Hi everyone.
I wish I had found this forum sooner.

My mixed orientation marriage began in 1987, when I was just 19 years old.  I had no idea that my new husband, who was 23, had suffered his entire life, from gender dysphoria.  *I am using he/him pronouns in the beginning of my story, not out of disrespect, but because he was "he" to me, until recently - he is now legally 'she'.

in 1989, while I was 7.5 months pregnant with our first child, I caught my husband watching porn. I was devastated, as I thought he wasn't attracted to me, because I was pregnant...I confronted him and was not at all prepared for the explanation I was to hear...he wasn't watching it due to the sexual desire, he said he was watching because he felt like he was a woman trapped in a man's body.  He watched as more of a curiosity about female genitalia. The desire he felt from watching porn,  was to LOOK like them, not to have sex with them.

He explained, he had always felt and known "his" identity was female, his earliest memories of childhood were playing with his girl cousins dolls and his parents having to tell him he was a boy and had to play with boy things, not girl things. 'He' was left very confused by this and just wanted to have fun, playing with the toys that called to 'him'.  

My entire world fell out from under me in that instant. Gone were all of my hopes of being a 'normal' wife and soon to be mother. I had no one to confide in, I was sworn to keeping his secret, no one else knew.  There were no support groups for this in 1989 and the term transgender was not a thing back then.

He immediately apologized and tried to explain and  told me he married me because he did love me and he thought he could handle his feelings better, within a stable, loving heterosexual relationship.  He wanted a family and knew that being married was the way to build one. He was not attracted to men, he was attracted to me. But my pregnancy triggered the feelings of him, wanting to be a mother and wanting to feel what it was like to be pregnant, etc., like a woman who can't have biological children, being around a pregnant woman, would feel.

I tried to comprehend what was being said, but the feeling of anger, betrayal, fear and panic was drowning out my ability to hear and understand anything he was saying.

He felt immediate remorse and guilt for coming out to me and promised he would fight these feelings and make them go away.  He tried his best, but became a very angry and volatile person, unpredictable and miserable. I had to walk on eggshells to try to keep things calm. Our son was born into this environment and this is still my biggest regret and pain, as a mother, that I brought him into the world, into such an unstable family unit. I grew up in a large loving family and that was my heart's desire, to create a strong loving family unit.  It was anything but.

We attended church, we did all of the 'right' things, went on with life. We built a semblance of a marriage and stuck it out together.  then, during a time where we both felt stable and 'good' with our relationship, we had our second child, in 1995, which triggered the same response in him, as my first pregnancy had. He could no longer deny his inner female.

This time we were more honest and open about it, I had the internet to use for research and support. I found a support group for trans spouses (but left it after a short time, was a very negative space at that time) and also found a possible 'cause' for his gender dysphoria... I discovered a support group for people whose mothers had been given the synthetic estrogen drug, DES, during pregnancy.  According to the scientific data shared in this group, there was a proven link between this drug and transgenderism in male offspring, as well as physical symptoms and a lot of birth defects in females.  Finding out about the DES connection helped me to rationalize his condition and we set out to learn more.

He told a few more people about the gender dysphoria ('trans' was still not a term at that time), he sought counseling at church and with a therapist. We worked on our communication and relationship. but I was put into 'savior mode' - and martyr mode too.  My husband had a 'disorder' that was not his choice or fault, it was from exposure to a drug, he had side effects from that drug that were beyond his control. and I loved him through it...I was determined to see him through and hoped and prayed for a 'healing' and that our nuclear traditional family would stay intact and whole.

This worked for 'us' for about 12 years, until it didn't work anymore. We occasionally had sex, when I initiated it, but I was not pursued or made to feel beautiful as a woman. He told me I was beautiful, but he never pursued me sexually.

The year I turned 40, he had a nervous breakdown and could no longer deal with his dual life, of hiding his inner identity. He told more people, which devastated me a bit more, each time. Each time he 'came out' - my own identity as a woman, wife and mother, felt diminished. I felt less than, I felt abnormal, I felt the judgment of people who didn't understand his condition, or our feelings, or any of it. They were only told the story from his POV. They would ask him how I handled this and he would always respond with, "we love each other very much and want to keep our relationship intact" and would indicate that I was "fine" - but I was anything but fine.

He wanted to start taking prescription estrogen in order to feel better...and while I understood this, i also knew, this would be the end of our marriage in any physical capacity. Even the occasional sex we had, would cease altogether. I let him know that if he chose to take estrogen that it would be his choice to end our marriage. He instead chose to take natural supplements to help his moods and while it did boost his estrogen too, it was not enough to stop us from having sex if we wanted to.

However, our sex life after that was basically non existent. As a heterosexual woman, I was being forced into my own version of a closet. I had to fake being a normal happy wife to one group of people, had to be a supportive and understanding wife to another set of people. I couldn't confide in my family or my friends. I went into denial of my own needs and feelings. I could not express myself in a sexual way, as a woman, with my spouse, because 'he' didn't enjoy being a man and HATED being male and hated his own body.

I had conditioned myself into accepting his inner female identity and that made me uncomfortable having sex with him. I turned to food for my comfort, food was my surrogate lover and support. I gained weight on purpose, to feel and become unattractive to him and to use it as an excuse, to not 'want'. to have sex, I took myself off of the table, in order to mask the anger and rejection of having to face his inner female identity.

This denial of self went on for many years. We did have a "friendship" marriage and did enjoy doing things together over the years. He was never unfaithful to me, I never had to 'worry' about him cheating on me. I knew he loved me. And I loved him. We both accepted the fact that we had an unconventional marriage and adapted to that, on the surface.

As the awareness of transgender population became more prominent, 'his' feelings became stronger. He identified more and more with being trans, over being my husband.  More people, including family, were in the know...'she' was coming out to everyone - and I was spiraling into a deep depression. I was being forced into the trans spouse role that I was not prepared for...even after all of those years.

And then, without my knowledge, he started on prescription estrogen. This changed everything, as I had feared it would. His body changed dramatically and she was never happier...while I was happy for her, I was also sinking into deeper despair and felt a sense of betrayal of my trust.

My father passed away in 2012 and my mother moved in with us, part time, but became full time over the years and then she developed dementia.  My husband and I teamed up to care for her, in our home, for over 10 years. We placed ourselves on hold all of that time, until we had her placed in a dementia care unit, after her condition became too severe for us to handle on our own.

After she left our home, my world came crashing down again. I had placed her care and needs ahead of my own, I took no time to stop and see how my marriage had ended years before...but it was undeniable to me once I was left to my own thoughts.

Our son had also moved back in with us, the week after my mother moved out, as his own marriage was ending and we welcomed him back home of course, but this added to our marital pressure.

after just a few weeks, I told my husband that I wanted to separate and he was devastated. It hit him out of the blue and he had no clue how unhappy I was and had been, for so many years. Yes, we loved each other, but no, it was not a happy marriage.  I told him that his choice to start on estrogen without my knowledge was the beginning of the end. I understood the need, but keeping it from me was not fair.

I explained that we both needed to be ourselves, after years of both living in denial, each for the other. "He" lived as a male and husband for my sake and I lived as a best friend and advocate, but not a wife. I said we both need to become who we are supposed to be and live our lives authentically, as friends, but free to move forward...it took several months for us to both fully accept that this was the best choice, at this stage in our lives. "He" had said many times over the years that he didn't want to die in a male body, never knowing what it was like to live authentically as a female.  And I had said I wanted to be in a healthy heterosexual relationship, with a man and feel accepted as a woman and be able to celebrate our differences and not have to hide from my femininity.

We are now 15 months post divorce. She is now legally a female, no surgery, but living as female and is happy and out and proud.

I have found new love and we are happily building a new life together, both of us had stayed in our marriages for many years, trying to make them work. 

She and I are friends and talk or text several times a week...it still hurts like hell at times, for us both. but we are living authentically.

I still have a lot of healing to do and I am triggered often, by feelings of being unattractive, trust issues, sexuality, on and on. I am working through these slowly. It is very painful, looking back on all of the years I spent trying to be someone's all, trying to make them happy 'enough' to stay with me...and vice versa. It is helpful and scary, having a new partner but he is very supportive and tries his best to understand.

This is not at all how I had imagined my life to be, I still don't feel equipped to handle all of the hurdles I had to face along the way. All I can say is that I try every day, to move forward and to not let bitterness or anger take over.

My heart breaks for all of those in this situation...everyone's journey is unique and different. But we can all learn from each other along the way.

Thanks for reading.


AnnaB