my story is long and involved as we've been married 14 years now. my story is complicated, a lot more complicated than many i've read here so please bear with me as i lay out the main factors in what has proven to be my undoing.
i suffer from PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder, used to be called multiple personality disorder, and for the past three years one of my self states has been forward presenting as a female so much so that we were diagnosed as being Transgendered as well.
the issues that we're dealing with revolve around those three things...hmm...not sure how to say it other than i didn't deal with my issues prior to getting married and thought i could work through them during the course of our marriage however, rather than doing that she and i (as we both have issues to resolve) hid ourselves in drugs, sex and alcohol. a poor investment of time and money as it turns out... therapy sooner would have been a far better investment. in any case, i didn't resolve those issues and am working through them in therapy now.
issue 1) i haven't focused much on the relationship as i should have. she's always been very controlling and i, needed someone to control me, so it worked out for the most part yet there were areas that i disliked it and would withdraw from her and spend more time online than in talking with her.
issue 2) the DID means that every so often a different self state will be present (look it up on Wiki if you're interested, if not just go with it) and (until just 6 weeks ago) i would have no memory of what that self state had done. some of the self states behaved very poorly and did a great deal of emotional and psychological damage to my wife. i finally entered into a Trauma Unit specializing in these things and changed my life there. it's not important for this conversation however everything about my life is different than it was before i entered into the program.
issue 3) we've always helped friends out if they needed a place to crash during a bad fight or even a break up and so i met a young transgender girl online that convinced me she was in mortal danger from her parents, my wife and i together (though she claims she had no choice, i disagree) moved her to our house. once we discovered it was all lies, we moved her out. she was here for 28 days. she and i didn't have sex nor did i have any romantic interest in her at all though i did love her courage and bravery for enduring what she had endured.
issue 4) i'm a trans woman. as it turns out my wife was right about that and i realized that i was not during my treatment for the ptsd/DID. i've been trying to tell her that for 6 weeks however nearly every time we have a conversation she starts with personal attacks and insults, knowing just which buttons to push, and i've been responding. she doesn't want to be married to a woman and i discovered i was wrong about why i felt like i was trapped in the wrong body.
in any case, that's about the long and the short of it. couple that along with the usual stuff that builds up in a relationship and she's basically just had enough. three days before i left the inpatient treatment center it "clicked" for her that she didn't want to be with me any more. she didn't tell me until we got home and i've been trying to deal with the issues brought up during the hospital stay and dealing with the impending divorce.
i'm emotionally all over the place. i read the book and have noticed some changes however she's retained an attorney (her parents are paying for it, i can't retain one of course with just my income) and reports every angry word that i say to her without reporting anything which she says. she threatened to take my son (who's going to be 5 in Dec) to another country and i'd never find them. i was horrified, frightened and reacted poorly.
i live in the basement until we can sell our house (went on the market yesterday) and then she plans on moving out with our son (she'll decide when he can stay with me) and i'll be going wherever i go. she needs to get a job first so i don't know what's going to happen. if we sell our house and she doesn't have a job, then my income would get a small place for us and still pay our bills.
i would die for her and so i will do anything it takes to show her that i've changed and that i can be the husband, partner and father for my son that she wants.
