I'm so sorry you are going through this.  

As someone whose husband also kept from me for years his experiments with gender, and his decision to have his testicles removed and take cross-sex (female) hormones, I understand your distress at both the news of his gender dysphoria and your hurt at his secret life.  You feel betrayed because you were betrayed.  Your husband made a deliberate decision, every day, over and over again, not to disclose to you information that was crucial to your marriage.  He deceived you in order to benefit himself.  He kept from you information that you had a right to know, information that would have enabled you to see clearly the situation in your marriage and to make informed decisions about your own choices in response to his action. He acted without regard for you.  Of course you would be upset.  

My now-ex (I divorced him when I was 64, after three years in which I tried to support him and to see whether I thought I could stay married to him) also wanted to ensure that his life was not upended by my saying anything to anyone--by my staying in his closet.  This is not an uncommon experience here, that our spouses want to have their new selves/lives, but not to have to relinquish the comfort of the life they've had.  Their focus is on protecting their status quo, their protected status (of living in the closet), and they often resort to manipulative tactics to keep us quiescent. 

What your husband says about himself, that he "get[s] some sort of sexual satisfaction, or self-love, seeing himself as a woman," is a textbook definition of autogynephilia.  Men who are AGP (autogynephilic) are also quite self-involved and self-centered, as your husband's course of action--to act unilaterally without telling you, and to keep it from you for years--demonstrates.  I have in the past posted a number of resources about autogynephilia; if you search for my user name you should find those posts. 

 You can't find peace of mind for him.  You can only find peace of mind for yourself.  Speaking for myself, I found I could not live with a husband who expressed a hatred for his male body, became increasingly focused on his "woman persona," and kept pushing boundaries on cross-dressing that he himself had set.  Nor could I continue to have sex with him in his new persona.  The only way I could pursue peace of mind and healing from the experience was to leave him, divorce, and go no contact (I was able to do this because I had the financial resources, although of course my standard of living is not now what it would have been if there were still two of us). I don't know whether this course of action is one you are contemplating or not, but I would imagine it is something you are exploring with your own therapist.  

 You don't say whether you have noticed an escalation in your husband's behavior or attitude since you have become aware of the truth, and of course you are understandably still dealing with the fallout of the knowledge itself, but it's something to put on your radar screen.  Once they know you're in the know, there can be a ramping up of the behavior.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (June 2, 2024 8:20 am)

Cross-dressers go through binge-purge cycles, so perhaps your husband's decision to stop hrt is analogous to a "purge."  It's also common for spouses who have had their behavior "discovered" to backtrack in an effort not to lose the safety of the live they have.  

That you have been able to conclude that your husband's actions stem from his own "demons" and have nothing to do with you is, I'd say, a sign you're handling this situation well.   And it's very wise of you to hold back the hope that he will continue to desist.  You are so right that there is no "turning back the clock"--once their secret is revealed, and the fact that they've lied is laid bare, the trust is gone.