TakenbySurprise wrote:

How did my life become a Jerry Springer episode?

Ha, ha! That’s how I felt too.

I was guilty of adapting the interests (didn’t like these things)  of boyfriends in high school & college to present an attractive package. It felt weird in my mid-20s & stopped. I wonder if these sudden personality changes in LGBT spouses married to straights is to appease a new LGBT love interest?

Here are two examples of straight actors who did/do this - Jane Fonda & Brad Pitt.

https://people.com/movies/jane-fonda-took-until-60s-to-become-herself/

https://www.boredpanda.com/brad-pitt-girlfriends-funny-fashion-similarities/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic


My late GIDXH was a failed professional musician who had highbrow musical tastes. He hated rock music. I was suspicious he had a lover when he started gushing about U2 for a few weeks.

Their appropriation of femininity and their denigration of our femininity (all that lingerie that never did the trick) is one of the most insidious and damaging aspects of our experience.  The more "out" my ex got, the more outspoken he got about being "the feminine one."  He even started referring to me as "butch," which is not a term I'd ever have applied to myself.  Nor would anyone else, either.  I really felt as if he was pushing me out of the definition of "woman" so he could have it for himself, even though he kept saying we were in a lesbian relationship.  His "lesbian relationship" still consisted of a masculine person (he designated me for that) and a feminine one (he took that one for himself); I still maintain that he was more fixated on gender roles after he made his trans declaration then he was before hand, and never acted more stereotypically male/masculine in terms of wanting to lay down the law than he did when he was demanding to be treated "as a woman."  
  So glad to have put all that behind me!  I can't say I've recovered completely from that gaslighting craziness, but I'm SO much better!  

OutofHisCloset wrote:

  The more "out" my ex got, the more outspoken he got about being "the feminine one."  He even started referring to me as "butch," which is not a term I'd ever have applied to myself.  Nor would anyone else, either.  I really felt as if he was pushing me out of the definition of "woman" so he could have it for himself, even though he kept saying we were in a lesbian relationship. 

OOHC,

So sorry your ex did this to you. Out of touch with reality & abusive.

My x would repeatedly tell me I spoke and acted like a man. He called me Mickey Mouse because I have a high pitched voice & looked like him. Not Minnie, because I didn’t look like her. Thx to your post, I just realized he was masculinizing me because he wanted a man & putting me down because I wasn’t one.

  So glad to have put all that behind me!  I can't say I've recovered completely from that gaslighting craziness, but I'm SO much better!  

I am glad for you, too!! Am not quite there either, but so much better & more cognizant of the gaslighting attempts by others these days. Am sure that’s a skill we’ve all strengthened due to TGT.

I did not realize how diminished I was until after the divorce as I began to rediscover myself. I was not employed and no longer went anywhere where dressing up was expected so I had settled into wearing what my sons outgrew. Anything dressy was years old and no longer fitted but it was less depressing to look at a full closet.

As part of my new life I said to myself "New lover: new lingerie." I didn't have one but if I ever hoped to get one ditching the granny panties and getting some push-up bras was a good beginning. I got rid of those clothes that didn't fit and shopped charity stores for a new wardrobe, trying new colors and styles. Got some costume jewelry there too - bigger and bolder. Changed my haircut and color. Added some makeup.

Being sexy is being comfortable in your own body. Anyone who puts you down is not worth keeping around.

 

Zenobia wrote:

OOHC - You are describing what I am in the middle of right now. Not so much verbally yet though he did launch into a prolonged dig at my weight in response to me attempt to explain feeling that aspects of my personality were a mix of things coded as feminine and masculine. There is a newfound obsession with weight

That is cruel. It’s really hard to take the high road & not return a put down. 

Taken - So wish I had had the foresight and strength to have a move out date but I do think about all the things I want gone or changed that we’re not my choices. I’ve squeezed myself into tiny parts of my home to make room for him and the vast amount of “stuff”. My space in the home and in the budget just kept getting smaller and smaller. I am still in the situation but at least now I’ve been able to see I’m not the only one and that I don’t have to keep making myself smaller.

I hope you can move things forward to a place where you can live with dignity. Expand with self-confidence in that home & claim your rightful half.