[bryony]

This whole thing is really a can of worms. There are so many factors involved and if I overlay my own situation on to it, I can see no win-win scenarios.

It depends so much on the couple, where they are in their relationship and so many other factors. There are times when you have to suppress things, when you have to convince yourself that there is an alternate truth that must be applied in order to preserve your partner's state of being.

I have both suppressed some things my partner won't like and been honest about others and they both have consequences.

When you cook a meal for your spouse, the nicest pieces of meat, the best cooked veggies etc go to them right. You give yourself the pieces that were slightly burned, that broke because they stuck to the bottom of the frypan.

Putting your wife first when you can live with the consequences, is something you have to do from time to time.

There may come a time though when the consequences of suppressing outweigh the consequences of revealing. Most spouses would prefer coming out as TG over suicide. (I am cynical enough to think that not all would.)

I totally agree with Bryony that marriage is a commitment to another person and a decision as significant as TG has to involve both parties. A fait accompli is no way to handle it. I would not/could not do that to my wife.

I also agree with Clara that there is a societal issue here where gender is too binary and the concept of a continuum is gaining, but not well accepted. For those who rely on the societal framework and knowing their place in it for their wellbeing, I can understand why the author is distressed.

Thanks for the agreement, CA.

I feel it worth repeating at this point that I have no problem with informed consent. If a sufferer is up-front to his wife at the start and she understands that there is a problem and accepts it then that is absolutely fine.

Where I do have a problem is where someone lies by omission to obtain a women who will play a genuine role as wife, mother, parther for some decades, after which it will be too late for her to start again, having a bomb drop on her life. To be told, and expected to believe that after 30-odd years, it has suddenly become "all too much". Further that if she doesn't like it she can "bugger off".

That is not becoming a woman. That is becoming a male chauvinist pig in a dress.

I agree that there is a societal problem as described, but why should the wife pay for it if she was not forewarned? Probably because the other societal problem is the traditional one where the husband lies to the wife and then betrays her. That's what bugs me.

B.