Elle,
   I'm sorry that your Xmas was so terrible.  I think you're being too hard on yourself to say the "pit of aloneness" is of your own making.  You're not the one who decided to disguise his sexual orientation and hide in an outwardly appearing hetero relationship.  You're not the one who manipulated your partner into opening the relationship in order to satisfy that sexual orientation without being honest.  You're not the one who declared he was a woman, or the mother who decided to pretend this was true.  These developments inevitably reverberated throughout your family structure, and each of your children is dealing with them in their own individual ways.  

All these developments and decisions are/were beyond your control.  They happened to you.  The only thing you could do was to navigate through them in a way that was true to your own values and self-protective of your mental health.  And I know that the road you took to get to the decisions you made was a long, hard, and well-considered one.  It took you a lot of strength to go through with your decision to leave, especially as it left you financially vulnerable.  

One thing I have discovered since I left my now-ex is that most people will compromise rather than make the hard choice, and that when we do make the hard choice, other people don't like having their routines or their comfortable structures and ideas disturbed.  Their response is often to "attack the messenger," so to speak, to turn their anger onto us, because we are the ones who force them to confront what they would prefer not to have to confront.  We end up bearing the further consequences of actions that were not ours originally, because we were unable or unwilling to ignore those actions or twist ourselves into accepting them, or just simply decide that the price of living with them was too great to bear.

Christmas has long been a fraught time for me, because my father, who was mentally ill and abusive, as well as damaged by his own childhood, often had a meltdown at Christmas, so I can remember violent outbursts and suicide threats and attempts, all tied to Christmas.  As a teenager and young adult I often longed for "a normal family" (it took me a long time to understand that no family is without problems, even if they weren't apparent to me). My father also killed himself on Dec 14 when he was 72 and I was 40, which meant he again exerted his bad effect on Christmas into the family life I had created with my then-husband and son, one I tried hard to made better than the one I'd had as a child.

  Leaving my now-ex, and my mother's death three years ago, necessarily has required I remake Christmas again.  It hasn't been easy, and I miss a lot of the rituals and connections I left behind when I left and divorced.  My adult son and I do still get together, which I am grateful for.  I am a secular Christian, meaning that although I was raised nominally as a Christian, I am no longer a believer, so that means I can't, as some others can, find my meaning in Christmas not in family get togethers but in the spiritual sense.   I don't have much family, anyway. When I was a child we lived 500 miles away from my father's side of the family, so I don't have close cousins, my mother's side of the family is gone, and my mother died three years ago.  My brother and I have never been close, and my sister and I, ten years apart in age, live 1700 miles away from each other.  

To me as an adult, Christmas has been about the season--up here in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice--and since my divorce I have focused on that aspect more, on its being the season of the returning light, and have lots of lights in my house. My sister is also not religious and celebrates Solstice, so although we live 1700 miles (2700 km) from each other, we exchange greetings, and I now also have a friend I get together with on the solstice itself.   I've tried to build in new traditions around the solstice while still keeping what I could of the old one, with its echoes of family get togethers, by seeing my son (I had only one child).  

  I know Christmas can be really cruel, and if you are the "just get on with it" or "stiff upper lip" sort (I am the former), you can be hard on yourself, too. 

I hope your 2026 gets better, 
OOHC

Hi Elle,
yes the holiday season is tough.  My first year I went and had xmas lunch with my new neighbours and much as I appreciated the invitation from them it was just wearying and emotionally painful to sit around at someone else's family celebration.  The next year I spent alone, I have learnt to coast along on the feeling of Christmas and tho I then went on to have Christmas lunches with a couple of local friends when it didn't happen this year I rather enjoyed my solo Christmas.  

I also want to second what OOHC said - it wasn't your fault, it just wasn't,.  

Thanks everyone...
OOHC...leaving A was of my own making though, and every time I think about it I can't help but know it was the best decision. While part of me is adrift of everything I know I'm resilient enough to just get on with it. OOHC a question... is there anybody in your life, besides your fellow straights, who really understands what you went through, and asks questions/is interested in the answers? 

BCG....nah I don't mind you praying for me. I'm not religious but when my youngest was a baby and developed a tumour my half-sister was in a prayer group and they prayed for him so I know the power of thought because it gave me comfort in a stressful time that there are people who care. 

Lily....yes I must admit having the house to myself was fine but not having family cognizant or concerned of how alone I might be....I was definitely miffed lol. But covered it up with that happy face that mothers put on.

Alex.....**Talking about elephants in the room....I gave A an elephant (ceramic) for xmas one year, as a token for the gigantic one he kept between us. He knew what it meant but he ignored/dismissed it/never mentioned it**

And yes exactly! all the good, happy, easy family r'ships/memories/xmas' have been fractured with....well, kids growing up, moving away, living lives that don't sit well with others, personal choices. 

Two xmas' ago, even though we were separated, A and I had xmas dinner with many of the family who celebrated when the kids were growing up and the world was a different place. We all had a lovely time. And now 2 years later I have nothing to say to some of them who I realise kept this secret and I believe changed the path they walked but also unfairly drew my son into their "what happens in secret club stays in secret club" as well. 

At least I can choose my friends right? because some of my family are fucked up.
E

Omg! I perhaps wrote this and unwittingly let you all think the secret my son has kept for ten years is about  my former partner. No no....I apologise if that's how it reads and for using our Forum to vent (I could kick myself) but this secret has to do with my son's cousin  and when it came out just about every r'ship in my family disintegrated from "don't message me again" to me and texts of blame (enabler!) and anger (how could you keep this secret!" to my son. Also ultimatums of "him (the cousin) or us" 

The subject of it (the secret) is the most disgustingly vile thing that I don't even want to type the word on my laptop. This scourge, this stain on my family has changed everything. It pushes all I have going on in my life on to the backburner because that's what mothers do. 

Actually I am going to type the word into this Forum's Search, to check if it's a topic that's been discussed.
Again....apologies for any confusion

E

Elle: That's a tough question to answer.  I think the only people who really understand what I went through are other women who went through having their spouses declare they were "women in men's bodies."  We empathize with each other from the perspective of having experienced it. They understand it because they lived through it.   I don't know any of these people "in real life" (IRL, as the acronym has it), but I've corresponded with them on boards and privately.  I've also found a measure of understanding from people here with gay/bi spouses, because our experiences are similar enough, and our pain in finding out our spouses are not what they represented themselves to be, and the subsequent actions and attitudes of our spouses are also similar.

There are others who don't understand it from the perspective of having lived it, but have expressed sympathy for my situation and said the experience must have been difficult or traumatic.  They could, that is, take the imaginative leap that enables empathy.  Because I'm a writer, and have written about my experience with my trans-identifying ex, and several of my friends have read what I wrote, that may have helped them empathize with/understand what I experienced and how it affected me.  They don't really follow up with questions, I've found, especially of the "how are you coping" or "how can I help" variety.  Sometimes someone I don't know well, upon hearing the two-sentence reason I divorced--"I had a late life divorce, after my husband of 32 years announced out of the blue that he'd decided he was a woman in a man's body and wanted to transition. I stayed with him for three years after that announcement, but couldn't stay any longer."--will say, "That must have been hard for you," which I have come to appreciate, because it's actually rare.  Sometimes someone will ask follow up questions, but often these are questions that innocently cause hurt, because they suggest I should have known, like "He must have given you hints over the years, though, right?"  I decided this kind of questions comes from a self-protective impulse on the asker's part: no one wants to think something like this could happen to them, so they look for a way to insulate themselves, by offloading the possibility onto me. 

  I will say it was both surprising and disappointing how many people have responded first (or exclusively) with an expression of sympathy not for me, with whom they are interacting at the moment, but for my ex ("That must have been so difficult for him, living a lie.").  I know that comes from the society-wide current of knee-jerk sympathy for the closeted, but it still surprises me that someone could be that insensitive.  Sometimes I'll say, "It was no picnic for me, either, having that bomb dropped on me."  I tend to take a cue about whether I want to pursue a friendship or relationship with the person if I encounter that response.  

 Gender critical feminists have been, really, the only ones who have been really interested in the details, and that is because they begin and proceed with solidarity with women, and are working to protect women's rights. It was so healing and helpful to be interviewed by Vaishnavi Sundar for her film on "transwidows," "Behind the Looking Glass." 

Sympathy, empathy, solidarity.  It's a continuum.  I'm glad to have found all of these when and where I've found them.  It's helped.   I hope, Elle, that you have found a little of that support, because I know that taking the stance you have on your grandson's trans identity has cost you personally.  (At least I could divorce my husband!)


 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (Yesterday 11:08 am)