Confused - they really know how to mess with us, don't they? 

Whisky in one hand, phone in the other. You need a lawyer and a divorce, stat.

You can't afford therapy that might help you, but he can afford to pursue all his fetishes (its not cheap).  All about him and nothing about you.

Now is the time to make you your first priority.  Get out with what you can, work on recovery, and rebuild.  Better at five years than 25 - ask me how I know.

Its devastating to have to admit that your marriage that you entered into with love is dead - toast.  I hope you can make good decisions now that will benefit you long term despite short term difficulty.

Dear Confused,
     You seem to indicate that for you the decision to leave hinges on whether he is "really" trans or not (you seem to be willing to overlook the cheating).  But whether your husband is trans-identifying or not, he is deeply engaged in sexual activity that excludes you, and has shown you more than once that he is a person with a compulsion for this activity, and that he's not willing to relinquish this pursuit. Out of the five years of your marriage, he's spent three of them pursuing this compulsion of his.  He is a person with a disordered personality, and the question for you is whether you are willing to continue to be yoked to such a disordered person.  

 I speak as a person who divorced my trans-identifying spouse, who for years before I knew it was satisfying his similar compulsion online (and in other ways).  I, too, clung to the hope that he would "come to his senses."  I, too, thought I needed to know "what" he was--to label (diagnose) him.  Only after some years was I able to say to myself, "This is who he is.  He's been at it for six years that he's owned up to.  He's not going to change."  It took me years to realize that my desire for a label or a diagnosis was part of my effort to "fix" him; if I knew "what he was," I could set about fixing the problem.  It took me years to give up the search for a label and my efforts to fix him and decide, as someone here has said (Abby?):  "Whatever he is, he's not for me. 

You're three years into knowing about his compulsion.  Accepting the reality, and accepting that we cannot change them, is a high hurdle. I hope you can get over it sooner rather than later, because the longer you stay, the more misery and damage you will experience.  He, of course, will not want you to leave, and try to convince you to stay, and try to convince you that you are the one at fault for wanting to leave, but this is self-serving on his part.  

  You can't change him.  You cant make him stop.  You can't make him want to stop.  You can't save him.  Save yourself.

 

 

Thank you all for your kind words. Actually I could accept the Trans part but the cheating not so much this time. The only thing is, as I explained to him with the Trans part, our relationship would change. I'm not attracted to women. This seems to surprise him, but it's out in the open for him to consider. He says he would never be able to transition without my help. I'm not feeling very helpful right now because he cheated. 

Yeseterday, I said this is not just about you. There are two people, and this involves me as much as you. We're going to talk about my feelings as much as yours.

I don't know if I believe hynosis can 'turn you into a woman' but it seems odd that as long as he's done that is as long as he's felt like he was trans. So there is a part of me that wonders if it's all just a fetish, and not one that I share or would want to share.

I know that the hypnofetish site was free (I checked) but I don't know if he's paid Pro Dommes/Mistresses. Maybe the question is, how can I not afford counsellling (for myself).

This whole thing is just. . .I barely have words for it. I feel like, in a way, because of how he's fetishized it, he's being insulting to people who really are trans and have always felt that way.

Confused1976

OutofHisCloset wrote:

My mistake.  When I read this in your initial post "At the moment, if he really is trans I don't see a future because I'm not attracted to women," I thought you were saying you would leave him if he were trans, not that you "could accept the Trans part" (what you say in your second post.

I'm sure that seems confusing. Well, hence the username. I don't see a romantic future but could possibly consider roomates.

C