Not at all the same, but my daughter believes she is trans. (Yeah, double whammy for me as she came out right when I am discovered my husband’s secret) We have been supportive all along but me more than anyone else because I know what this is like... I would rather her go ahead and become who she feels she is with love and support but not drag anyone through the emotional turmoil at some later time in life. It’s a process... I’m terrible with the pronouns and don’t like the names she/he has chosen but I will grow and learn. The hardest part for me is when my daughter is learning and educating me on all things gay and I’m having a hard day with her dad... some days are too much gay for me and I simply cannot escape it.

Found it:
Feb 28, 2018
Kel,
  The issues are confused with the trans situation.  With a gay/lesbian revelation, the situation is clear: your spouse wants someone of the same sex: a male feels desire for a male; a female feels desire for a female.  If you're the straight spouse in such a situation, there's really not much you can do to accommodate that desire and situation.  GID spouses might use the bi ruse to avoid admitting the truth to themselves and others, but as we've seen, it's more often a ruse than the truth--and even when it's the truth, the bi spouse in a monogamous marriage can choose not to act on a same sex attraction (just as the straight spouse chooses not to act on opposite sex attractions). 
 With a trans spouse, there is no such clarity.  A husband suddenly announces to his wife that he is or wants to be a woman, and he can say !) I still love and desire you, but as a lesbian, and want to remain in the marriage, but as your wife; 2) I want to be with men because having sex with a man who desires me as a woman will make me feel validated as a woman; or 3) I want to have the freedom to have sex with both men and women, because I want both validation by men but still feel attraction to women.
  Only with the second scenario is the future remotely clear, and it it analogous to a man who comes out to his wife as gay: a man who becomes a transwoman and wants to be with men is not going to be happy staying with his wife.  
   In scenarios 1 and 3, the straight partner encounters the confusion of still being desired by the trans partner, and, when the trans partner opts to only partially transition (such as taking hormones/having breast augmentation but retaining his genitalia), or remains closeted and dresses only in private at home, the straight spouse is further confused by seeing what appears to be the partner one has always loved still there--the same, or a recognizably same but altered, body.  It's confusing and comforting and alienating and traumatizing all at the same time.  I've said before that what this felt like to me was that suddenly my husband brought home a new woman and installed her in my marriage, my home, and my marriage bed, and said, I love her and you must love her, too.  If your partner just brought home another woman, you'd say, Hell no.  But when that other woman is at the same time your partner, the person to whom you're married?  And your partner after all belongs in your home and your bed?  A mind fuck of a very specific and different order. 
   Add to this the fact that although we use "trans" as an umbrella term, there are two very specific varieties of trans for men.  One is the stereotypically feminine boy who always wanted to be a girl (and is not otherwise, as studies indicate many such boys are, going to grow up to be a gay man); this type of trans woman typically desires men; the other is a male with autogynephilia, a boy with an unproblematical boyhood, doing boy things, until, typically adolescence, when the condition manifests, and the boy "borrows" his mother's or sisters' clothing and masturbates while wearing them.  In that case it is not just a case of "I want to be a woman"--what we refer to as "gender identity."  It's a sexual desire: I want to dress like, act like, be, a woman because it makes me sexually excited to dress like, act like, and imagine myself as a woman.  Lots of times this desire manifests at adolescence, and then is repressed, or recedes, or appears periodically, all the while the man is living an otherwise unproblematic life as a man, perhaps to manifest once again later in life as a full-fledged fever (often leading to transition). 
    [edited out material not germane to this thread]
  That the straight partner is still recognizably the partner, and still says, "I love you" and "I want you" is, I believe, the reason so many of us spend so much time concerned with what the trans spouse wants or needs--or who the person is!  Each straight partner in a trans situation works out what the bright line is: mine initially was "If you go ahead with transition, I can't stay married to you. I'm unwilling to be the wife of a transwoman."   When my stbx [now ex] decided he would stay in the closet and simply act out his sexual desire with me, I wanted, as his spouse committed to marriage to him, to accommodate him.  I had no idea of the way autogynephilia would affect him and how his need would escalate and how acting as a woman would push him to believe in this woman he was acting out.   

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (January 16, 2021 8:38 am)

LostAtSea,
   I'm sorry this happened to you and that your stbx has exhibited the same narcissism and lack of empathy so many of us have experienced as part of our partners' transformation.  
   It is excruciating and traumatic to lose one's spouse to this madness.
  If you can possibly see a therapist who is trained in trauma recovery, I hope you will.  

Yes, we are going to be getting lots of professional help.  There is no way to explain this to children and have a net positive.