Hi everyone. I thank you all for posting your stories- this forum is very helpful! I have only talked to one person about this before, and it is becoming clear to me that I need to start talking more about this just to get my thoughts out of my head and be able to think more clearly! I need more mirrors to make sense of my confusing relationship.

My husband of 7 years and I have a 3 year old. I am bisexual and that is partly why my husband "chose" me to marry- he figured I'd love his female self as much as I loved his male self. I do love women and men, however, his female self is completely unattractive to me because he is so self-absorbed and even sexually focused on himself when he is in "female mode". Our sexual life has always varied between ecstatic and loving to disappointing and me having my feelings hurt because he's so into his own body and I feel like he's masturbsting to my body.

I want to love this female "real him" as much as the male person he usually is, but "she" is truly like a different person. Though I have been in love with women, I would never have fallen for a woman with that kind of personality and sexuality. I don't like selfish people, obsessed with their looks, who are more turned on by themselves than me. He worships himself as a female. I want my lover and partner to be as into ME!

This is all getting clearer as I read your posts that there seems to be a pattern with some men who have spent their lives wishing they were female. Is there a studied pattern of them becoming very self-absorbed and that their sexuality revolves around arousing themselves as female? Another pattern I'm seeing is that his mother is also self-absorbed, unloving, abusive, and his father is the weak one with low self-esteem. His mother always wanted a daughter, hates mem, and never gave him any love or respect. Is he trying to get her love unconsciously?

I truly believe we all need to be ourselves to be happy. I want him to transition if that is who he "really is". But I need to decide how I feel about sharing my life with someone I don't feel in love with or loved by. And I'm really freaked out about my son's life with a father who is so "fringe" in society.

I take responsibility for putting myself in this situation- I have always questioned our relationship and never left. Then we had an unexpected baby and I styated longer. And here we are. I knew he was a cross-dresser before we married and had a child. I thought I would easily love his female self, too, and always felt guilty for not responding with positive emotions when she arrived. He had tried hormone therapy for a month or so before we had a baby- and it was almost the end of us because I wanted kids in my future. That was why he stopped the therapy- so he could have kids and be the father he always dreamed of being. It seems he has a split-personality: the male he did a great job at developing into an amazing person! and the female he meanwhile fantasized about being, but never got a chanvce to develop her, so she sort of sucks at being in a relationship. She was always a personal, secret, private identity for him. So, which is more 'real,' I can't tell? 

Since we had a baby, I had thought he had decided to stay male and dress for his own needs in his alone time, but he is feeling more certain that he needs to make the full-transition to become his "real self" to be truly happy. He's moving fast on this!

I don;t know how to respond to his process- a huge part of me does not want to be with this female version of himself until she develops more into someone I can love and feel loved by. He seems obsessed with his transition and himself, which I'm repelled by. I don;t know how to love this person who can't seem to love others/me. I can be supportive, yes, but do I want to be in a marriage? I really don;t see how I could do that to myself. I know he needs my support. And he may even need me as a partner to have the courage to do this. I want him to do what is best for him. But I don;'t know if I want to do it WITH him. It is a major sacrifice for me!!!! 

I want to love other people and have been having strong crushes on other people for a year or two now. 

I don't want to betray him or leave him alone to deal with this. But I want real love and a healthy relationship- which I don;t think this is anymore, if it ever was.

Reading this over, I feel like I sound like such a selfish asshole. I would never admit these conflicting feelings to anyone I know out of fear of their reactions....

Thank you for listening in a non-judgemental way!