This was a beautiful piece of writing.  Thanks for posting it here.  I read it the other day because it was posted on Chump Lady.   The comments on the CL website are just as valuable as the Crane Wife piece from the Paris Review:
https://www.chumplady.com/2019/07/devastating-writing-on-making-your-needs-small/

To all friends  here on the SSN--whether you log in regularly or you are a lurking reader:  Well worth your time to read the ChumpLady/ChumpNation discussion of this piece.  It gets at the core of the pain we deal with as straight partners when our spouses come out. At what point do our needs stop mattering?  How much can we accommodate?  The answers are different for each couple.  Reading the CL comments helped me put my own experience in relief against a broader picture.   I think it was one of the most helpful things I've read this past year.

I loved it as well and shared it on my FB page. 

When I first started counseling, the therapist asked me what I wanted. My attorney asked me the same question, and even my (now) ex did as well. Such a seemingly simple question. What do you want? What excites you? What are your passions, your dreams, your desires?

However, it was impossible to answer. I had long since discarded my dreams and adopted the dreams of my spouse and kids. I have been finding my way back to me, and I like what I'm finding and am determined not to lose myself again. I will no longer accept less than I need. I will not be erased or go extinct. 

I think this one - One’s own identity crisis - doesn't get enough consideration.
After many years in a relationship, we lose sight of our individuality and can't initially disentangle it from the larger whole.

Stronger,
   OMG.  The wife is now thinking of transitioning so that she can serve her spouse as male?!?!  That is some serious Stockholm Syndrome!!   The effects of the warping of my own sexuality and gendered behavior while with my then-spouse is something I continue to struggle with now that I'm free (divorced and no contact), and it was only after I left that I began to see how insidious and far-reaching it was.  I'm 15 months out from moving out, 8 months from divorce, and I still have not yet plumbed the depths of it.  I've only recently realized that I was subject to covert and subtle pressures over the course of my marriage, pressures that amped up when my ex, unbeknownst to me for three years, had decided he was trans.  I don't even know if what I'm doing is trying to recover a sense of self, because I'm not sure where I'd draw the line of when I was separated from my gendered and sexual self!  I think, in fact, that what I'm doing now is re-making that self.
   
     However, I feel so lucky that somewhere inside I have a self protective mechanism that seems to work apart from my conscious efforts, and kicks in when I absolutely need it. It has saved me from myself more than once.  I think it's the reason that when my father was abusing me sexually I was able to "send myself away" so that I was present but not present (disassociate).  I think it's the reason that although I was subtly manipulated for years, and after the trans reveal was caught up for a while in my ex's sexual fantasy life, my discomfort with it all finally reached the point that mechanism kicked in and I had to stop.  

   I know there are some on this board who think I'm too strong, or too negative about the possibilities of MOMs succeeding, or get angry with me when I push them, or think I give advice when I should listen and "support" wherever a poster is in his/her journey at the moment.  But this example, of a woman who has convinced herself that to "support" her spouse she now needs to remake herself to this extent, together with an understanding of just how I was able to convince myself it was a rational and desirable and positive thing to twist myself in psychological knots to justify to myself what really was self-destructive behavior in myself, is the reason I do and say what I do.  Because to me, "support" comes in a number of guises. I understand the necessity and utility of people simply listening; I understand the necessity and utility of sympathetic gestures of the "I hear what you're saying" variety.  But without apology I will say that whoever is "supporting" this woman in this delusion is not giving her support, they are supporting her self-erasure in the name of support. 

 
  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 30, 2019 10:17 am)

wow yes great piece of writing.  she is so right about burying our needs.  please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks her fiancé is gay.  

I know he had an affair with a woman but it strikes me as just the same as what my ex did - it is such a good cover.  'I slept with another woman.'   and gets you back into line if you are being too serious about your needs.  The truth is he was sleeping with men before he even met me.