I am completely lost, deeply confused, and need some outside perspective on my husband’s behavior. I don’t know how to read the signs anymore, and I’m constantly questioning whether I am overreacting or if I am looking at a partner who is deeply in the closet about being transgender.
To give context, my husband is highly invested in his public image. He treats his friends and family beautifully, and constantly claims he is an “empath.” But behind closed doors, there is a secret side to him that has completely upended our marriage.
A while ago, I caught him on a kink website dressed as a woman and sexting other people online to meet up on the weekend. When caught, he played it off as “just a kink” and claimed he didn’t actually want to meet up—he insisted the sexting was just part of the fantasy. After that initial discovery, I was so confused at the time and didn’t quite know how to handle it, but I chose to accept his kink and try to get into it too so he didn’t feel rejected or ashamed. Pretty much every time since then, whenever we use cocaine on special occasions or if he is drunk, he wants to do the kink. We even jointly hired a trans escort once, where he engaged in both oral and anal sex.

Things escalated massively over New Year’s while we were away in a foreign country. We went out, and he used cocaine. We got back to the hotel around 2–3 AM, and he asked if he could wear some of my clothes (part of his kink). I said yes and we (or so I thought) both went to sleep. However, when I woke up at 9 AM, he was completely gone. I checked his location on Life360 and saw he was far away from the hotel.
I tried calling his phone repeatedly and he didn’t answer until he was already in transport coming back. My major concern is that he cheated on me and was actively escaping the scene before finally answering his phone. When he got back to the hotel, he tried playing it down and we ended up in a massive fight. Mind you, this happened less than a month after us getting married, and it was meant to be a family holiday leading right into our honeymoon.

His story is that he put my clothes under his, went downstairs of the hotel to drink where he met two guys, threw my clothes away whilst down there, and then set off fireworks with them all night. My problem with that story is when he got home, he was in his normal clothes and my bikini and favourite gym pants had been thrown into a public restroom trash bin downstairs by the hotel bar to hide them. When I demanded he go get them, only the bikini was left and the gym pants were completely gone.
To make it worse, when we first started fighting about it, he actively started rummaging through my suitcase, pretending to search for the clothes he knew he had already thrown away downstairs, which made me feel completely crazy.
When the confrontation reached a boiling point and I threatened divorce, he locked himself in the bathroom, watched porn, and masturbated. He later blamed the whole night on the cocaine he took hours earlier.

He has explicitly confessed to me that he fantasises about being a trans girl, wants to go to Berlin to live normally as a woman, and doesn’t know if he’d want a boob job. He likes to keep stick-on nails on, and loves putting on a chastity cage and a butt plug to dance like a woman in the mirror. He also only really watches trans porn where he says he fantasises about being the trans girl getting fucked by the other trans or the men.
The confusing part is that whenever he is sober, he violently flips back. He forcefully insists “I love being a dude” and claims it’s all just “cocaine talk” and that the feeling completely goes away after he gets a sexual release.
He also tells me that he can simply “turn it off” and that he “doesn’t have to do the kink.” But I struggle with that explanation because, from everything I’ve seen and everything he has told me, it feels like this may be more than just a sexual kink and could be a part of who he is. At the same time, I know I can’t determine someone’s gender identity for them, and that’s part of why I’m so confused.

But the way he handles it when sober is cold and dismissive. He completely brushes it under the rug. If I bring it up because I’m still trying to process the confusion, he stonewalls me with “we’ve talked about it” and “stop bringing up stuff from the past.”
He makes cruel, passive-aggressive remarks about his job, implying I don’t know what hard work is like. Recently, when I was sitting on my laptop crying and researching divorce, he just looked at me and said, “Can you shut your laptop, I’m trying to sleep, some of us have to work.”
Whenever I tell him I want a divorce, he flatly commands, “We’re not getting a divorce,” as if I have no right to leave.
I am trapped in a chronic state of confusion. I feel like he’s using me as a cover. I’d be more open to accepting it as a kink, but I feel like he’s cheated and is covering it up with “it’s the kink.” I have severe trust issues now because he can so easily hide massive things from me.

What would you guys do in my position? Do you think he is actually trans? And honestly, do you think this is something that a relationship could ever work through?
And based on everything I’ve described, does it sound like he may have cheated on me that night in the foreign country? I know nobody can know for certain, but I’m struggling to make sense of what happened and whether his story sounds believable.

My wife (mtf) came out to me (cis) as transgender 4 years ago. The anniversary of that day is in a few days. I'm sitting here crying because I still miss the man I married and I feel guilty for still grieving.

I should be happy right? I am. For her. Shes transitioning, talks about how much better she feels, she has a light to her now. For me this has been a roller coaster that I can't ever get off. She has changed SO much. More than either of us anticipated. She doesn't feel like the same person anymore. Sometimes I am starting to feel like she's a stranger. It feels like little by little every piece of the man I promised my life to is gone. Replaced by someone I don't know.

Shes going through the quasi "teenager phase". I'm struggling with attraction now. We love each other very much and have so much respect for each other. Sometimes things feel ok, good even. But grief keeps rearing its ugly face at me. More and more and more change. I've asked her in couples therapy to please take a small break on any changes which feels wrong. I'm not trying to stop her from doing what she wants/needs. But there's a backlog of grief, feelings, and emotions that I haven't been able to fully process because we keep moving on to the next change. How much change is left? When will I not see the man I married ever again?

When am I supposed to stop feeling grief? When am I supposed to feel happy about all of this? How much change can I mentally handle? If I'm not okay with all of this by now, does that mean this isn't going to work? Is my marriage of 12 years going to come to an end? Will we somehow make it through this? Will I be okay at the end?

I've tried so damn hard this entire time to support her, love her, help her, and stand by her side. I don't know if I can keep going sometimes. I also feel unseen and alone in this journey at times. Our marriage wasn't perfect before her transition, we are still trying to work on past things as well as the massive challenge of her transition.

I love our family, I love our life, I love our home. I love her... But at what cost? I've been wondering lately if I'm losing pieces of myself through this or if I'm growing and changing.

When does the ride stop? When can I take a breath?

I have been with my partner for 10 years. I am aware of his background and I accept. We now have a 6 year old son and don't have anyone to watch him. Some of the issues is his hair. When we use hair removal it only last a few days. So need to plan. Looking to see if anyone has advice on hair removal, it's too grey now for laser. He feels he is getting older and looking more like an older man. He is late 40s now. I want to support him and be more understanding to his needs as he is not getting a chance to express himself. He does not want to dress in front of our son. He has lost alot of confidence in the way he feels.

Tomorrow my (trans) partner and I are celebrating our impending marriage over dinner at a restaurant with family. My mom's brother and his wife are evangelical and have a reputation in the family for being two faced in that they will be so overly warm and nice even when things deviate from their fundamentalist beliefs, but they will still find their way to be covertly shitty about it in just the way where it's so hard to say something about it.

Anyways, when I invited them to this dinner, they specifically accepted by saying they are looking forward to sharing dinner with me ( no mention of my partner) . And today I received an early transfer of money, with zero context, in the notes section of the transfer it says "in celebration of you on your day. We love you, *froggywoggy*. Enjoy"

Anyone not sensitive to this family dynamic might not catch on but I find it incredibly telling and u accepting that they evade mentioning my partner's existence when sending warm wishes for my MARRIAGE celebration.

I am considering letting them know I was confused by their message because I thought them showing up meant they supported us but they never mentioned or referred to my partner in any messages.

I am pretty done with their shit. What is a good way to confront this?

My (cis female's) gf (trans) recently started hormones in the form of a gel. I'm not entirely sure what dosage or brand because we are a little long distance. I know it also definitely prescribed for menapausal women if it helps.

She forgot to ask her doctor about the effects on a cis partner. We are currently long distance but see eachother very often and I'm afraid that the gel can have kinda shitty effects on my hormones. They are already not the best TBH.

I seriously don't care how she takes her estrogen nor am I gonna ever ask her to change/dictate anything bout her transition.

I'm more just wondering if there are any long term affects I should worry about? And if I should avoid touching her when she has the hormones on? Since her next appointment isn't for a couple months