Spousal support

[sandra-leigh]

I need more time to digest before responding to the advice that has been kindly offered.

In the meantime, I noticed a pinknews article today about Michael Jordan's daughter coming out as gay in a social media post. Something she had previously written is interesting in the context of the discussion here,

“Until love, trust, honesty, respect, loyalty, commitment, genuine happiness and other characteristics or aspects I want in a relationship is defined by one gender then and only then will I discuss my sexual preference.”

I do not understand what she is trying to say about being defined by one gender, but the list of things she wants out of a relationship is a good one. I will need to think more about the extent that I have those in my relationship, and whether they are gone for good or are feasible to restore.

[Dawn cd]

Sandra, if an ordinary crossdresser can weigh in on this...your wife seems to believe that your transition is something you are choosing to do, instead of something that is happening to you. All those times when you supported her—her father's death, her mother's dementia, etc.—are sad but naturally occurring life events that cry out for support. Apparently she doesn't see your gender issues in that light, preferring to believe that you are freely choosing to impose them on her. Of course they change the dynamic of a marriage, but, hey, so can a severe automobile accident that also "just happens." It seems to me that you guys need to explore the nature of GD.

[sandra-leigh]

Good point, Dawn. Communication can be so hard sometimes.

[melissaK]

Sandra, It's ok if you still love her, and it's ok if you hurt and grieve over the deterioration or process of losing the relationship with her. That kinda change f'in hurts.

But you know you have no room left to compromise on this. You used all that mental energy up. You have to press on for your well being. You will be ok - support groups help. Whether she choses to be ok is entirely within her control. And there are support groups for her too, she has to want to go look for them though. Even FAB or SO forums here in the CD forum might be a start.

It's not easy. Most of the girls/women who have posted on your thread have been through it before us. Note, they are still alive. :-)

[Rachel Smith]

Stefan your first post hit the nail square on the head.

Sandra I understand how you feel because that is how I felt for a bit until I realized this is not my fault and her non acceptance is not hers. If you were a so called "normal" male and she came home one day and said, hon I am getting my breasts removed and getting a penis put on, how would you feel? Sometimes it helps to put the shoe on the other foot.

Hugs
Rachel

[FurPus63]

Lose everything. Unfortunately that's oh so true for so many of us in full-time transition. I didn't even consider it a possiblility that my wife would stay with me when I was considering transition. IMO it's a delusion to believe somehow it can happen. I'm NOT saying you're delusional so don't get me wrong and start flaming me, but it is a fantasy to believe this is going to happen. I would like to see a serious study done to determine the stats on this but I can't help but feel that it's got to be close to 90% of MTF's lose their wives in and/or during and/or because of transition. I know it hurts. It sucks! I loved my wife too. It was the hardest decision of my life to leave her, but it was the only way it could be for me. I left first, lived part-time for three months (I guess to see if it was for sure we were going to divorce) and then went for full-time.

There's some men in my local support group going through what you're experiencing and I wish they could come to grips with this hard cold fact of reality. Women don't want to be married to women! They just don't. Oh in those rare cases where the wife considers herself bisexual and can accept living as a lesbian or that even rarer case when the wife decides to stay with the spouse out of love and live a plutonic life with the spouse, but in most cases wives don't want this and divorce becomes inevitable. It's a cruel reality and makes it so much more clear that this needed to be taken into consideration by the person who is transsexual to not marry in the first place. So many of us try so hard to live life as male, get heavily involved in sports, join the military, date and marry women, etc.... in an attempt to "fight off" these feelings we've experienced since early childhood, only to discover later on that it is just impossible to do so...and then face the harsh reality of a marriage that needs to be disolved.

Transition is not easy for anyone. It's probably one of the hardest things a human being has to go through in this life. That's why we need to get honest with ourselves. It would be so much easier if we had gotten honest with ourselves and/or attended therapy early in life (teens or twenties) but we didn't because of one reason or another. My guess is that most of us who are over 40 grew up in a time when it was really unheard of to be transsexual and gender dysphoria was so unknown and misunderstood. In fact, only recently (last 10 years or so) has this disorder/condition become "popular" enough to be properly understood and handled correctly in the medical and psychological realm. As a Master Degreed therapist myself, I knew so little about it, I didn't even realize that's what was "wrong" with me!!! I repressed and surpressed my thoughts and feelings for so many years/decades that I didn't even know or understand myself until about 20 months ago! That's how little we were taught about this in school! Even among my fellow collagues and other therapists, transsexualism, gender dysphoria, etc..... wasn't even discussed or mentioned! When I came out at work at a local mental health agency 16 months ago, I was shocked by how little and how few therapists knew anything about this! Several admitted they had never even heard about it! So is it no wonder that so many of us have gotten married in an attempt to live as "normal" men?

So here we are. Most of us. Married with children, etc..... and now we want to transition and become women; and we want our wives, children and everyone else to understand and "get with the program."??? Really? I can remember feeling simular to the way you describe your feelings. "I stood by you when......" but that's an illusion at best. A departure from what is real. The truth is that there is no way in hell our wives can accept this. No way! To expect acceptance and support from someone who grew up their entire life as a girl dreaming of marrying a man only to find out the one they've met, fallen in-love with and married; wants to be a girl! OMG! The terror of it all for that person. Put yourself in her shoes. As someone who now wants to be a woman/girl/female; think about how different it is for them then for us (meaning we lived our lives thinking, acting, being, male/men, filled with testostorone, etc....). Have you started HRT yet? Estrogen (along with t-blockers) is a wonderful way for us to start thinking and feeling like women (more than ever) and these hormones on top of doing everything else (changing our bodies) also changes our brain chemistry. Changes the way we think and feel. As someone who now has the same amount of estrogeon and testostrogeon as a woman, I can now think, feel and imagine what it was like for my wife to experience the horror of the shocking reality that her husband wants to be a girl! I can have so much more empathy for her now than I did then (when she found out and we seperated). It's so much more clear to me than ever before.

Maybe someday when you've reached this point in your full-time transition, you'll look back on this time now; and have a better understanding of what she is experiencing. Then it may be possible to know just how she feels. I'm sorry this post sounds so negative but sometimes we need to take a long hard look at the reality of our situation. I'm just trying to help you begin that process.

Good luck to both of you. I wish you both peace.

Paulette

[PaulaQ]

Like I said before Paulette - the rate of divorce amongst cancer patients is real damn high too. It ain't just us. Modern marriage should really have more realistic vows - like "we promise to let no other come between us, unless they are just smokin' hot, and we will stay together as long as it is convenient for everybody."

There's lots of dumber reasons people get divorced. There's no need to beat ourselves up over this. Being TS mostly means you'll get divorced. It's not any more reasonable to expect us to have foreseen this in our past than it is to blame a cancer patient for getting cancer.

Shit happens, partners bail, end of the story. Sucks.

[DebbieL]

I am beyond upset today. Disappointed to some degree, hurt to some degree, but I think I still have a lot of "processing" to do on this.

Next week, I will start attending a limited-time facilitated support group. The support group is for people intending to transition to some degree or another, and if their past experience is an indication, there will be few traditional MTF, mostly FTM and (even more so) non-binary or "gender queer".

I am looking forward to it; it feels like a significant step or me to attend this, a real transition group. Like going mid-thigh deep into the water instead of just having the water lap around my ankles all the time while I try to figure out how good my swimming is. (Well, I'm metaphorically deeper than that already, but you get the idea.)

This is a very good idea, but don't let it become a substitute for your gender therapist. There will be opinions and experiences shared by members of a group like this which may need to be discussed with your therapist.

I had moved to Denver and away from my first gender therapist, and couldn't afford the sessions for a while. I connected to a support group similar to what you are talking about, and met several who had successfully transitioned, and several others who were nearing their final stages. One of the members shared tales of caution, sharing about how she now had to keep her history of previously being a man a secret. It sounded like even more deception to me, which is one of the things I wanted to end. Since I hadn't talked with the therapist, I was more vulnerable when my ex-wife threatened to have my child visitation revoked.

25 years later, I'm finally transitioning, after 2 heart attacks, a stroke, and not seeing my kids AT ALL for 5 years (phone calls only), and some major weight problems - all a direct and predicted result of trying to abort transition.

Last night I mentioned to my wife that I will be out on Tuesday evenings for the next while. My social club for the first week, and then "a limited time support group" for the following weeks. My wife prodded a bit about what the group was for; I said it was for people with gender problems.

My wife asked, "Oh, you have gender problems?". I said "Yes". My wife then half-laughed and said, "I'm not going to support you." When I asked for clarification, she said "I'm not going to support you with your gender problems. It's too much for me. What about support for me? I don't have any support. I should find some support too."

This is a VERY GOOD IDEA! Like it or not, your wife has to go through many changes of her own to adapt to this new expression of you. There will be times when she will almost see you as a stranger, because different aspects of your personality will become more dominant as your become more feminine. Pretending to be masculine takes a LOT of energy, a lot of deception, and can really tear at the soul. Many of us were very introverted and isolated, other are almost comical in their attempts to be masculine. I became very intellectual, having a bad habit of factoid dumping to deflect having to talk about what was REALLY going on in my heart and soul.

As we progress through transition, we spend less energy in deception, often finding that "feminine" skills, attitutes, mannerisms, and such are things that come to us very quickly and very quickly become second nature - because that's who we REALLY ARE!

There will be periods when we get a bit too self-absorbed, wanting to talk about ourselves too much, looking in the mirror too much, being a bit too sexy, pretty, beautiful, and still feeling it's not good enough. It takes a while, but we eventually become comfortable with who we really are, and the result is someone who is more confident, compassionate, caring, loving, gentle, and kind. Someone who enjoys being the woman they are.

However, to our wives, some of our greatest moments of joy can be sheer terror to them. They see us becoming someone else in front of their very own eyes. They fear that we might find someone else, that we might stop loving them, that we might lose interest in what's important to her.

She also has fears around her own social support network. What will friends, family, coworkers, church members, and others in her various communities think?
She has to consider what it will be like to be married to another woman? If your legal status is changed from M to F, will your marital status change with it?
Will you lose interest is sex? A hundred other questions will race through her mind.

I started bringing my wife to my sessions with my gender counselor and it was amazing how quickly we were able to sort through so many questions and concerns in so little time. There was no restriction on what she could say or ask about, or be concerned about. As a result, there were areas where I realized I could probably slow the pace, delay steps, or review legal issues, rather than rushing headlong into a situation where she could lose property, security, liberty, and even her life (loss of health coverage), because we were no longer legally married in New Jersey since NJ still has not legalized Gay marriage. Even the court precedents are "mushy".

To be clear, she was not saying this with a scowl, and it wasn't one of those "Huh!" laughs; it was a sort of melodious laugh, with a bit of smile on her face. Enough so that it wasn't clear whether she was being entirely serious or not.

Was she being serious? Let me put it this way: She can never remember the name "Sandra", but she can talk for more than half an hour about events that happened to a friend (that she has never met) of a business acquaintance in another city (whom she has not met often at all.) Indeed, the friend of the acquaintance has now been raised in narrative conversation three times in a day and a half.

If she can remember that much that she has heard once about someone she never met, then it is certainly within her capabilities to remember "Sandra".

So why doesn't she remember? Because if she "doesn't remember" then it isn't really happening? Or at least it "isn't serious" ?

How much time does she spend with Sandra? How often does she hear OTHER PEOPLE call you Sandra. Does she call you Sandra or "honey" when you are out together?

Once she starts spending more time with you (and Sandra's friends), the more comfortable she will become, the more she will remember who you are. At this point, she is still struggling to accept the fact that Sandra is who you REALLY are.

On some days she says plainly things like, "If you want to be a woman, you have to learn how to" (e.g., do a decent ponytail.). But on other days, it is like I just happen to be especially persistent about wearing women's clothes "just to dress up".

This sounds to me like she really WANTS to help you. My wife said just about the same thing. She told me that if I wanted to be a woman, I had to learn how to do it right, which meant I had to stop dressing and acting like a ****/skank (what is a skank anyway? Something like a **** or hooker?). She took me shopping and helped me pick out some clothes that were not near as much "fun" as what I had been wearing. The skirts were longer, the shirts were looser, there were pants that were long and slender. There were even shoes that reminded me of men's oxfords (but these had two inch heels).

But the first time I wore her outfits in public, to a shopping mall, I was astonished, because NO ONE NOTICED ME! It wasn't that they weren't making remarks, or that they were being polite. They literally were just seeing me as another woman, just like the other 70 women in that part of that mall at that hour. I used the facilities and didn't even get a look or a glare. It was amazing! At the same time, it was incredibly liberating! If you are smart, you will really take your wife's advice to heart. It says she really wants you to succeed because she loves you a LOT!

Yes, she knows I have been going to gender therapy for years.

But she hasn't been to your gender therapist? It would be a very good idea if she could come to some of your sessions. It will help both of you adjust to each other's pace, eventually enabling both of you to progress more rapidly.

And now that I need support, I get told, "I'm not going to support you."

Cripes it is hard. Talk about having to be willing to give up everything.

It sounds to me like she was really saying just the opposite, that she really does want to support you, but she really DOES need some support as well. She may have some idea what you are doing, but she really can't identify with what you have gone through and are going through emotionally. Someone who is just a man being a man, or a woman being a woman doesn't even think about being something else other than a short-term fantasy - what if I had HIS power, or HIS strength.

What your wife must struggle to understand is that you developed a female brain long before you were born and yet you got just enough testosterone to have the male anatomy as well. Your female brain has more white matter, a smaller limbic system, and a smaller hypothalamus. It's quite probable you have a longer index finger than your ring finger as well.

Even though you were labeled a boy based on your gonads, you doctor was wrong. When you tried to play with other boys, they would push and it wasn't even in your nature to push back. They may have taken your toys, because they knew you wouldn't fight for them. You may have preferred to play with other girls as a very young boy, having a sister, cousin, or neighbor girl who played nice with you, didn't push and shove you, and made you feel happy. You may have had dolls or stuffed animals, made up songs, and made up stories about your dolls and animals.

Once in elementary school, you were forced to conform to what was expected of boys. You weren't allowed to play with girls, and the boys played rough. You might have learned to adapt, to appear to be like them, to avoid being bullied, but you knew you were different.

Even dating and in marriage, you knew you were different. You may not have been able to put your finger on it, or you may have wanted to be a girl all your life, but it seemed like an impossible dream. You were trapped in a male body until you died.

Now, thanks to gender therapy, hormones, and possible surgeries, you now see the very real possibility of becoming a woman. Maybe not the fashion model you had hoped to be (most girls have to cope with that too), but at least you can relate to others as a woman, and have them experience you as a woman.

For me, it was the very first time I could even HEAR a thank you, or acknowledgement - because they were finally acknowleging ME instead of the Charley McCarthy dummy character I had created to appear to be Rex. When someone complimented Rex, I always that - "yeah, but if you knew who I REALLY WAS, would you STILL think I was great?". It got so painful that I actually avoided acknowledgement and completion - leaving projects when I knew that my dream could be fulfilled by others without my help, moving on to the next project so I didn't have to be around during the painful celebrations. I'd work through intermediaries, offering them coaching and guidance so that THEY would be the ones thrown into the spotlight, because I didn't want to become so famous as Rex that I couldn't ever be Debbie.

The really terrifying thing to you is that you wife has no idea who or what you will become. Will you turn into a ****/skank? Will you want guys? Will you lose interest in sex? Will you lose interest in her? Will you end up as friends, with no passion? Will you lose your job? Will you be able to get another one? Will you have to move?

These are questions to be explored with you and your therapist together. In that environment, it doesn't have to be a threat, and many things she was afraid to even ask about, may be things that you've already thought about and just haven't shared - perhaps because you didn't want to scare her.

It's natural to fear the unknown. The unknown can make people feel fear, anger, confusion, and vulnerability. Getting into communication doesn't always lead to immediate answers, but it does create the context for new discoveries.

It sounds like you and your wife may have a very bright, wonderful, and exciting future ahead - if you let it happen.

My wife has reiterated what Kaitlyn was saying. The concept of a middle aged male changing genders is so far out of her realm, she can not wrap her around it.

On both hands, my index fingers are 80 mm long. On my right hand, my ring finger is 75mm long, on my left hand my ring finger is 70mm long. Those proportions, the longer index finger and shorter ring fingers, were there when I was born, even before I was born. No amount of medication or psychology would change those proportions. If you flooded my body with testosterone to the point of being toxic for the next 20 years, I would still have the shorter ring fingers. These proportions were established while I was in the womb. Because my body either didn't get enough testosterone or couldn't process the testosterone it got due to a genetic disorder.

The same chemical and/or genetic condition that caused the longer index fingers also caused me to have a "Female Brain". A female brain has more white matter, smaller limbic system, and smaller hypothalimus. The differences can be seen with a contrast CT scan. This condition is not as rare as you might think. Roughly 1 in 100 males are born with this type of condition to a more extreme extent, and about 1 in 5 for less extreme versions of the condition.

The male brain was designed to hunt and protect the family. The alpha males needed to be aggressive predators, and avid defenders in able to assure that their families had enough to eat.

The female brain was designed for nurture and gathering, learning subtle differences in plants, insects, and small animals, learning which were dangerous and which were safe to eat. Females also nurtured children, nursing them, caring for them, and keeping them alive until they were old enough for the boys to join their fathers, and the girls to join with the rest of the women in gathering.

However, some boys weren't alphas. They were beta, or even omega males. Too week to hunt or to fight, they would stay with their mothers much longer, learning to gather. We know from observing apes, that these beta males would "sneak" sex because they were in close proximity to the females.

To survive, the beta males may have expanded their knowledge of dangerous plants, insects, and animals. When threatened, they could device poisons that would disable even the strongest hunters. The omegas would become known as healers or shamen. In North America, they are called "two spirit people" with both female and male spirits. In India they are called Hijrah - Some becoming Eunichs with magical powers to bless children, to bless families. They would also have become good healers as well.

Even if we wanted to try and become alpha males, it wouldn't be possible. Our bodies simply aren't capable of processing adrenal signals in that way.

We also have a tremendous support network available to us, and our spouses for the most part have nothing. That weighs on my wife's mind especially in the beginning. It is unfortunate but a fact that is often overlooked. Our wives are left to their own devices and depending on where they receive their information could impact their views.

Many of us do a very good job of "faking it" before we get married. If our wives were aware that we were unusually gentle, patient, kind, and loving, slow to anger, and quick to forgive, they may have assumed it was just because we were "Nice Guys". It was our female brains doing what they are designed to do, nurture, sustain, and build relationships.

Unfortunately, even WE don't know who we will become until after we have completed the transition. Many of us became more sociable, more interested in others, and more sincere and authentic. Maintaining the facade of being a male takes a lot of energy and time, and the willingness to live in constant state of deception. It's much like being an undercover cop, a spy in hostile territory, or even a Jew in Nazi Europe. Every thought, word, and action has to be deliberate and deceptive.

When we transition, we finally get to be ourselves. We are often astonished at how easily we adopt the thoughts, actions, and mannerisms of women. It seems as if that was who we were supposed to be.

For our wives, they have to discover who we are, and it's often terrifying. They don't know if they will like the new person. Will she become a rival? Will she become a friend? Will she become a lover? And your wife needs to think about what she wants. Will she be content when you can't get an erection because of the testosterone blockers and estrogen? Will the two of you find new ways to please each other? Will you start seeking out men? These may seem almost absurd to some of us, but they are very real fears and questions for our wives and lovers.

There are practical matters too. Will the marriage still be legal, or will it be banned as a "gay marriage"? Could you lose health care benefits (life), visitation and family rights (liberty) or tax breaks (property) because you are in a "lesbian marriage"?

How will her friends, coworkers, family, church, and other communities react? Will they reject us? Will they reject her?

These are questions we need to consider for ourselves as well, but most of us are TOO aware of the possible consequences of being "outed".

Sharing these issues TOGETHER with your gender therapist, will help everybody to get a better result.

[sandra-leigh]

Some very interesting responses here. Thank you to all of the participants so far.

Some short responses

• My wife has made it clear that she doesn't believe in therapy. Apparently if we don't know how to talk to each other, "it wasn't meant to be".
• She really does not have a support network. Only one friend that I know of in the city, and this is not a topic she would feel comfortable talking to him about. The only time she goes out by herself are work events.
• Debbie, you have pretty much described my early life, except with the twist that back then I knew that I was a boy, and I wondered why the other boys acted so oddly (i.e., I did feel different than them.) There are also other plausible interpretations for a number of things I went through, so nothing is conclusive.
• I am hitting too much variation in my measurements to make conclusions on my 2-4D ratio. In some of my measurements my ratio is above 1.0 (far end of male range, more probable to be female); mostly the ratio falls just a little less than 1 (e.g., 78 to 80); but every once in a while my ring finger measurement hits 85, taking the ratio into male range. It depends greatly exactly how the measuring tape is positioned on the crease.
• Yes, I have been on HRT for 2 1/2 years. I have not noticed any emotional changes. I am more... relaxing... into Sandra, becoming more comfortable (and apparently it shows). It doesn't feel much different, though less stressed about "not fitting in" as a guy.
• Learning to live as a woman, learning voice, making adjustments so that I stop being viewed as a transitioning male and start being viewed as female: these things do not sound easy, and I have no Plan. But when they come to mind, I at least have a mental image of time and space to engage in them, whereas my mental image of time and space to stay "male" is empty, not there, the theatre is closed indefinitely.
• with regards to marriages fall apart due to cancer and other falling bovine excrement: dealing with an Alzheimer's parent leads to serious marriage problems in more than 60% of cases, with 30% getting divorced; when the care is done in the home, the serious problems rate goes up past 80%. We hung on through that, but now we end up dealing with matters that were postponed.

[PaulaQ]

So how'd the two of you stay together through dealing with a parent's death and Alzheimer's? That's easy - they were her problems and you provided the support. You are the one holding this together. Now that you have a problem, you expect the same type of support in return. Hey, this is supposed to be mutual, right? Only it isn't - you are the one holding it together. When you have a problem, the whole dynamic changes. She isn't strong enough to deal with your problem.

I can relate to all this, it's how it is between me and my wife. In my case, it's spiraled downhill faster because now that I'm the problem, she's literally coming apart at the seams.

I pointed out the other reasons this stuff happens mostly to try to tell you this really ain't your fault, and if you feel like you were taken advantage of, well, I'm right there with you. I feel like a chump.

We really aren't chumps though. Caring is the right thing to do. Just so few people are capable of sacrifice anymore. They care while it's convenient. This really sucks for people like us.

[MysticLady]

We really aren't chumps though. Caring is the right thing to do. Just so few people are capable of sacrifice anymore. They care while it's convenient. This really sucks for people like us.

Hi Paula, I most definitely agree. The cost for is very high in emotions and inner pain. People are not willing to drain themselves completely for the one they supposedly love. In my case, my wife thinks that she has given enough of her pain and emotions and has decided not to give anymore. My cost is too high for her. Is the reason for life....to learn how absorb emotional pain until it finishes you off? Some are not willing too go that far for loved ones, unfortunately. They start thinking of themselves and what important too them.

[stefan37]

How can you feel you were taken advantage of? You are the ones with the gender issue. Your wives married men and expected to live out their lives with a man. That dynamic change with-the declaration of transition. I would venture to say maybe 5% of woman can live with a man that changes from mtf. Either they are wired to accept it or they are not. It is not their fault they will not support. I supported and encouraged my wife as much as I could while we were growing as a family. She knows she should support me, but guess what. It is too painful for her and she is not wired to be intimate with a woman. Not her fault, and I hold no malice because she can not support me as much as I would like. The brutal truth is we are on this road alone. If our wives can walk us that would be great, but many cannot or will not and that is their prerogative. Their emotions and values are just as valid as ours.

My wife and I both love each other. She cannot love me as she did before. She is not adjusting well to the changes I am going through in front of her. We both have decided it best for us to divorce and live separately. It is what it will be. We are still forging a new relationship and even then we are not sure we will be successful. I made my decision out of need and she has made hers out of her needs. They are not compatible, so the answer is to go our separate way. Hopefully at some point our paths can cross and we can have a healthy friendship. Either way we have to co-exist as business partners, and that does complicate matters, but we are both adults and have been able to separate our personal and professional lives to a great extent.

[Aprilrain]

If your not prepared to lose you're spouse, then you're not prepared to transition.

We can moan all we want about fair and unfair but the fact remains lots of marriages end for way more petty reasons than transition! Personally I think its pretty unreasonable to expect a spouse to stay with us through transition.

[LeaP]

Personally, I always thought it was pretty amazing that my wife stayed with me before transition ever came up.

[melissaK]

Pretty funny LeaP

[Kathryn Martin]

Personally I think its pretty unreasonable to expect a spouse to stay with us through transition.

I does happen though. It has it's own very challenging aspects.

When it happens it is a most fundamental re-definition of the relationship. It is a paradigm shift if there ever was one. The problem is that most people do two things in this situation, firstly, they believe they can maintain what they might have had before which when you really think about it is just astounding. Secondly, people believe they are entitled to support. Because they are transgendered they say: but I am suffering and you, spouse should support me, playing the victim card. It never works and so the marriages fail.

[sandra-leigh]

In my "short answers" earlier, I forgot to answer to one point, namely physical intimacy.

My wife and I cuddle in bed to some degree even now. Not very often "sleep in my arms"; more my arm resting on her, sometimes my hand just resting in more intimate places. Those locations can be sources of instinctual "comfort" that has no actual sexual component.

My wife started the process of withdrawing from sex decades ago. Even if I had never cross-dressed or encountered gender issues, the projected next sexual encounter would be approximately 5 years from now, and the one after that projected for 20 years later. My lack of erections has gone unnoticed for 2 1/2 years already.

With respect to my expectations: what I expected was effort to deal with the situation. Certainly the effort might have failed, but at the emotional level, to try and fail is much much different than not to try at all.

Am I prepared to lose my spouse? Yes. But does it have to be this way, instead of (e.g.) sitting down and talking it over, each describing hard boundaries and things that they are willing to attempt?

Sorry, I haven't been sleeping well for various reasons; this afternoon warm sun is putting me to sleep now.

[MatildaJ.]

The problem is that most people do two things in this situation, firstly, they believe they can maintain what they might have had before which when you really think about it is just astounding. Secondly, people believe they are entitled to support. Because they are transgendered they say: but I am suffering and you, spouse should support me, playing the victim card. It never works and so the marriages fail.

Yes, this is a solid analysis. In my view, people should assume the marriage will end, as one of the spouses has "died" and the vows were "till death do us part." That doesn't mean the survivors of that marriage (in MtF transition, the two women survivors) have to get a legal divorce, but they should have some kind of separation, to let themselves get to know each other all over again. The former-wife should not have to bear the full burden of supporting her husband through the surgeries -- she should be considered a close friend who may offer to do some of the support but will need other people to help too. After transition, the two people can make a decision about whether they want to "end the separation" and recommit to each other. A new ceremony seems like a good idea, even if it's only symbolic.

Pressuring the wife into supporting her husband through this terrible suffering because they're married and she owes it to him -- that just encourages her to act like her husband is still there, and all this talk about transition is just the husband's mental illness. The original marriage was between a man and a woman. If the man's not there anymore, neither is the marriage. Start fresh.

[Kathryn Martin]

I am one of the few post-ops who is still married. There a few things that I approached differently than most of whom I have read on this board. Spouses are entitled to incredible anger if we, not through a fault of ours but being transsexual is a simple fact, transition. We destroy the paradigm there are no two ways about it. I did not feel entitled to set anything against her anger but rather took the storm in all of it's fury and power. I apologized and told her that she was entitled to be angry and hurt.

This opened the door for her to fundamentally examine the basis of our relationship, no more husband and wife, but wife and wife, both heterosexual women but married to each other, both fundamentally in love with this human being by our side. What we re-affirmed was a new very different paradigm of our relationship. In the end we were just two victims of circumstance, like a hurricane and your house gets destroyed. You pick yourself up and build a new one. Who rails against fate when in fact it's no ones fault.

[sandra-leigh]

Kathryn, by your logic, one should never expect anything from a spouse. That, like the fable of the scorpion and the frog, one should always expect that at any time, they might turn on you. Because no matter how much love and support you gave to them, they do not owe you consideration in return.

If people felt like that, I suspect they would end up treating relationships as a series of booty calls. To do what feels good at the moment, because 12 hours from now you might be "inconvenient" to the other person. Surely a life based upon that would be profoundly lonely.

[LeaP]

Sandra, what you are describing is a sort of benevolent co-dependency. That is very different from love freely given and from the relationship that results.

I don't know if you are familiar with Imago relationship theory. Its basis is that we attracted people who are simultaneously best able to make us whole ... yet who are least capable of doing it. We need things from our partners which they have an extraordinarily difficult time giving. In turn, what they need (from you) in order to help heal you is what they need for their own wholeness. Imago teaches practical interaction techniques to break the dependency cycle and move a couple toward a fully conscious relationship. (It is only a couples therapy.)

[Kathryn Martin]

But love is not what you can expect, because it is freely given that love of your spouse. And if it is not so given what are you doing in this relationship? Is love for you a quid pro quo? That would fundamentally become a "what's in it for me" relationship. Of course a marriage relationship is a give and take. But what about the fundamental premise on which your relationship was built? Wife- husband, togetherness, intimacy, children, family etc. Maybe through no fault of your own it was all taken away?

[PaulaQ]

The original marriage was between a man and a woman. If the man's not there anymore, neither is the marriage. Start fresh.

So all we are, men I mean, are a manly chest and a sex organ? It's 100% about our sex? All of the other stuff about us that remains the same - that shit doesn't matter?

If I had an orchiectomy because I had testicular cancer, the situation would be different how? Would the marriage be over because I'm "dead" then? (Sorry, ur dik dont work, L8R)

Should wives expect to be dumped because they have breast cancer, and then go through menopause? (Sorry hon, I married a woman, and you don't have breasts anymore, and look, you just don't have any interest in the bedroom at this point. Glad you lived though! <3)

But yeah, I get it. We're trans - we have no rights. We have no right to even expect to be ourselves. We are nothing. We are lepers.

Like I said - "til death do us part" doesn't mean shit anymore, and if you hung in there for all your wife's problems, and she bails on yours - you're a chump. I sure am, anyway! I put up with years of stuff - and then 4 months after the shit hits the fan for me - I'm gone because it's "just too hard for her."

edit:
Thinking about it, I've realized that in my marriage I was two things:
- A big money maker
- A sex toy

Now that the second one is off the table and I dress funny, it's intolerable to be around me anymore, so all that's really left is the first one. She still wants that. Boy, will divorce court be fun, or what?

All the other stuff I did - caring for her child like it was my own, helping her with her career (a bunch of times), providing a home, maid, let her finally quit working for good, all the crazy, insane, off the chain stuff I let her buy, helping her through personal crisis, family crises, depression, all of that - counts for nothing. Because as soon as my problems were troubling for her, I was out the door. (A door I still pay for, btw.)

What did I get out of all this? Some companionship, fairly boring sex on a semi-regular basis, and (grudging) tolerance for my son from a prior marriage.

She still calls me sometimes to talk about her problems. She doesn't want to hear mine, and yet complains when I don't cry, or talk about my own problems. She can't deal with my problems - I've tried talking to her, it's horrible. We mostly communicate through text messages, because the sound of my voice is too hard for her to take. As for me - I woke up this morning worried about how she's doing. Yeah, I am a total ****ing idiot.

[melissaK]

If "Love" is supposed to be unconditional, and if everyone IS saying that, Sandra included, let me try to explain Sandra's argument as I see it.

If after marriage I caught some incapacitating disease or suffered a disfiguring accident, should my wife stay with me out of love? True love theory (aka "The Princess Bride" and maybe a lot of religious doctrine - way more written about this than I dare summarize) says yes. So when my TS issues emerge from my repression riddled subconscious to affect my life, what is different? Why does my spouse get to leave?

Personally my views are akin to Kathryn's, And I followed her advice myself. I recognize the change I'm bringing forth strikes at my wife's own sense of sexual identity, sexual preference and sexual orientation. These are so immutable in me that I must change, so how can I treat hers as any less immutable.

While I hope my wife stays with me forever out of "true love," my own view of true love prevents me from faulting or criticizing her if she just can't find it in herself to stay - and after my decades of shame and denial of myself, how can I expect her to feel any better about it just because she's stuck with it by virtue of marriage and love. I will still love her no matter, but I can't demand that or even expect that in return.

And my wife and I are still together through my partial transition to outlaw land only because we did as Kathyrn and her spouse did. We realized way too much had changed, and we formed a new relationship. She had to be in love with a new me. In an Avatar way she "saw me", the same core "me" she used to "see" despite my breasts and long hair, much as Natyri saw her "Jake" despite him being in a human form. (I know, pop culture analogies tire some of you, but I like analogy by story characters).

LeaP, I don't know anything about Imago theory, so I looked it up. Yikees. My life really seems consistent with it as I understand it so far. I mean for e.g., my 2nd wife was then a repressed lesbian in denial, who now lives happily in a same sex marriage; and I was then a repressed MTF TS who is certain my sexual orientation is Lesbian. We each dated many and we picked each other. Then, my current wife's issues involve dissociative personality traits that parallel my own - again out of the milieu of people in our lives we picked each other. In both cases the subconscious for each of us harbored these traits - only later did they get conscious recognition. I have recognized this pattern, and know the role my current wife and I play in helping heal each other in the dissociative arena of our behaviors, but I didn't know there was a therapy school of thought which recognizes this. I have way more to learn here.

[MatildaJ.]

Paula, I'm so sorry for your pain.

But humans can't see into each others' souls. All we can engage with is the outer persona. So when the persona goes through a radical change, other people feel as if the old persona died, or even as if the new persona killed the old persona.

So all we are, men I mean, are a manly chest and a sex organ? ...Should wives expect to be dumped because they have breast cancer, and then go through menopause?

Surgeries don't by themselves change someone's persona. And no, it's not about the sex organs. And transgender issues are not the only way people change their persona. Years of major depression can do it too. When one person sinks deeply into depression, that often ends marriages. So can a major job change. If one person was the homemaker, but after twenty years starts a big career in politics -- that's also a major change of the persona and also often ends marriages. Death of a parent often changes someone's persona; they realize they only have so many more years to live, and they start living for themselves. That can bring out a new persona and that too often ends marriages.

Divorce doesn't mean that the marriages were worthless. A marriage can have played a happy & important part of someone's life, even if it ended through divorce.

Give people time to process their anger & grief, and hopefully the two survivors of the old marriage can connect and find out that they have a lot in common. But marriage isn't supposed to feel like prison. "Till death do us part" doesn't mean that you have to stay when you're miserable, particularly if you feel like the persona you married isn't there anymore.

Looking forward, now, would you choose to woo your ex-wife? Is she the life partner you would pick, of all the possible people out there? If so, then give her some time and try to woo her, as the new you. But if not, then move forward with your life and find other people to connect with.

And, please, go talk to a therapist more often than you are. You sound like you're in a major depressive period, and I'm worried about you.