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Last week, my husband of 30 years told me he believes he is transgender. I'm shell shocked. It has been a rollercoaster of mixed emotions since then which have included disbelief, anger, sympathy, pain and now tears.
Thankfully, I have a very good friend and a sister who I have confided in, they are deeply shocked but have already provided much support.
It all seems such a blur since I found out. Already my husband seems quite different. There is almost an expectation that I should go along with the change, for example: sleep in the same bed and re evaluate our gender roles(!) amongst other things. He says he cannot see it from my point of view and has implied that I may be transphobic.
I married a man, not a women, a man. it was a deliberate choice. He cannot see that if I stay in the relationship I would then be a lesbian. He says 'I am still the same person and it shouldn't make any difference what my gender is'.
The thing is, I am not attracted to women so how can I possibly stay in this relationship?
We have 2 sons in their 20s who will be rocked to their core when they are told. I get very upset thinking about how they will take the news, It's going to be awful.
I am seeing a divorce lawyer this week. It has turned my world upside down.
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Nadine,
I totally understand your shock, pain, hurt, betrayal etc.
I want you to know you are not alone. I have been there and done that. You can read my story and postings. It’s been over a year since my ex ambushed me with a phone call about his trans revelations.
Some days will be better than other but stick to your convictions and values and don’t waiver. Any doubt trying to make it work when you know in your core that’s not who you are will only prolong your hurt and suffering.
I am glad you have support as you will need to lean on true friends and family. Take care of yourself and your children.
Hugs to you! PM me if you want to chat.
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There's a physical aspect to desire and sexuality. Expecting you to re-evaluate yourself like this in order to accommodate him is unfair. So is the transphobe comment. It sounds like an attempt to make you the 'bad person' so he can proceed at his own pace. Be aware that the rollercoaster hasn't ended yet. Be well.
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Nadine, I"m so sorry you find yourself in this predicament. Your husband's remarks about you being transphobic are just attempts to deflect blame -- I hope you realize this. The same goes for his claim that he's the same person and his gender shouldn't matter to you. The logic can be turned back on him: if his gender doesn't matter, why is he changing it? Why insist it matters for him, but not for you?
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Oh my goodness I can't tell you how much I appreciate these replies, it's so reassuring to know that there are people out there sympathetic and listening. I have felt so alone and I burst into tears on seeing the notifications from this forum.
Does anyone have any advice about telling the news to adult sons? I feel it needs to come from husband but want to be there to support them. It will come as a huge shock and they will not see it coming. What experience has anyone had? Any advice will be really appreciated.
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Nadine, here's what worked for me, but of course everyone's situation is different.
My daughter was 22 when it all came crashing down. If you read my story in "Our Stories", I get into more detail about how this had affected her, so I won't repeat the whole miserable story here. It was necessary for her to be told, because she needed to make sense out of things that involved her -- and as it turned out, she'd seen things she didn't understand and had been afraid to talk to me.
I was also very concerned that if I didn't control the time, place and message ... she'd find out purely by accident in the most shocking and devastating way, at the worst possible time.
I gave my husband the choice, but with a deadline. I said she had to be told, and that it was better coming from him but if he didn't step up to the plate I would do it myself. I said it had to be after her graduation, but within about a two-week window. When time came for me to move her out of her college apartment, we got everything into the car and on the drive up to her next place, I asked her if Daddy had said anything to her about his situation. She didn't know a thing, so I told her as gently as possible. She had a LOT of questions, which kept coming for months after that conversation. Her first reaction was that she was terrified he would do something drastic, and she called him and told him that she loved him.
Next, she went for a year not speaking to him. Go figure.
I think that I'd reached a point where all the lying was too much and everyone had to know the full truth. I couldn't imagine how she'd feel if I covered for him and she ended up finding out by accident.
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In 2015 my then husband (now ex) of 32 years declared he was "a woman in a man's body." He also started pushing, had no understanding of the challenges this posed for me, etc. So I know something of what you are going through.
You will find company and validation for your feelings here:
Just this weekend there was a thread on Mumsnet (you do not have to register to read) on the question of whether you would stay with a transitioning spouse. Here's a link to the conversation (but it's to a very late stage--there are over 26 pages of discussion!)
I also suggest you look at this thread on Mumsnet, which is dedicated to women married to men who declare they are transgender:
Also useful will be the personal stories on Trans Widows Voice, at
Last edited by OutofHisCloset (January 10, 2022 4:28 pm)
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Nadine, we are in the same boat😢30 years in, and now I’m expected to be attracted to a man that wants to be a woman...I am struggling. He is my best friend, we have adult children, he was SO manly, but is was not genuine. There’s so much to lose at this stage of life😩we’ve built an amazing one and I’m afraid to change my circumstance, but I DESIRE a man😭 honesty, this seems like a no win situation, and I’m at the angry stage right now. I’ve done the role playing, yada yada domimatrix thing to satisfy him, but I don’t like it. It’s not authentic for me....where’re are you at?
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Thank you Dobie, I appreciate anyone reaching out at the moment. Thank you.
For the last 3-4 years our relationship has deteriorated without really understanding why. He has exhibited bullying behavior. shouting and screaming at me but nothing physical. I've always stayed calm during these times which has usually fueled his anger. It's been awful. At times, he has said things to me so shocking I know I will never be able to repeat them to anyone.
He now tells me this was frustration on his part, due to his feelings of wanting to be a woman. I really didn't know what was going on with this behavior.
Last week he told me he confided in a trusted friend when he was 19 years old (before we met) about wanting to wear women's clothes and didn't understand why, he suppressed those feelings throughout our marriage until we became empty nesters. I feel cheated as we've been married 30 years. Actually, I'm devastated.
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Nadine and Dobie,
I was 61 when my then husband, who was 58, dropped his trans bomb. We'd been married 32 years. I stayed for three years, until the escalating demands, manipulation, and anger on his part when I expressed any sort of discomfort with his gender expression and behavior became too much for me.
At first I had hoped that now that he could be his "authentic" self, he would finally become the partner he had never been. (Need I say this didn't happen...). I participated fully in his sexual acting out of his woman persona--and like you, Dobie, that sex was tinged by sado-masochism. I wonder if you have found, as I did, that the whole "I want to be a woman" was essentially sexual. When my ex first told me about his trans identity, he outlined his expectations for sex before anything else! And in outlining them, his "masochism" was first on the list, even before "being penetrated" in order to "play the part of a woman"! At the time I was so shocked by the revelation itself that I was in no frame of mind to ask myself why it was that his entire idea of woman revolved around sexual expression. Even the clothes he wanted to wear were women's lingerie: bras, stockings, camis, etc. Later I discovered the work of Michael Bailey ("The Man Who Would Be Queen" which is available for downloading online as a pdf), Ray Blanchard (psychologist/sexologist), and the transwoman and MD Anne Lawrence, all of whom outlined the sexual paraphilia autogynephilia, which motivates most of the late-transitioning males. (Anne Lawrence also maintains an online presence.)
It is a terrible thing for us in our 60s to have this trans bomb dropped in our laps. As you say, it leaves one feeling cheated, out of the past and the future we had worked for for decades of married lives.
I divorced my now ex when I was 64. I was able to do so because I had a professional job and a pension of my own, and have since retired. My retirement is secure enough, but of course it's not what it should have been, and would have been. I will say this, though: my life out of that crazy is infinitely better than it was before when I lived with his volatility, his snits, his moods, his anger, his manipulation, his envy of my femaleness, his appropriation of my femininity, and his objectionably sexist portrayal of woman. I am still dealing with the trauma that is the result of those three years I lived with him between his bomb drop and my leaving, but I am in a much healthier frame of mind now.