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- Soaplife
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Marianne, Mira Kirschenbaum's book really helped me too in deciding to leave a long term abusive marriage (TGT came out a bit later). Made me face the truth when every single answer was too bad to stay.
Its a long road through, processing anger, sorrow, grief, loss, loneliness, disappointment, ... it can be a bit cyclic and certainly isn't a linear process.
Give yourself time, let yourself feel, find a counsellor or therapist to help you. Start thinking about a script for telling people so its eadier to do so. Find a lawyer and get info about divorce, have as little contact as possible with your husband, look after your own health - rest, diet, exercise.
You didn't cause any of this and you are not responsible for his choices. Eventually you will see your way towards rebuilding your life and regaining your sense if self again. The less cobtact you have with him the quicker it will happen.
Have patience ... be kind to yourself. You feel overwhelmed and broken now but 40 is young and you will recover. (I had my last baby at 41 so there is for you definitely a life still full of possibilities to be lived)
My marriage imploded st 55, it was awful and I was terrified. But putting one front of the other, I am now 60 and my life is happy and peaceful. I shudder to think what it would be like had I stayed married.
You will get through. ((Hugs))
Last edited by Soaplife (January 1, 2022 11:37 pm)
- Marianne
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Thank you for your kind words, Soaplife.
I already have a therapist and I feel like I have a lot of work to do.
It may not be so critical for me to avoid my husband. He's never been abusive and we are still good friends. Most answers from the book were not so clear for me. There was only one clear indication to leave: changing to a woman was the bottom line for me. One that simply makes marriage impossible. One that would make my spouse physically repulsive for me.
Other problems were:
- he is on the autistic spectrum and many simple things are sometimes a huge problem (like traveling, eating in a restaurant, meeting new people, being around kids, loud sounds, any unexpected situation). It was OK when we met but it has been worse and worse over the years. I wouldn't leave because of it (it would not feel right) but I would certainly feel relieved to live a normal life again without these crazy problems.
- he has many childhood traumas and was never willing to do anything about it. This is actually the first time he was willing to go to therapy. The never ending depression and anxiety made the relationship really hard at times. But I wouldn't leave because of this, either. There was always hope it would improve.
So the trans thing was the real deal-breaker for me.
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Thread Starter- OutofHisCloset
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Marianne,
My sympathies on the need to leave your marriage, but your reasoning that when "the male name written on our marriage certificate was a "dead name", then the marriage was also dead" is sound. Your feeling about your husband "dying" (and also that he's been "murdered") is why so many of us refer to ourselves as "trans widows."
PS: RE your information that your stbx is autistic: people with autism or on the spectrum are overrepresented among the trans-identified.
Again, my sympathies. It does seem that if you are able to go forward in the spirit in which you wrote your latest entry, you will be ok.
Last edited by OutofHisCloset (January 2, 2022 5:56 pm)
- Marianne
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Some days I'm certain that I need to go on without my husband to keep my own sanity. Other days I desire to stay when I feel some echo of the old relationship.
Maybe I would be able to stay in an asexual, friendly relationship. That was one option we've discussed. But there is one thing preventing me from choosing it.
I have a feeling that this new "identity" is somehow not real and that it will not make my husband happy. Maybe less unhappy and depressed than he is now, but not really content and comfortable like other people tend to be. I recently read this thread about gender euphoria being a sort of addiction and coping mechanism and it closely matches my experience. You know... my husband experienced something similar before. When we met, he embraced Christianity as a coping mechanism and seemed really happy, living active life, overcoming his fears and depression. (And another happy period in his life was even before we met, when he was interested in esoteric stuff.) But it was just a mask. His new obsession about trans community somehow feels familiar. But I have a feeling that it will be another mask. Better fitting than the previous one, maybe, but still a mask.
My gut feeling is that he lacks a solid personality and that's why he is able to change to an exact opposite almost instantly. If he does not find his value in himself, not just some group he belongs to, he will never be happy.
I'm fully aware that this may be just my hurt feelings speaking and maybe I underestimate him.
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Thread Starter- Marianne
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
OutofHisCloset: I know that autism and trans-identification or bisexuality is a common combination. In fact, my husband only learned about his autism in trans online community by meeting other autistic people and feeling close connection to them.
I have two autistic attributes myself: some social occasions are rather difficult for me and I have to make conscious effort to say the right things (but I generally enjoy it). And I'm sensitive about clothes, wearing mostly soft, comfortable materials. I tried an online test and I barely score enough for Asperger's syndrome 
Last edited by Marianne (January 3, 2022 8:03 am)
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Thread Starter- lily
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Hi Marianne,
You might not be under estimating your husband so much as over estimating him. Don't know quite how to put this but when I read your posts I shudder like I have this feeling that you are embracing something cold.
Writing that makes me realise that's exactly what I did with my ex. My warmth and love embracing a nothingness.
What I see now is that the person I loved was fake. Yes a real body but a misrepresentation of himself to such a degree that when I hugged him I was hugging a crafted fake persona - not him.
My thoughts are that any thinking about what makes him happy should be put on the back burner for a while - put all your effort into protecting yourself.
being trans is more than being in a group. Religious beliefs bind people together into communities but he probably has found his people now, hasn't he.
Last edited by lily (January 3, 2022 10:50 am)
- Marianne
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Lily: "cold" is not the right word (he is actually gentle and understanding, but I only wrote about negative things so far).
"Nothingness" is much more fitting. I often had that feeling even before all these new revelations: embracing nothingness, not really knowing the person next to me, no matter how much I cared to know him.
Trying to make him happy has always been doomed to fail.
Last edited by Marianne (January 3, 2022 12:02 pm)
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Thread Starter- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Marianne wrote:
... My gut feeling is that he lacks a solid personality ......
Great description.... Elle
KIA KAHA
- lily
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
yes indeed. same with my ex, no making him happy - it is a cruelty to have put me in the position of trying to make him happy. I like the term nothingness too but I stand by my use of the term cold. what else are you going to call it. just in simple logic you give the warmth of your love and don't get any warmth back - that's cold.
It's a warning. I remember how I thought of my husband like he was a teddy bear I could hug him and feel safe. Then I started to see him as having the coat of a teddy bear for me. That's the point at which reality started to seep in through the cracks in his deception. It was a bit distressing not that I had any frame of reference at the time, really I had no idea how distressed I was at the time. It is only looking back I can see that and how I started looking away from him then.
- Soaplife
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Re: My husband turned my life upside down
Until he has been tested by a psychiatrist and diagnosed ADHD, that is just an excuse not a reason. He should get a diagnosis and if he is ADHD try medication and therapy. That helped my son hugely with his identity issues.
Past trauma, NPD and BPD can manifest in similar ways to ADHD.
And gentle awkward people can also be very manipulative. No one type has a monopoly!