How to cope with husband being gay/bi/transexual?

"Dear Housewife,

I'm married to a younger man who thinks he may be bisexual. My husband is 24 and I'm 42. We've been married for almost two years.

How does the saying go? If hind sight were 20/20… Well if it were I wouldn't be married to him today.
I still love him but its been seven months since we've shared the same bed or had sex. I'm more of a mother figure and a friend to him than I am his wife, and he agrees with me.

The first year or so of our marriage was very good but it went down hill when I discovered the things he was hiding on our home computer. He was visiting a lot of fetish websites for smoking, transexuals, and a crossdressing.
After many hours of discussing the things on the computer, he confessed to having a sexual fascination with women that smoke. For your information, when we got married, I was a smoker and he was a non-smoker.

In addition to the porn and fetish websites he had also joined an on-line dating site and was presenting himself as a woman who smokes. He was communicating by email with five different men who knew him as Dana.
I asked him point blank if he was gay and he denied it. He said it was just fantasy stuff and that it didn't mean anything and he loved me. After more discussion, it turns out the fantasy stuff is a life long thing for him.

When he was a boy and lived at home he'd dress up in his mother's clothes and pretend to smoke her cigarettes. He promised me that he had never smoked and had stopped wearing women's clothes when he left home for college.
None of what he said made any sense to me. I am a heterosexual woman who is addicted to cigarettes and I see nothing sexy about smoking like a woman! Its a foul and disgusting habit and I wish I didn't have to do it.

I made my husband move into the guest room that very day and he's slept there ever since. After that I started researching his issues on the web and I began to get more sympathetic.
I've spent the last seven months helping my husband become the woman he's always dreamed of being. I've helped him with his clothes and make-up. I've bought him breast-forms and a wig. I've even taught him how to walk, talk, and even smoke like a woman.
He quit his job and took another job where he can work out of the house with me. All of our neighbors know and its an embarrassment to me. I love him as a best friend and I want to stay married to him but I'm not sexually attracted to him any more.

I did something I kind of regret. I encouraged my husband to start dating men. I said it was the only way he'd know for sure whether or not he was bisexual. I was thinking about him but I wasn't thinking about myself or how it would affect me.
My husband had his first sleep-over last night. He stayed at his "boyfriend's" house, and from what he said, apparently his boyfriend made a woman out of him last night and he liked it. So where does that leave me?

I wrote you because I saw where you are bisexual and have an open marriage with your husband.
Is there any thing you can tell me that will help me live with this?"

Dear Reader,

Firstly, I am sorry that you have found yourself in this situation. It must not be easy for you to have gone through this not knowing this from the beginning.

You have been a wonderful support to your husband, and I am sure that he appreciates this very much. Not many spouses would go to such lengths. Congrats to you on your forward thinking!

From what you describe, I do not see that your husband is bisexual. If he was, then the sexual relations between the two of you would have continued, but they have not.
It appears that your husband may be a transgendered gay male. Being transgendered does not necessarily mean that he will have a sex change, or even want to.. but that he can identify himself (or see himself) as either or both genders.

As my relationship goes.. My husband knew that I was bisexual when we started dating. I let him know that upfront. He was able to make a decision then as to whether or not he wanted to continue dating me.
He enjoys my bisexuality and is often included in sexual relations between me and other women, although not all the time.
If you do not see yourself as enjoying this in him, then it may not work for your marriage.

With that being said, I have known a few marriages where it works when the husband has been transgendered and no sexual relations are had by the married couple. They love each other and support each other in a more friendship way, but when it comes to sexual relations, they have their separate relationships.
I would recommend a looking into a support group for spouses who have found their partner to be transgendered, gay or bisexual. You will be able to get more advice and support from there.
There are many websites that are set up for this as well.
Here are a few that I have found that may be useful to you.

http://www.crossdresserheaven.com/my-transgendered-husband/
http://www.help4families.com/husband_transgendered.pdf
http://www.lauras-playground.com/support_index.htm
http://www.montrosecounselingcenter.org/2010/?p=639
http://www.ftminfo.net/soffa.html
http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Online_Support

I know this must be a tough and trying time for you, and I wish you both the best of luck.


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