Lookingforthelight so glad you found your way here and so sorry for the pain you are in now.

My situation is a bit similar and a bit different. My child is just not older than yours and has been my focus. In my case my spouse announced they are transitioning a couple of months into the pandemic in my country (US) so we’ve all been here alone since March. This was an escalation over the years which started a few years into the relationship (a couple of years before my son was born). A few years in I walked in on him putting my underwear on and slowly it progressed from there. There have been other behaviors which may or may not have anything to do with my spouse’s “new life” that has destroyed my close feelings. At one point I felt he was my best friend. Hindsight has changed that a lot as I try to work on myself and help my child.

It has been a rollercoaster in my case and I’m particularly low today so I will do my best to keep that in mind with my response.

Early on after his announcement there was some shouting at me for never saying I was straight and accusations of being “against/phobic” of same sex-attraction merely because I did not happen to have same-sex attraction. Some of that anger/lash-out towards me may have been because during the escalation I set up no boundaries around what I was comfortable with as at the time I thought that would mean I was dictating how they could live. There was a lot I wasn’t comfortable with/wasn’t interested in and did the people pleaser thing and just shut down and got through it. I’ve since learned here and elsewhere and boundaries are important and it is ok to have them and to advocate for yourself.

It does doing like you have set some boundaries and that is wonderful.

You are not alone. There is support here and elsewhere. Here you will find many in similar circumstances to what you are going through right now. It is rough and it is painful. You will see a mix of outcomes as some do choose to continue the relationship.

Thank you both so much for your responses. It is so helpful to me and I’m so thankful I joined this group.

It’s hard not to know what directions my partner will go in as far as gender- it’s unclear in what ways it will manifest and I think that is most stressful for me. I like the idea of gently setting boundaries. I totally agree that it’s hard to do- because it feels like you are telling someone how they can and can’t express themselves. But it’s also my right to have questions and feelings about how identity manifests. It’s just so amazingly helpful to know I’m not alone.

As far as pronouns, it hasn’t been decided. But my partner has indicated at some point “he” may prefer the pronoun “they” to reflect his non binary identity. I’m not sure who exactly he would ask to refer to him in this way, but he is in academia so perhaps more in a professional manner for publications and so forth.  I think pronouns are really varied from what I’ve read- some people go by his/him, some him/they, some only they/them. Or any combination.  It feels strange to write but I’m trying to work on it!🥴

Hi again Looking, 

So not only is your husband saying he’s bisexual, he’s also suggesting he may be gender fluid, if I’m understanding this correctly. I’d suggest you both get counseling. That’s a lot to take in. With the way these things can evolve I want you to have a strong support system in place ASAP. 

Tangled 

   The fact that your partner doesn't feel comfortable with "male culture," the conventionally masculine pursuits and attitudes, just means he's an unconventional man--an individual.  I'm a woman, a female, and I have NEVER felt comfortable with "female culture," or conventionally feminine pursuits and interests.  My sister hunts and fishes, runs heavy equipment, and built her own house.  Yet neither of us has ever felt that we were less of a woman because of it.  What we have felt is unhappy that society's beliefs about what is appropriate for women make us out to be faulty women.  That we are insufficiently feminine for some people is their problem, not ours to internalize.   Wearing jewelry--whether by me, my sister, or your partner--is not an expression of "womanhood."  It's a style choice, socially influenced to reflect socially constructed and policed gender norms.  Reject them or follow them, or embrace the other norm: it's an individual choice made to reflect one's personality.  ( P. S. I don't "identify" as a woman; I am one.  The whole idea of "identifying" as a woman or man is problematic: do you think the girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria could "identify" out of their sex?  Or that the real problem is that their kidnappers and rapists "assigned them a gender"?  Please.)

I, too, am an academic, a tenured professor and former director of a women's studies program at the university where I taught for 30 years, with a PhD from an Ivy League institution (I say this not because I think I have a "brilliant brain" but to establish my own bona fides, as qualified to speak on this subject), and I simply do not understand--and reject--the current trend of linking what is a social construct--gender (in terms of "masculine" and "feminine")--to the essential or biological of man/male or woman/female.  It's a throwback to the Victorian era, when gender roles were normalized as biologically determined and ordained by God.  To be a woman was said to by nature make one passive and nurturing; to be a man one was said to be by nature active and aggressive.  To go against one's nature, to want what one was not supposed to want, was...unnatural.  Modern feminism has in large part been one long struggle to reject that idea.  Over the past half dozen years now, I've watched as those who argue they are progressive take up that old Victorian banner, and claim that an interest in wearing pink means a boy is really a girl.  Your partner's ideas of himself are a version of this gender ideology, a kind of "Gender Theory Lite." 

 You seem to be pretty grounded in reality--knowing that an interest in an activity doesn't "make" you a woman or a man.  Hold on to that.  

 For what it's worth, I was married to a "feminist man," a fellow academic with an interest in gender theory, who, after 32 years of marriage and at age 58, decided he was transgender.  He started where your partner is--with feeling repelled by "male culture" and wearing an earring--and "graduated" to wearing women's lingerie because he found himself sexy (to himself) while wearing it, and wanted me to be turned on by it, too.  

  I'm sorry to say this, but you're likely to be in for a very rough ride.  If you were asking for advice, rather than support, mine would be, based on what I went through and what I've seen, and heard from other women, get out now and avoid all the mind-fuck that he is going to put you through.  

 Also, go over to the Transwidows Escape Committee thread at Mumsnet, which is dedicated to women with transgender declaring spouses.  https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3898348-Trans-Widows-Escape-Committee-4-A-New-Hope?msgid=96172775#96172775

  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (December 8, 2020 9:08 am)