Through the Eyes of a Divorced Cis Woman

A post by a wife of someone AMAB.

It's posted to r/translater which implies there's no obvious place to go for a married woman whose husband has just come out as MTF trans. I learned from comments in it that r/mypartneristrans exists, but it's not a resource aimed at the thing that interests me, which is this critical stage of trying to navigate coming out to your heterosexual wife in a heteronormative marriage.

I wondered if there is a sub for "my partner just came out as trans" because I read these posts periodically usually from the MTF trans spouse and as a divorced cis woman I typically have a different take on the wife's reactions and it seems like there is substantial need for resources.

Women tend to be discouraged from exploring sex and tend to be financially dependent on our husbands. The above OP has never been with anyone else except her current spouse and is freaking out.

She thinks penetrative sex is very important to her but the reality is this person is her entire sexual history, so she doesn't really know her own sexuality as something separate from this relationship and doesn't have a basis of comparison to say with confidence what about this person is working for her in bed.

Humans frequently don't really know our own minds when it comes to sex. It's possible that women who see themselves as straight but in reality married a trans individual aren't really straight and don't know it and aren't prepared to face what's in their own closet when their lover reveals that their egg cracked and they can't live as male anymore.

Women get enormous social messaging and social pressure and social judgement dictating that they only have sex for love and they shouldn't be particularly curious about sex or knowledgeable about sex and only bad women are interested in sex.

They also get told they should marry for love, not money, but then should expect marriage to be their primary source of financial support. If their AMAB spouse is the primary breadwinner, she's probably poorly positioned to say "Nope. Sorry. I'm straight. I didn't sign up for this. I'm out. Buh-bye."

The questions I've read on Reddit by MTF trans spouses suggests they typically do not know how to deal with all that in their wife when they come out to her and haven't really thought about how sexually inexperienced she probably is, how being financially dependent impacts both her mindset and her options in practical terms and how extremely Verboten it is for a woman to deal directly with her own sexuality and her own financial needs.

I see need for resources for both MTF trans people wanting to come out to their spouse AND resources for the wives.

r/mypartneristrans doesn't seem to be focused on this specific thing and what I read when people ask questions about this problem space on Reddit doesn't impress me.

Even if your attitude is "Fuck the unsupportive wife!!!", the trans individual usually doesn't WANT to get divorced. So their wife needs help to actually navigate this in a way that actually works for her to have hope of optimum outcomes for the married AMAB trying to navigate this.

In heterosexual marriages, divorce is typically a huge financial crisis for the wife and a huge emotional crisis for the husband. Married men tend to have few friends and feel devastated at the prospect of losing their primary source of emotional support just when they need it the most and I've repeatedly seen AMAB people express the idea that they will just die inside and not transition if that's their only hope of keeping their wife.

Other stuff by me to help supply resources immediately while I figure out what I wish to do here:

The Genevieve Files is written about things I might have discussed with "the daughter I never had," a troubled trans youth who befriended me for a time.

Feminine Character Works explores "feminist" topics.

Calif Michele is a space for talking about female sexuality and empowerment.