cudlescat
    I'm so sorry, but I'm glad you are here, where you can say whatever you're feeling without fear of judgment, and where in writing down your thoughts you can begin to get some clarity and control.  We have all gone through the same sense of shock and bewilderment.  You are not alone, and you will find in reading our stories situations and realizations that will ring true for you.  I say this from experience.  I, too, have a husband who after many years of marriage (33, in my case) suddenly sprung on me the declaration that he had decided he was transgendered and wanted to transition to life as (if he were) a woman.  I, too, heard the "I've felt this since I was a child" and experienced that sexual experimentation and high...until it became clear that my husband's version of "woman" was a sexist fantasy of feminine submissiveness and that the more he indulged in that fantasy the more he wanted and the more it spilled out of the bedroom.  
   I have been on this forum since last September (I got here after a year and a half spent in my husband's closet after his disclosure, so you're WAY ahead of me!), long enough now to have seen woman after woman writing in with similar versions of our stories--"my partner of XX years has decided he wants to be a woman; he is wearing my clothes and lingerie to bed; he is convinced that this is something he's felt since he was a young child; he wants to stay married to me and be in a 'lesbian' relationship and doesn't understand why I have a problem with this; he isn't thinking about our children or me or anything but himself."  
   What helped me was to learn that although it felt very very individual and personal, unique to my situation, my husband's behavior is part of a pattern, one with very clear outlines. My husband, and yours, too, I think you will discover, has a condition called "autogynephilia," or "the love of oneself as a woman."  It's a condition in which a man derives sexual pleasure from feminizing himself--wearing women's clothing, acting like a woman in bed, etc--and it has been well described in the psychological literature.  J. Michael Bailey's "The Man Who Would be Queen," which is available for free on the internet, contains a very good profile of the behaviors.  The work of Anne Lawrence (a MtF transwoman) is also useful and helpful.  Reading their work helped me to feel less lost at sea, because I saw that my husband fit a profile and was acting to pattern. I could see it from the outside and with an overview, rather than feeling it from inside the maelstrom at  home.  Reading the blog "Transwidow (My Only Path to Power)," also helped, in that I saw in her situation much that I was experiencing in mine.
   Now to some specifics of your post:
   You are not "insensitive."  Feeling angry and cheated is a rational response to what your husband has sprung on you.  Your husband, on the other hand, is not rational and is not capable of rationality.  He is suffering from dysphoria and wants only to get lost in the high he feels when in the "pink fog" of acting out and dressing up. Everything he says and does he will do in the service of that, which is why he gets angry when you bring reality into the discussion. That means you must be self-protective for yourself and your sanity and for your daughter.  
     It's unlikely your husband will see reason and understand that he needs to get help to understand how to treat his dyphoria, and if he does, he's likely to find therapists who will tell him the only way to treat it is to give in to it, because right now all things trans are in the air and even in fashion, and there are many voices out there to tell him that yes, despite his male biology and socialization, he can be a woman or has always been a woman, and he deserves to be a woman.  If he finds a therapist, he'll likely find one who is in agreement with this narrative and encourage your husband to treat his dysphoria by "transitioning" (acting and dressing in a feminine way...as if that's what a woman is!).  
   You asked what do you do at this point.  The first thing you do is to get help and support for yourself.  Writing to the forum here was your first step.  If you haven't already, please reach out to a family member or trusted friend.  Call a therapist, one who will support you. One thing you know for sure: if the situation is causing you such pain that you find yourself fantasizing about dying, then you definitely cannot keep "living this way." 
   
   

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (May 27, 2017 6:30 am)

Hi cudles, 

Welcome to the forum.  I'm so sorry you are here and you have to go through this period of life.  You certainly didn't deserve a husband who wants to turn into a woman.  That is not what you signed up for.  

Please continue to post here, read here, communicate with our family.  We have a number of women like OOHC who posted already who share the same experience and can give you a wide array of advice.   

We are here for you!
 

Trunte,
 Shock is the logical and first response to what you're experiencing.  This revelation leaves you reeling, casting about for anchorage.  You're reacting to it by resorting, as is normal, to the norms of your married life--seeing this as something you're in together, trying to approach this as a couple, seeking joint help, etc.  Your husband, by contrast, is not reacting as part of a couple or as a father of two daughters; he's acting unilaterally on what HE wants, without regard for you and your children, and expecting you to adjust.  He's decided what HE wants to do and is doing it ("started dressing up in casual women's clothes when going out"; "he has said he thinks he will transition fully").  You say "our way of communicating has altered" and "our way of doing things together has changed."  Look at the way you put that: without an agent (I'm speaking grammatically).  But your husband is the agent here: he has altered your communication; he has changed the way that things are done. 
   You say you "don't know if it's 'normal' to act so fast on that desire he suddenly feels," and the answer to that is "yes," and the reason for this is that the desire to feminize the self works like an addiction, the more you feed it the more it wants, and the person in the grip of the high wants more and more and more, because it feels so good.  
   At this point, while you are in a period when you have agreed not to make "hasty decisions" (although your husband has already started going out in public in women's clothes and has already said he will transition fully, which seems pretty hasty for three weeks!), it would be helpful for you to start focusing on yourself--what kind of marriage and life YOU want--and to see a therapist for yourself (and not one who thinks his/her job is to "educate" you on your duties to your new trans wife).
   Do you want to be the wife of a trans person?  Do you want your entire life to be focused around trans issues (because it will be)?  Are you willing to commit joint finances to the expense of SRS?  Are you willing to accept the changes and challenges of your husband's transition, the personality changes occasioned by hormomes, his chemically and surgically altered body, one that will require constant tending to maintain its resemblance to a female's body?  Could you be in a sexual relationship with him as a trans person?  Do you want your girls to grow up without a father but with a trans person who is neither mother nor father?  
   He has changed the terms of your marriage, and now you need to decide what boundaries you will set for yourself and your girls.  Right now, his "full speed ahead" mode, driven by his immersion into the "pink fog" of his addictive pleasure, has you reacting: he's driving everything and you're trying to catch up.  You need to alter that dynamic of his acting, you reacting.  Do you want your girls to see him in women's clothes?  Are you willing to let him spend money on a whole new wardrobe?  If not, you need to set those boundaries of what is acceptable to YOU and what YOU are comfortable with.  
  I suggest you start your own thread, too, so it's there for you to think aloud and get a little clarity for yourself, and rant when necessary.  You've probably already read around on the forum, but do that, too.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (June 1, 2017 8:41 am)

Thank you outodhiscloset and Kel for the replies. I will start another thread. Sorry for hijacking your thread here cudlescat. I hope you are finding support?