"I have to be the one who eats it, you know."
 
I do know. My ex also decided he was "a woman in a man's body" after many years of marriage (32 years of marriage, in my case), and after initially declaring he was going to "transition" backed off that plan when he realized that he would never pass as a woman (he is 6'4", 300 pounds, and wears size 13 men's shoes, and does not look remotely like a woman).  He, too, decided he would continue to be the man he is in public and at work, but at home be "the woman he is inside."  As you say, this works out great for them, but is an  intolerable and unethical burden for them to place on us. My husband (now ex) and I were both professors, in the same department, with the same title and the same salary.  Yet I would fight the good fight of a woman in the workplace all day, having to demonstrate I was qualified to be there doing the work I was, while he enjoyed the respect for his views and his authority that he received simply by virture of his maleness, and then I would come home at night where I was expected to not just accept, not just affirm, but to celebrate his "woman-ness," which took the form of clothes and behavior that were pornified caricatures of woman. 

I heard the same thing, that he had "known" since he was a child, which was how he explained his action, at age 10 or so, of wearing his mother's slip, and drawing breasts on himself with her lipstick.  It turns out that my husband, like yours, had been taking my underclothing and wearing it.  Ask yourself: why is it that his belief he is a woman centers on sexualized clothing (impractical panties)?  

Your husband is an autogynephile, that is, a man who is sexually aroused by the act of pretending he is a woman.  You can look up the psychologist Michael Bailey's work "The Man Who Would be Queen" for a readable account of autogynephilia.  I remember reading the typology in that book with a dawinng understanding that my husband fit almost every point.  

Autogynephilia is very hard for those of us with normal sexualities (gay, straight, or bi) to get our heads around, and there are many permutations.  Most autogynephiles are otherwise heterosexual men who retain their attraction to women but redefine themselves as "lesbians."  To be affirmed as women is their dominant desire, whether that is with other women (to be treated as a "lesbian" by another women is affirming!), or with men.  Some autogynephiles do seek out sex with men not because they are gay, but because being desired in their woman guise and treated as a woman is affirming to their belief they "are" women. 

You are not a hypocrite.  Plenty of lesbians and bi women will tell you that they are attracted to both males and females, but not to trans identifying women (transmen) or trans identifying men (transwomen). 

At one time I posted a list of resources for women who are married to trans-identiying men.  You can search for it using my name (although I have made many, many posts in the nine years I have been on this Forum).  You might also benefit from looking up the documentary "Behind the Looking Glass," by Vaishnavi Sundar, which is available on Youtube.  The documentary itself is supplemented by longer interviews with the women in the film.  (My own interview is there, under "Alison").  You might also look up transwidowsvoices.org, and read the stories women in our situation have posted there.  

Happy to talk to you via the message feature, if you like.  

"Yet I would fight the good fight of a woman in the workplace all day, having to demonstrate I was qualified to be there doing the work I was, while he enjoyed the respect for his views and his authority that he received simply by virtue of his maleness..." 

Wow. This resonates so strongly with me. While we work in separate career fields, I have struggled deeply with this aspect of our dynamic. He has no idea what it is actually like to be a woman in this world and experience the struggle of fighting for our place in it. The things he takes for granted, simply for being male presenting, would never fly if he had been born a woman or accepted who he is and transitioned. I've pointed some of these inconsistencies out to him and they're met with blank looks or yeah-I-get-its. But he doesn't, not really. He wouldn't be in the powerful and respected position he has in his career if he was a woman or at least it wouldn't have happened for him as rapidly as it did. He's years ahead of his female counterparts and while I do believe he is a fantastic leader and very intelligent, I know his experience would have been different if he was female as well. 

Thank you for introducing me to autogynephilia and for your resource recommendations. I was not familiar with this term at all, and A certainly fits many of the criteria. What's interesting in his case is that his father was also a closeted cross dresser and his mother was deeply traumatized by the accidental discovering of his fetish and frequent infidelity. A has often referenced this as a reason for not coming out to the rest of the world as "it would kill her" and I don't disagree, but I certainly can't keep living like this. A's case is also interesting in that up until he was born, according to his mother, everyone thought he was a girl based on ultrasound imaging. It was a surprise to all that she gave birth to a boy. A also has an autoimmune disorder that is almost always found in women (it's not unheard of in men but is very uncommon) and took us a long time to get diagnosed because no one was looking for it. I've often wondered if A wasn't born intersex and his parents made some sort of decision at the hospital that day and never told anyone. There's no way to know as his dad has since passed and his mother would take information like that to her grave. All of this to say that I think A's initial feeling of being female was correct and natural, but she has since repressed and fetishized it to the extent that she is indeed an autogynephile. He has a lot of his own wounds to understand and heal and I've realized I can no longer bear the weight of holding it all for him. 

I've been perusing your older posts and resources and have found them extremely helpful. Also, just knowing there are other women out there like me who have been through this and come out the other side has really shaken me up and reinvigorated me to make the changes that are necessary for my well-being. I've been in therapy for years for this but it's mostly been a place to vent. We've changed tactics and are working through a plan to help me move forward. 

Thanks again!

I had to do a double take that I didn’t accidentally make 2 accounts. I could have written the beginning of  first post. I don’t know what else to say but I feel for you and wish you strength.

Your spouse's response to your telling him about your feelings is similar to what I experienced with my spouse.  My spouse was so focused on himself and his feelings, and so focused on my also being focused on his feelings, that there was no room for him (and no desire) to consider my feelings.  Soon after my spouse dropped his trans bomb (before I was manipulated into staying and "trying"), I told him I wanted to divorce, and he was going to have to talk to a therapist instead of me about his desire to transition.  He came home from one of his early meetings with this therapist (a trans-identified woman), and said, in a tone of surprised wonder, "Trey says you're grieving," as if he hadn't even considered the fact that I might have a response to his news he was trans that was different from his excitement about "finally living his truth."  And, like you, when I did try to articulate my feelings, my then-spouse did not hear them.  In fact, after one evening in which I was honest with him about the difficulties I was having with his "trans"-formation, he called that an attack, and later referred to that conversation as "what you did to me," as if my words were a hostile act.  

   I also experienced the "put it all back in the bottle" reaction, hide the clothes, no more talking about it, no more sex (as opposed to the sex we'd been having, with him adopting his woman persona).  The problem is, once you know, you know.  And you know that even when he's not talking about it, he's thinking about it.  It is not reasonable to expect that you could "go back to the way things were."  Nor was it reasonable to expect that having declared himself trans he could also have the marriage/partnership he had.  Decisions have consequences, and in this case, the consequence of his declaration is that it altered the dynamic between you, and that alteration carried the likelihood that you would see the alteration in your marriage/relationship as incompatible with your own sexuality and expectations of a partner.  

  When I read what you've written, one thing that stands out to me is the degree to which you seem to be blaming yourself, or taking on responsibility for what is not either your fault or your responsibility.  Instead of blaming yourself for "letting it go on so long," or taking onto yourself your spouse's accusation that he didn't tell you because he was afraid of losing you, consider that your spouse did not have the courage of his convictions, and now, instead of owning his decision, wants to offload it and the blame onto you.  That is revelatory of the same character trait that led him to lie about what he was feeling about himself all along, and decided to keep you in the dark, as he said, until he was sure you wouldn't leave.

I'm sorry you're struggling--leaving is not easy!--but glad that you are following through on your decision, rather than deep-sixing your feelings or capitulating to emotional blackmail and blame-shifting.