My (male) spouse also decided he was transgender.  (Full disclosure: I stayed for three years after his announcement, but ultimately left, and divorced him.)

Here's one bit of wisdom and maybe advice garnered from my experience.  It was extremely helpful for me to periodically take time away from our home.  I found that being out of the maelstrom of his emotions and the pressure I felt to support him gave me time and space to think about myself: what I was comfortable with, what I wanted in a marriage, what I wanted in a spouse.  My spouse was thinking only of himself, and was thinking of me only in terms of how I could support him, and while I was at home with him, I, also, was thinking mostly of him, and when thinking of myself I was thinking of myself in relation to what he wanted and expected of me.   When I was with him, it was a matter of  "Can I stay?" and "What can I tolerate?", whereas when I was alone it was a matter of "Do I want to stay?" and "Do I want my life defined by and revolving around my husband's issues of identity?" 

For what it's worth, I had several moments of clarity, of various types.  One type had to do with sexual orientation.  My spouse's appropriation/approximation of what he took to be female sexuality and lesbianism became distasteful to me, and his approach to sex ever more selfish.  He defined what he was was comfortable with, and that defined the parameters of our sexual activity.  I become less and less satisfied with his idea of woman and sexual expression, and less and less satisfied with having to repress my own heterosexual desire. 

Clarity also came to me from an ever increasing understanding of just how massively self-centered and self-absorbed my spouse had become, and how unempathetic he was to my feelings.  Any hesitation, question, discomfort I had or expressed he saw as an attack on him.  The only position I could occupy in relation to him and his ever moving goalposts was total unquestioning acceptance, which he believed he was entitled to.   

It's a very tough position to be in.  I suggest that you look up transwidowsvoices.org and transwidowsescapecommittee on mumsnet: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4236287-trans-widows-escape-committee-5-and-so-it-continues

Kay Belle,
    I can only speak to my own experience, but my experience does echo that of others who have found themselves in our situation.

   One effect of our spouse's changes is to muddle our own understanding of our own femininity and sexuality.  While I was with my now-ex, and he was proclaiming he was and had always been a lesbian, and intimated that I must have intuited that, I even started questioning whether I had always had lesbian tendencies. (For the record, I have no lesbian experiences, nor have ever wanted any.  And I am not homophobic. I am a huge feminist and have sometimes wished in my life that I were lesbian.  But I am emphatically hetero.)  I also realized the extent to which my ex has subtly over the years encouraged and discouraged certain gender expressions in me.  He had never responded to feminine expression on my part, so I stopped doing those things (wearing lingerie, for example--it turned out HE wanted to wear those things).  That has been one of the most difficult aspects of recovery for me.  (I was also married for 35 years, a long time to be manipulated).  

If you read my story on the transwidowsvoices.org webside (under "Alison's story), you will see that for a while the sexual aspect of our relationship was wildly exciting to me.  Until it wasn't.

I will also say that I, too, didn't want to lose our inside jokes, our little bits of language--those "intricacies" and intimacies.  But now that I have been divorced for three years, on my own for four, I don't miss them.  Or, rather, I have discovered that I still have all those little jokes, and I take pleasure in recognizing them for myself.  That is, turns out that I didn't need him to enjoy them.  I just thought I did. 

 Here's another thing I discovered: when I was with him, I thought a lot about what I'd lose.  And because the future was as yet unwritten, I couldn't see what I might gain.  Now that I'm living that future, I am amazed at how peaceful it is, how little I am now anxious, how much less I question, berate, and doubt myself and my worth.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (January 27, 2022 4:38 pm)