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I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. I am in a similar situation, though in my mid-thirties with a 6 year old. This past week my transgender husband (I will not call him "wife") said he will get his own place. We've been married 16 years. He has completely disregarded my feelings of shock and sadness. He seems excited to not have to deal with being a dad/husband anymore.
I have no advice except to try and find what makes you happy. I'm working on rebuilding myself apart from him. After being married for so long I can't remember where he ends and I begin. I'm going to take a yoga class and maybe a French class. Be a little selfish...he sure is.
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Very frustrated right now. Here's where we're at.
She:
All of this is terror and comfort, certainty and confusion, excitement and intermittent despair, all at once.
Me:
I know, and I wish I could support you, but you're not giving me a way to do that—except by altering nothing about our relationship and having no feelings about the fact that you repeatedly look to other people for comfort and celebration.
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Very frustrated right now. Here's where we're at.
She:
All of this is terror and comfort, certainty and confusion, excitement and intermittent despair, all at once.
Me:
I know, and I wish I could support you, but you're not giving me a way to do that—except by altering nothing about our relationship and having no feelings about the fact that you repeatedly look to other people for comfort and celebration.
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I have no experience with trans ..only a cheating suddenly gay now ex (I will not call her bi..she never liked guys).
..
I like Hellobrittys reply..take a yoga class for yourself.. build a support system for you.. a therapist for you, etc.
It feels selfish..I felt guilty if I had to worked late or brought a cup of coffee..
We love our partners..we build our life around them.. we give unselfishly and love fiercely, support them...suddenly we don't know who we were without them. That would be ok ..
But.. how is it then that we are doing the "pick me dance" against another lover, another sexual identity, an alien spaceship?? Why , if they love us like they say or vowed, do we need to compete against anything?
Only when I stepped back and realized I could not control what my GX did anymore than the tides or earth's orbit did start to get a sense of the debilitating selfishness and narcissism that I was living under.
In a sentence..take that yoga class. Go for a bike ride. Watch what your partner does in response. Could tell you all you need to know.
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So sorry for what you are going through. One of my boyfriend's friends told me that he came to his house with one of his deceased wives dresses on, a wig, and makeup. If you could see my boyfriend you would see that he would make a very ugly woman. I have a gay, cross dressing boyfriend. You can put lipstick on a pig, but the pig is still a pig.
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Suzuki,
Having gone through a similar experience, I can relate.
Re: your partner's expressions of terror/comfort; excitement/despair - Yes, my trans-identifying husband went through that too. At a certain point we mutually decided to call it quits. The very next day he detracted everything saying, "it's not fun anymore." I think the forbidden aspect has a certain appeal. Also I do not understand why so many people are declaring that they are the wrong gender, just over the last decade or so. I think it's because the general stigma has decreased, yet this is still considered edgy and different. My husband historically craved attention from strangers.
Re: your frustration over not finding a way to support him, and his reaching out to others for comfort and celebration. If your situation is anything like mine, you will not win. (And maybe that's a positive thing.) If his transformation is against your beliefs and what you want in a relationship, you have no duty nor responsibility to support him. And if he is reaching out to the trans community for comfort and celebration, THEY are not going to support YOU. I found this out the hard way. My husband's trans therapist told him if I didn't like what he was doing, I could go f**k myself. Real nice. Not to sound bitter (well I guess I am), but I think they want more people to be like them and they will encourage anyone who expresses an interest in this lifestyle.
By the way, my husband revealed all this to me 10+ years into our relationship, when we were both in our 60s. We are divorced now.
You may have additional obstacles to deal with as COVID restrictions are loosened. My ex was obsessed with drag queen shows and gay pride events - which I am sure will be returning soon.
Good luck. I am sorry you are going through this.
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suzuki b wrote:
....
Hey there Suzuki. When I was a few months into this Mindfuck, though my partner is bisexual not trans.... ( trans is a whole other bag of issues I've learned ).…I had a dream one night that my partner and I were walking beside a river but he was pushing his bicycle. I spotted something in the river. The river was quite fast-moving and the bank of the river quite short and as I reached down to pick up what I realized was a wallet I looked up to see my partner hadn't waited for me. In fact he had managed to lift his bike over a fence and was actually walking away from me unconcerned that I had stopped/might fall in/lagged behind. I can remember feeling an enormous loss and sadness, didn't know what it meant, if anything, but when I told him about it he was as unconcerned and dismissive as the man in the dream.
Elle
Last edited by Ellexoh_nz (May 14, 2021 1:54 pm)
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Ellexoh_nz wrote:
suzuki b wrote:
....
..was actually walking away from me unconcerned that I had stopped/might fall in/lagged behind. I can remember feeling an enormous loss and sadness, didn't know what it meant, if anything, but when I told him about it he was as unconcerned and dismissive as the man in the dream.
Elle
Many here would have stopped and helped you. And that is the difference between us and them.
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Leslie77 wrote:
.. Also I do not understand why so many people are declaring that they are the wrong gender, just over the last decade or so. I think it's because the general stigma has decreased, yet this is still considered edgy and different. My husband historically craved attention from strangers.
Leslie - idk of course, but my instinctive take is that there really are more transpeople than in previous generations - but also they are persuasive, there is this thing about young people being persuaded by their trans peers that they are trans too when they aren't.
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Rob wrote:
Many here would have stopped and helped you. And that is the difference between us and them.
The fact it was a dream, and that it was at the beginning of the whole "feeling that something wasn't right between us"
stage...makes me feel....now....that it was a premonition. A bit freaky & weird
MJM....'hugs'..
Elle