She wants to know exactly what I spoke about with my therapist and I've told her all other things, but she knows there's something more. But this isn't gentle pressing; this is more like threatening and blaming me that my anger and mental illness is the problem in this family.  I almost blurted it out.  Then I cried, yelling I'm not ready.   

She is so angry with me.  I don't know what I'm afraid of since she's already furious with me.   I guess I'm afraid that as soon as I come out, she's going to tell everyone.  Or she's not going to believe me.  Or she's going to find someone to blame like my therapists or my dad.  Or she's going to make our probable divorce as hellish as possible.

She keeps saying our marriage is basically over, but when I agree with her, she gets defensive acting like I'm the one bringing it up just to hurt her and our daughter.

I don't want to hurt anyone anymore.  I don't feel suicidal, but I just don't want to hurt anyone and I don't want to hurt anymore.

I'm so sorry. IMO it's unfair to ask someone, even a spouse, what they're talking about in therapy unless they make it clear that they want to talk about it.

I think it's a good thing you held back from blurting it out. I would think that if you can possibly find a time when things are calmer, that would be a better time to come out, assuming you want to. Given what you've written here, though, I wonder whether or not that'd be a good idea. I don't think an already hostile and angry situation is going to be improved by bringing this issue into it.

Hi ChiGirl,

You did the right thing, you have to do this on your time.  As many therapists will say it's not a race.  When you do tell her you might first want to start by explaining how hard this is and why you didn't tell her right away.  The way many in society view transgender people, it shouldn't surprise anyone that transgender people are very cautious about coming out to others, even love ones.

Good luck,
Paige

I'd say tell her. The more she guesses the more her imagination can run wild.

I don't know if you'll be pleasantly surprised but atleast you'll get it out the way.

How worried about your wife outing you are you? I will say from expierence thst my wife did just that after telling her....she wasn't trying to be mean she was trying to be supporting I guess but she didn't understand how big of a deal outing someone can be. Though at least now after we split she refers to me properly as a woman.

Just my opinion, but check w/ a divorce lawyer first.  In some states (like the one I live in) coming out/providing proof that you are trans* can mean an at-fault divorce according to which judge presides, which is very bad financially for the trans* person who 'caused' it be being trans*.      

Thanks for the replies everyone.  I've really been in distress the last 24 hours.  She's blaming my father for my problems.  Without coming out to her, it's hard to argue specifics on why it is not about him.

I'm not going to come out yet.  Things are too fragile and chaotic.

Chris, very good advice.  I've already talked to a divorce lawyer, but I wasn't sure about bringing up the trans issue.  I've already put in a call and I'm waiting to hear back.

Hikari (or is it just Kari?)  I am VERY worried about her outing me.  I feel like if I tell her, that means I'm coming out to the world.  And it won't be because she means well.

Quote from: ImagineKate on January 21, 2015, 11:56:16 AM
I'd say tell her. The more she guesses the more her imagination can run wild.

I don't know if you'll be pleasantly surprised but at least you'll get it out the way.

I'm inclined to agree.  My poor spouse's imagination ran extremely wild - affairs, god knows what else.  Turns out when she found out I was trans, she was like, "Oh, is that all?"

If you're headed for divorce anyway, at least try to save the marriage by admitting what's wrong.  What if you get divorced, then she finds out afterwards that you're trans (which she will, no matter how hard you try), and she tells you that she wouldn't have cared; that it was the secrecy and suspicion that ruined the relationship, not who you were?

If a divorce seems plausible, I would definitely talk to a trusted lawyer (!?) before letting this out, for exactly the reasons already posted. I donn't think there's a rush to tell anyone, and it could seriously be to your legal detriment.

I would not come out to someone I thought was likely to be hostile unless I had a very clear and specific reason for doing so.

I'm not sure I even want to save this marriage anymore.  I can't live with someone who's constantly hurling insults and blaming me for everything wrong with her life.  And if I'm such a bitch to her, why on earth does she want to stay with me?

(She actually did call me a bitch today.  Little did she know I took that as a compliment[emoji12].)

Quote from: ChiGirl on January 21, 2015, 03:27:03 PM
Hikari (or is it just Kari?)  I am VERY worried about her outing me.  I feel like if I tell her, that means I'm coming out to the world.  And it won't be because she means well.

Hikari means light in Japanese, the name is Vera actually, either Hikari or Vera works

I really wanted to control who I came out to and when. but once I told my wife, it did all fall apart....My advice is to try and own it if at all possible. If I could do it all myself, I would probably try and create a positive narrative related to my gender transition. Once it got out of my hands my ability to control how I was seen by others because diminished dramatically. I have been able to do good, and lost no one important in my life due to transition, but it wasn't easy.

Quote from: ChiGirl on January 21, 2015, 09:05:32 PM
I'm not sure I even want to save this marriage anymore.  I can't live with someone who's constantly hurling insults and blaming me for everything wrong with her life.  And if I'm such a bitch to her, why on earth does she want to stay with me?

(She actually did call me a bitch today.  Little did she know I took that as a compliment[emoji12].)

Was it this way before the whole trans thing came to a head? If not, it may just be temporary.

Quote from: ImagineKate on January 22, 2015, 04:48:12 AM
Was it this way before the whole trans thing came to a head? If not, it may just be temporary.

Oh, yes.  Very much so.  Things have been going downhill for years.  She started questioning my love for her years ago and it just got worse.  She was accusing me of affairs and threatening divorce which used to scare the bejeebees out of me. All this before my trans issues came to a head. 

I've been in therapy for 14 years now, doing everything I can to curb this depression.  Everything except admitting to my gender dysphoria.

Quote from: ChiGirl on January 22, 2015, 06:06:01 AM
I've been in therapy for 14 years now, doing everything I can to curb this depression.  Everything except admitting to my gender dysphoria.

Even to the therapist?

When I first started with therapy a few years ago I was depressed. In hindsight I was chronically depressed  for decades. I had also come to a place and time in my life when I finally realized I was, and most importantly why. How I was not handling being trans. Transition of any sort was the last thing on my radar. Been there tried it twice long ago. (Also Wife #1 divorced me after discovering my stash) I needed new tools, a new way of thinking, and had plenty of baggage to unload.

Now that I am seeing a gender therapist my wife will occasionally press me on what we talked about. I know she needs to know. She has fears of an unknown future just as I do. Our marriage was far from our ideal before I took on the trans-beast. Things have improved greatly as I became healthier. We still have our problems, mostly different ones nowadays as the old age together we envisioned is looking a lot different.

Quote from: JoanneB on January 22, 2015, 06:51:39 AM
Even to the therapist?

Yep.  I wasn't being honest with myself.  And when I first started seeing a therapist, I genuinely didn't think it was the problem.  I thought I was fine with it.  It was in my past and I was doing just fine.  There must be another reason for my depression.  It was only in the last year that I told my therapist about my gender dysphoria and even then I felt like it was something it was too late to do anything about.  So this bring honest with myself is fairly new. 

My therapists often came to the conclusion that was my wife was to blame for my depression and I refused to accept that because I knew I was depressed going into the marriage.  I left a number of therapists because of it.  And I guess I did start to blame her,but for the depression.  For knowing how to push my buttons and set me off.  I hate it and I hate myself.  I became like some sort of raving lunatic.

Now, I've figured out some inner calm by being honest with myself.  Now, I hate that feel like I'm lying to her, holding back this huge piece of myself.  I want to be honest, but she is so angry with me now.  It's just such a hostile situation and she's blaming me for everything.  I've told her I was wrong for blaming her, but she doesn't care. 

Thanks for listening.

At the time, 6 years ago, when I knew I needed to take on the trans beast for real, my wife and I were starting a long distance marriage. I lost a job, got a job several states away, was alone, isolated, and waaaaaay too much time to myself. I reached out for help, eventually finding a TG support group. The first meeting (my first one ever in my life) totally floored me. The following month the same result.

My marriage at the time was not all that well. Add to that a chronically ill, often depressed, sometimes suicidal wife seeing no hope for her future. Not the sort of person you want to drop the T-Bomb on. Being open and honest was not exactly my forte. Yet I knew I by that time I needed to, but couldn't. By my third meeting I knew I needed to be there, that I belonged there, and that my wife absolutely needed to know before it was way past too late to tell.

It was a difficult weekend back home. When I first said "We need to talk later" she instantly went into "You want a divorce, don't you?" mode. She didn't see the T-Bomb coming, yet she handled it surprisingly well.

I knew I told her just in time. Any longer and things likely would not have gone as well.

Quote from: ChiGirl on January 22, 2015, 06:06:01 AM

Oh, yes.  Very much so.  Things have been going downhill for years.  She started questioning my love for her years ago and it just got worse.  She was accusing me of affairs and threatening divorce which used to scare the bejeebees out of me. All this before my trans issues came to a head. 

I've been in therapy for 14 years now, doing everything I can to curb this depression.  Everything except admitting to my gender dysphoria.

Well then in my not so professional opinion these are your choices.

Don't tell her, she continues to speculate and emotionally abuse you and you continue to be miserable, perhaps permanently. I won't even say what else could happen. She may or may not leave. She may or may not change her attitude toward you, but if you're hiding stuff from her it only fuels the distrust. Your dysphoria is along for the ride with you possibly for life.

Tell her and she may either leave you or accept you. If she accepts she may have the same attitude toward you and you may leave. Or she may change her attitude. But you can live with yourself.

I am married. I took a chance. I couldn't go on living as I was. She may or may not leave but I'm prepared either way. The fights about transition more or less stopped. We may have a disagreement now and again but it's not nearly as bad as when I first came out.

That's how I see it.

Omigod omigod omigod.  I told her.  It wasn't the way I wanted to tell her and I felt pressed into it, but I told her.  She didn't walk out.  She didn't call me crazy.  She didn't laugh at me.  Okay, she laughed but it was nervous laughter.

Everyone here gave me awesome advice and I took all of it to heart Thank you.  I guess I figured with her ready to walk out, I had nothing left to lose.

I don't know how much she understands.  I think she thinks it's something good that can be treated or even cured.  But it's a start.  I feel a weight has been lifted.

Good luck!

I'm really happy that she took it in what sounds like as good a way as was likely. Now that the air is clear, I really hope that you are able to work out something positive from this.

And, I think she's 2/3 right from your last paragraph: this is something good that can be treated IMO.... but maybe not in the way she imagines!