My wife and I often get in fights over my dysphoria and she has said if I decide to transition she would leave me. Is there anyone here who has been married before they decided to transition and are still married to the same person? Or are there any wives here who have dealt with a husband that is thinking about, going through, or has transitioned? What were your original thoughts about it, have they changed? If so how did they change, how did you cope. Also what about children? I have 3 boys and in a way just that along with my wife's distaste in my dysphoria keep me from further experimenting with my feminine side or seriously considering transitioning. I get so bound up by this like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place and there doesn't seem like there is a way out without hurting somebody.

I would be really interested to hear from wives who initially was going to leave once they were informed of their husbands desire to be a woman and how they worked through the whole process to still be with them after they have transitioned. How is your marriage different from before? Are you still legally allowed to be married? And any other details you feel open enough to discuss about the whole situation.

I wish I could be more open with my wife. I try every once in a while but then she kind of starts to ignore me and just shuts me out leaving me ashamed and depressed. To me personally I don't think it should matter if your partner has the desire to be the opposite sex, if you love them then you love who they are not what they are and should support them as much as possible so they can feel free to be themselves. I wish my wife would be a little more supportive even if she decides to leave me she could at least be a little nicer about it. She says she understands but I still think she is having trouble accepting my feelings.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/love-story-jan-morris--divorce-the-death-of-a-child-and-a-sex-change-but-still-together-839602.html

you may have to do this in some parts of USA?

Hello there, I probably won't be of much help but I wanted to reply anyways.

I'm really sorry for the situation your going through. It really just breaks my heart  Some people just don't get it and if she isn't willing to listen, how can she ever expect to understand? Have you considered counselling for the two of you?

Personally, I am the gf of a soon to be transitioning mtf trans woman... I found this out about a couple of weeks ago. When he (still using masculine pronouns till he actually begins, his choice) told me, I was not necessarily shocked, I knew he had dysphoria, but I was a *little* taken aback. I didn't realize it was that bad, ya know? I think it took me 5 minutes until I was like 'well change is awesome, he will be beautiful and squishy'. TBH, the part that bugged me most was that he didn't tell me sooner.. I felt like I had given him the impression that I wouldn't be comfortable with him if that was what he wanted, but I never meant to.

One thing that bugged me was when I told my mother and my sister (who is 16) what our plans were. My sister automatically said 'that's really selfish of him!'. Selfish? How is this selfish in anyway? I think that anyone that told someone they couldn't change their OWN freakin' body would be the selfish one. Why would I want the love of my life to live on unfulfilled? Your wife is definitely the selfish one here. Was your wife as unsupportive when she didn't know you wanted to transition? Maybe if she doesn't want to try to work things out and help you get what you need in your life you should look for someone who will. I know it will be rough going through all of that crap while discovering yourself... but such negativity and just meanness... again, makes me sad. There are people out there that aren't total jerks though... and ugh.. I just don't know what I could say that could make this situation seem less sucky.. but good luck!! Do what you have to do, look for like minded people and hopefully the rest of the puzzle will just fall into place!

I was married to my spouse before I started my transition and we are still madly in love and have remained married.

My experiance however is not the norm. I disclosed my trans situation with in the first 2 weeks of our courtship. Then my future spouse went and said something that sealed the deal for me. My spouse also has transgender issues.
Yes it was a jaw droper.

When I started my transition, (ten years before my spouse expected it I was told) it triggered hir trtansition and we have been transitioning togather.

Now you might think that us both being trans made it super easy to get through.
Not true.
At first I was very oppossed to my wife going on testosterone and becomeing my hersband. (my spouse is androgyne identified and on cross sex hormones) I had alot of internalised transphobia I had to process to get over it and accept my sweety changing in such ways. There were even a few times transition made me start thinking divorce.
Now think for a minute: If it is this hard for a fellow transsexual to process and accept, how hard is it for a cisgender spouse to accept?
I hate to say it, but the majority of marriages do not survive a spouse transitioning. Even in a dual transition home it is chalenging.
You may have to let go. As much as it pains me to say this to you it is true.
I am assuming that your spouse is not a lesbian. If she is bisexual and wants to remain with you no matter what then it might work. But if she is not bisexual the best you can hope for is a best friends or sisters relationship. Which is not uncommon. Many trans women become very close friends/sisters with their ex wives.

I hope I didn't bum you out. I really do not like raining on your parade, but you have to be made aware the odds are stacked against you.

Best of luck and wishes.
here, you probably need one of these

Wow, Muffin, that was beautiful! The world needs more people like you in it.

As for the original poster, I was in a ten year "straight phase" (I'm 35 now) when I met an utterly gorgeous young woman... we fit so well, we ended up spending every second together, and got married.... four years later, I couldn't take it any more and confessed to her about my dysphoria, and that I wanted to start HRT. I told her I didn't know how far I wanted/needed to go... without hesitation, she hugged me and said she wasn't surprised and that she was beside me as far as I wanted to go, period. And she has been, through three yrs hrt and then SRS last month. Each day, better than the last. The fact that she's queer too doesn't hurt.... if you are able to see love as love as love, no matter the exterior container it is found in, you will be good.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like your wife is able to think outside this particular ahem box. I once read somewhere that if you transition, you should be prepared to lose everyone in your life. I always thought that was sad, and exaggerated, but there may be some truth to it. Think of it this way: how would you feel if your wife had been the one to say, listen, I'm male inside, and am getting surgery to install a penis. I don't mean to mock; I thought of this a fair bit. I could handle it, but then again, I'm queer too.... Could a straight male handle that from his woman? It would take a very special or bisexual one to, I think. So it's a huge amount to handle. Don't be too mad at her.

When I had my SRS in thailand last month, there were 20+ of us at any one time at the hotel recovering.... I was surprised by the number of spouses who were there supporting their partners.... mostly older demographic, but still, it was nice to see... it is possible, just maybe not with your current wife. I'm sorry for you, but there's not much else to say. 

i have been married for 25 years my regret was letting fear make me wait to tall her we are still together and our family has grown stronger does she believe your personality will change or your values when i hear this i have to wonder what she married you for.... your sexual organs or the person you are
jessi

That's the thing cynthialee. She is bi, or "was" as she puts it. It has been a year or so but she has claimed that my dysphoria had "cured" her of her bisexuality. To me that is absolutely rediculous, you can't be cured of a sexual orientation. I feel like I have to hide everything from her which when she finds out just starts another fight. A part of me wants to just leave but I'm not in a financially stable condition to leave and support myself and kids. Plus soon, in about a year, she will be able to get a high paying job and be the main support while I finish school. I feel like I'm stuck because I have to support my kids and I don't want to hurt anybody..

If my wife had expressed to me that she wanted to be a man I wouldn't leave her because I don't care about that. I love her for who she is not what she is. If I required vagina we could always set up an open relationship. But then again I'm more on the bi side of things. Truth is I feel that hurdles can be overcome in the sexual pleasure area and love should be solely based on the person, not the thing.

She says she married me for who I was 15 years ago. While she is less able to admit it we have changed over the last 15 years. Who you are at 17 years old vs 32 years old can be very different. I will never be the person I was 15 years ago, 10 years ago, or maybe even 5 years ago. We progressively change over time with new knowledge and understanding of the world and ourselves. I gained an understanding of myself within the last 10 years and have been adding to that understanding each year.

She has told me one that she doesn't think what I'm going through is real because "God doesn't make mistakes".

Telling an Atheist that doesn't really justify her claim. Actually I think I just got pissed off because the first thought that popped into my head was "So you know Gods intentions are?". Maybe that's her hurdle, religion.

It seems like your marriage is in a rocky relationship right now. You both need to work hard towards your marriage if you want to salvage it. You can make it work, but both of you please see a marriage counselor before things get worse.

If your wife said she was bi your dysphoria  has nothing to do with curing her. Your orientation stays the same or even opens up more. She is just using that as an excuse to get back at you. When you fall in love with someone, you fall in love with the person inside and not what is on the outside.

You just need to slow down and take a deep breath and try to work thru your gender issues. There are many great people out there willing to listen and help you.

Quote from: cynthialee on September 05, 2012, 11:16:45 PM
(my spouse is androgyne identified and on cross sex hormones)

Cross sex hormones??

Quote from: chevrolet_gt on September 06, 2012, 09:00:18 AM
Truth is I feel that hurdles can be overcome in the sexual pleasure area and love should be solely based on the person, not the thing.

Wow, you couldn't have said that better in a million years. Well done!

And reading further down, I see she quotes god doesn't make mistakes... that would be grounds for this atheist to leave a partner right there.

God can make mistakes, nobody's perfect

Quote from: Joann on September 06, 2012, 09:18:38 AM
Cross sex hormones??

HRT

In my spouses case ze was born with a female body and ze needs testosterone to bring hir body into alignment with what ze feels is right.
No differant than a standard issue transsexual using HRT to get to where they need to be. Just in my spouses case there is no desire to be seen as completly male or female. Inbetween is where ze is happy.

Quote from: cynthialee on September 06, 2012, 09:50:04 AM
HRT

In my spouses case ze was born with a female body and ze needs testosterone to bring hir body into alignment with what ze feels is right.
No differant than a standard issue transsexual using HRT to get to where they need to be. Just in my spouses case there is no desire to be seen as completly male or female. Inbetween is where ze is happy.

Sounds like me but i need E not T.

I came out to myself just a little over a year ago, last August, and came out to my wife a couple of days later. I began to transition as soon as I could figure out what I could do and needed to do. We are together today, and stronger as a couple than we were before we started my transition. Will we make it? We hope so but do not know.
I think it helped us (even though it was very scary for us both) that I decided not to sugar coat what I had to say, and made a great effort to overcome my tendency to want to manage another person's reactions with the stakes are so high. It meant I was afraid she would leave me and/or our marriage would end, from day one, and many times since then, as I shared what I knew and what I felt, what I needed.
I read the accounts of many transitioners and their former significant others, and found one pattern was the attempt to gradually acclimate the spouse to this new reality, by slowly and tentatively expanding one's gender expression and stated needs. In almost every case that backfired, the spouse felt manipulated, lied to, controlled, betrayed, and doubted the sincerity and the intentions of the transitioner. His or her rage increased exponentially as the gender variance increased until reaching a flash point where the sig other gave the ultimatum: choose transition or me, or simply destroyed the marriage and tried to obliterate the transitioner.

I took a different path. From the very first night, I tried to be as "straight" - no pun intended - with my wife as I was with myself, and I tried to be brutally honest with myself. So when she asked me in a way that made clear what answer she wanted to hear, "do you think you are going to have the operation down there?" I said, 'I don't have any plans at this time but to be honest I have the strong feeling that I eventually will have to. It will be at least a year from now if I do because its a requirement that I live as a woman for at least a year. It will probably have to be a longer wait than that, but if my feelings don't change, I will need to do it as soon as I possibly can."

At another time, when she cut down my suggestions that she might explore bisexuality through her relationship with me, she gave me an ultimatum of a sort, saying "I will NEVER be a lesbian, I am NOT bisexual and don't want to ever be. If you have the operation I will never have sex with you again." I answered truthfully "Then when I have the operation, you and I won't have sex any more. That makes me very sad, but I respect your right to feel that way."

Another time, when she asked me if I was going to stop being attracted to her and start being attracted to men, I answered truthfully "I don't know. I don't think my attraction for you is based on my hormones or my anatomy, but only time will show if I am right about that. I can't imagine that I would stop being attracted to women completely, but I suspect I may be bisexual and just never expressed it. That being said, I don't know, because a lot of women who transitioned did find their feelings change."

When she asked me to slow down or postpone or stop various parts of my transition, I told her how that made me feel, and how I felt about stopping/postponing/slowing down. I told her no, I'm afraid I waited so long as it is that I am very fragile and need to transition as fully and as quickly as I can; that just thinking about slowing down brings the return of those feelings that made me want to end my life.

What helped her the most was when I stopped talking about transitioning and transitioned, with confidence and with determination.

The first night she saw me in full female dress, no wig on, but with basic make up, she said "oh my god! you are a woman. I couldn't picture it before, but your face, your eyes- I know this is the real you." She was able that night to make the leap in her mind and heart, and say "we are going to have a lot of fun together" and soon said "you are more beautiful to me as a woman than you were ever handsome as a man. I find you more attractive now. you are the person I married."

Starting hormones was not something that I asked her permission, since I would have to choose between defying her, and dying, when she said no or to go slow. I did tell her both before and after. It was another of those defining, turning points. In a week she was so impressed by my emotional transformation as I started the right gendered hormones for me, that she changed her own attitude towards HRT and we both went in for hormone lab tests. When she realized that her estrogen after menopause was lower than mine had been on my baseline labs before I started anything, she went to her doctor and started estrogen and progesterone.

We still have problems; I have overcome a lifetime of self-editing and self-denial, and have learned to have needs and to express them, to have emotions and to express them. If we fail to make it as a couple, it will not be because of the gender stuff, but because of underlying problems that were hidden when I was numb and playing a role that wasn't me. I am hopeful, but I live in that scary place of maturity that says "I want this relationship to last, as long as it is healthy for both of the people in it."

I am the wife of a transitioning MTF. She came out to me last December after struggling to keep that part of her suppressed for the last 20 or so years. She had grown increasingly depressed and distant over the months before, as most women do I blamed myself, thought it was something I was doing wrong and tried everything I could think of to mend our broken relationship. Needless to say it didnt help. Things had gotten so bad for me that I wasnt sure our relationship would last much longer. The night she came out to me was both a relief and a punch in the gut so to say.
Initial reaction::: I was so angry (this lasted maybe an hour) with her for not telling me before we had gotten married (We were coming up on our 3 year ann.) and had a child together. Then I was hurt, I dont know why it hurt me but it did. Maybe the realization that I was going to loose my husband anyway... Who knows. Anyway, After the hurt and the anger passed I started to think about things in a more logical manner. . . . . . I came to the same conclusion you were hoping for... I loved this person as a person, not as a man, not as a woman, but as a PERSON... My 'Soulmate'. A change in 'packaging' doesnt change the person I love. . .

As for changes and coping with them... That is a little harder. The changes are slow and subtle but over time you notice a BIG difference in the person, sometimes I wake up and look over at her and have to leave the room to cry because it hits hard that my husband is (almost completely) gone. Or I will smell someone wearing the cologne he used to wear and its a little gut wrenching sometimes.... But I just remind myself that 'He' is still there, and that in this I have not only rekindled my relationship with 'him' but I have gained so much more, my cold, distant husband has become this wonderful, caring, confidant, beautiful woman. Is it hard? Yes. Do I love her any less than I did him.... Hell No. I will say that since starting HRT she has blossomed, I have never seen her happier and seeing this in her makes me happy too.... (After all, I love this person, why would I want her to be unhappy?)

Children::: I have 2. A girl from a previous relationship and a son with my wife. That was the scariest part of all this for me. How is it going to affect the kids? My first thought was to talk to a child therapist. And I am glad that I did. I was told that the effects of transitioning parents depends greatly on age. For instance my children are both young enough to not have been tainted by societies outlook on something like this. It will likely confuse my daughter a bit but there shouldnt be any lasting emotional 'trauma'. And my son will never know that I was once married to a man. Our therapist as well as the child therapist said the same thing, so long as your children are not in the teen years, like highschool or late middle school, then a transitioning parent shouldn't cause them any harm... Personally I still proceed with caution, they are my children after all.

As to the legality of things, that depends on where you live. Where we live, as long as we dont draw attention to ourselves and catch the ire of the wrong people (Ie the government) then our marriage remains intact. We do on the other hand have to option to annul the marriage....

In closing (this is a bit longer than I had planned), I am sorry that your wife cannot at this time be more supportive of you. As hard as it was to grasp for me at first I am so very glad that I stayed. Our relationship and grown and strengthened in ways I couldnt imagine before. But you have to make a decision for yourself. Can you live with yourself as is? Because I can tell you that if you are unhappy, it IS already affecting your marriage.

Sorry for the overly long post (Sleep deprivation does that to me =D ). Good luck with everything and I hope she comes to her senses. . . <3

You are all great. I don't know what else to say.

Very well written GypsySoul, I wish you both the best and many more Happy Anniversaries in the future.

I came out to my wife in January. We have been married 12 years and have an 11 year old daughter at that time.  She took it pretty hard. She had no idea that I was suffering this way.  For about six months before I came out I was having a hard time with it. I saw a documentary on TV about a trans-woman about a year before I came out and it triggered a lot of things that I was able to suppress through out my 40 years. My wife had always thought of me as a manly man so you can imagine her shock when I told her. For several weeks she was quite depressed and She was not sure how this would affect our relationship. I always told her that I would understand if she wanted to leave me, but asked her to never speak in absolutes.

As the weeks went by and she mourned the loss of her husband things got to be very tense around our household. I can remember that I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. At one point I decided that when the school year was over I would move to my parents for awhile with our daughter. I was the stay at home parent. So I moved into the guest bedroom and started making plans for the move. As time went by and feelings began to heal we knew that we were supposed to be together. We were able to work out all of the issues and come to terms with this major change.

Today 9 months later and about 5 months in on HRT and neither one of us could imagine our lives without one another. Both my wife and daughter are my two biggest supporters. I'm so very lucky to have them in my life. All I can say is that if it's meant to be then it's meant to be.  I was to the point of losing her and losing the life we had built together.  I never gave up and I never let her see the doubt in my love for her. Even if that meant letting her go. I gave her the space she needed to deal and I never overwhelmed her. I could always sense when she had heard enough and backed off. I only told her what she needed to know at the time. I was always honest with her and I was always honest with myself. Sometimes I feel that we can get so wrapped up in our feelings it's hard for us to understand how our loved ones are dealing with it. I just kept reminding myself that I had been dealing wit this a lot longer than her. So give her some time to catch-up.

I truly wish and hope for the best for you both. Especially if there are children involved. I've been there and it's truly a difficult situation to be in. I hope everything works out for the best.