have inflicted on us by such a disclosure (even if your spouse has not been purposefully deceptive), and on some of our common reactions.
https://secureservercdn.net/72.167.241.180/226.c7e.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/The-Secret-Sexual-Basement_2_12_21.pdf
Sorry you need to be here.  
 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (March 15, 2021 2:56 pm)

 

March 15, 2021 3:34 pm  #3


Re: How to Find Support

Thank you very much for the quick response. Good suggestions and good reading material. You hit the nail right on the head about having a therapist who believes the right thing to do is accept. I'm not saying I can't accept my spouse's decision and respect it, but not that I have to automatically consider remaining married as a show of acceptance. 

     Thread Starter
 

March 15, 2021 5:35 pm  #4


Re: How to Find Support

yes exactly.  My best friend didn't know what I was talking about but instinctively knew I was hurting and gave me a hug.  then she talked to him.  she comes back to me and says he's not gay.  Yes he is, I reply,  well what's wrong with being gay she then says after a while - nothing if you're not the one married to him I reply.  oh.

It's not just what is happening now, what is going to happen in the future, it is also your past.  Knowing she is transgender ends up changing the way you view your past.  Yes it hurts horribly, but better out than in - better to know, imo.  More than just the need for support from others, I felt like I had been obliterated and I needed myself back most of all.  I was able to talk to people who knew me as a teenager, before I had met him at all and that was fantastic.

 

 

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