Effect of the ‘Transgender’ Lifestyle on Spouses

~ The Effect of the “Transgender” Lifestyle on Their Spouses—Why spouses of those pursuing “transgenderism” need resources ~

I lost my husband in 2022. It took a year for him to pass. It was the hardest year of my life as I mourned the passing of my spouse the entire year. For although he is still alive, he has altered himself in ways that cannot be undone as he tries desperately to appropriate my birthright as a natural, authentic woman.

As described in Gender Dysphoria by Proxy, at the beginning of 2022, while searching through Amazon archives for an order, I found among recent purchases prosthetic breasts, women’s clothes and makeup. I asked my husband about the items, and he said he didn’t know anything—that it was an Amazon error. I tried to inquire further about whether the items had been charged, shipped, or returned, but he became close-mouthed about it. I was left with a sinking feeling of unease.

I thought he had probably ordered the items as a passing fetish. He had told me more than once that he could make anything into a fetish, and he certainly lived that out. And he had moved from porn to erotic hypnotism to bdsm, pornographic online games and back to porn, causing much damage to our relationship.

Not long after we started marriage counseling, he told me he thought he might be a woman. I had never seen a trace of feminine behavior. He had some idiosyncrasies, but they seemed more like someone influenced by a possible sexual addiction or mid-life crisis.

I had often complemented him on his beautiful, resonate, masculine voice; his athletic, manly build; and his other masculine attributes. His wardrobe consisted of khaki cargo pants and polo shirts in subdued colors, certainly nothing frivolous or pink. He was good at all things STEM, but a bit socially awkward.

He didn’t like me to wear rings, earrings or nail polish. And he didn’t like women who wore a lot of makeup, had lip injections, or otherwise tried to change their natural looks. Today he does all of the above except lip injections, and he has experimented with lip plumpers.

A year ago my husband was fully male. Now he has breast buds, dresses in overly feminine clothes, wears way more makeup than he ever wanted me to wear, paints his nails, has his whole body waxed and shaved, takes female hormones, has his blood checked regularly because of the hormones he is forcing into his body, takes daily aspirin to avoid blood clots, has changed his voice, his name and his pronouns. It took me 11 years of life as a natural girl to start growing breasts. My husband forced his to grow within a few months of putting on his first dress.

How did this come to pass? Our marriage counselor recommended he go to a counselor who specialized in all things “transgender,” and my husband started going to a secular psychotherapist who led him rapidly down the road towards “womanhood.” Basically, my husband had a spiritual or emotional/mental issue and was groomed by his psychotherapist to follow this “transgender” path. And as someone who proudly claimed he could turn anything into a fetish, my husband did just that.

Kelly-Jay talks about why the “transgender” movement is harmful to natural women

The Problem with “Transgender” Psychobabble

The problem with secular therapists and counselors, even licensed Christian therapists who accept insurance, is that they are not neutral. If they were educated in the public education system and/or a university, they are already indoctrinated to see “gender dysphoria” as something to encourage. And the problem with licensed therapists or one accepting insurance is a therapist can lose their credentials and get in trouble if they DON’T encourage a person’s experimentation with the “transgender” lifestyle.

My husband’s psychotherapist had him lock himself in our bedroom for an hour and a half every week while she walked him through wearing women’s makeup and clothes. She encouraged him to make friends in the “transgender” community. My socially awkward husband was encouraged to get out and meet other damaged people who “loved bombed” him with affirmation where he felt like he could fit in and be a leader.

Finally, when he started to leave the house at night, not returning until 5 am the next morning, to meet his new “friends” at bars dressed like a woman, I told him he could not continue his experimentation at home. I begged him to stay as my husband and man but told him he could not live with me as a woman, certainly not if he was going to be staying out until 5 am.

I don’t believe his counselor ever investigated the root cause of his porn addiction, erotic hypnotism, and other fetishes. She didn’t uncover whether his relationship with his mother encouraged symbiosis or autonomy. She didn’t look into his mid-life crisis. No, she simply put this confused man on the fast track to changing his appearance and “gender.” That will surely fix everything, right?

Up until this point my husband had only worked a few months during the six years we had been together. He stayed with me until he got a job in June. Then he found an apartment and moved out. He says he has never been happier, but I see a frenzied, manic, has-to-move-and-be-entertained-constantly energy that does not look like joy to me.

Ambiguous Loss Suffered by Spouses of “Transgenders”

The process I am going through is called “Ambiguous Loss.” This means my husband didn’t die, but I have had to face the loss of the man I loved and married over the past year in bits and pieces every day. It can perhaps best be compared to losing someone to Alzheimer’s—“The Long Goodbye.”

What Is Ambiguous Loss?

Ambiguous Loss is the process of grieving someone who is still living. It happens when someone you love deeply changes drastically. While death is fixed and finite (on earth), and people are expected to grieve, Ambiguous Loss is a kind of limbo, torn between the hope that things will return to something approaching normal and a growing sense of dread that their life together is slowly slipping away.

Lack of Resources for Spouses of People Exploring “Transgenderism”

While there are countless resources for people who think they are “transgender,” there are hardly any resources for the spouses of those who destroy their marriages and their spouses’ lives trying to change their sex. There are NO resources for spouses of “transgenders” in my area. I have called counselors; I have done many searches online; I have called churches; but there are no support groups or resources for wives of men who now believe they are women.

My husband, who didn’t even want me to talk to our marriage counselor about his transsexual leanings, basically swore me to secrecy a year ago while he experimented, and then after a year of isolation, he faulted me for not having a “robust support network.” To him a “robust support network” is his new group of bar-hopping, virtual-reality-playing, political-activist friends who only know his fake persona and not the man he has been for almost 40-years.

Need for Resources for Spouses of “Gender-Confused” People

I wish I had more resources to offer other than the links below. If you know if any good resources for spouses of those facing the damaging effects of the “transgender” lifestyle, please leave them in the comments below. I hope this article may draw attention to the appalling lack of help for wives of husbands who leave them to pursue living as faux women. There is a growing number of family members or spouses of confused, weak men who have bought into the lie that they can somehow medically or magically change themselves into women. And once these men buy the lie, they do not care or even seem to notice the destruction, dysphoria and suffering they leave behind them. Wives suffering the loss of a husband who has left to pursue a Biblically immoral lifestyle need support groups more than these men who leave, yet the men get all the support and are told they are “brave and beautiful” for leaving.

A spouse making the arbitrary decision to try to change their sex causes incredible damage in the lives of those he is leaving behind as he undergoes the fantasy of transition. Loved ones will either have to accept him as a “woman”—although they have known him as a man their whole life together—or they will lose him entirely and be called a bigot, hater, judgmental, close-minded, narrow-minded or other predictably pejorative terms.

The same destruction is true of natural women who try to become men, but that is not my story. This is my story, and if your story is similar, you are not alone.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

You Are Not Alone

There were no resources for me, but if you or someone you love is going through something similar, You Are Not Alone. I have wept and swung from hope to despair; I have felt defeated and depressed; I have failed to communicate lovingly; I have grieved, felt like a failure and have been broken by my journey. If this sounds like you, remember there is a God who loves you, who knows your story, and who knows every tear you have shed. He will not abandon or forsake you. He will even fight your battles for you if you turn them over to Him. That’s what I am trying to learn to do.

For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.’ (NIV)
Deuteronomy 20:4

The path ahead of women like me won’t be easy, and few will understand. Many will judge Christian, conservative and traditional wives harshly for not going along with our husbands’ tragic decisions, and some may not have a support group to walk with them, especially if their husbands asked them not to tell anyone. But God will be there with you, and you will one day come out ahead if you trust in Him. Of that I am sure.