I happened to catch Dateline NBC last night, the one about the married couple trying to get through the husband’s decision to have a gender reassignment and the subsequent changes. The wife seemed pretty hard-core determined to do everything she could to make it work, and they had some other couples who were trying to make it work, but I have to think that it’s very small percentage of women who would stick around through all this.
I could maybe see myself staying if we could both agree that we would both be celibate. No expectations that I would have sex with someone I’m unaroused by (the boobies and the bush just don’t do a thing for me), no expectation that extramarital affairs or walking out over the lack of sex would be acceptable. This would only be an option if we were much, much older than we are now, though.
I’m fairly certain I could NOT stay through a situation like the one depicted last night. I realize that editing can make a situation look like anything the editor wants, but there just didn’t look like the husband was putting any real effort into making the marriage work on a long-term basis. The support and understanding seemed to all be going one way, and the one time Victoria (the woman the husband became) acknowledged her wife’s sacrifices, it was pretty perfunctory. The tears before the final surgery weren’t sadness or guilt about all those sacrifices, they were “joy because I’m not going to lose my best friend.” And in the final interview, she appeared to be talking about leaving if her wife wasn’t willing to have sex with her. I believe the phrase she used was “see if she comes around, and if not, something will have to change.”
That comment would have been it, for me. Assuming I refrained from some serious ass-kicking right there in the studio, I would have gone home, packed up all of her clothes and makeup, and kicked her butt out the door. The gender reassignment, with all the hassle and expense and confusion and isolation and sense of loss it entails, I could probably deal with. Being married to someone for whom it’s all about what she wants and what she needs all the time, no way.
Personally, if I had made a lifelong romantic commitment to someone, and they changed sexes, it wouldn’t be a problem, since I’m theoretically bisexual*.
But if I were the wife, and I couldn’t make love to Victoria, I would dissolve the marriage and keep the friendship. Maybe I’d even suggest living in a duplex, so that we could spend lots of time together. Victoria is still sexual and has the right to have those needs met. At the same time, the wife also has a right to get her sexual needs met. If Victoria cannot meet them in a way that is agreeable to the wife, then the marriage should end.
*If anyone who has heard me call myself a “lesbian” is confused, it’s because my life partner is female. Since I am going to spend the rest of my life in a romantic relationship with a woman, I identify as a lesbian.
i can understand that the wife doesn’t want to toss a 30+ year marriage… but it seems that the relationship is not spousal anymore.
more like mothering older sister to brother. i agree that it seemed the wife was giving the majority of the support to victoria and not getting much back in return.
if my spouse was transgendering i would offer all the help and support i could, but the marriage would be over.
i’m thinking the couple shown last night will stay close but that they will separate at some point. i was rather surpised that they had not had “relations” in over a year and a half, before the final surgery.
I’m with CrazyCatLady. Victoria’s comments about “something will have to change” if they cannot have a sexual relationship would have been the end of it for me - right after I punched her out. What a selfish bitch!
I don’t think that marriage is going to last. I honestly think the involvement of Dateline made Joyce (the wife) determined to keep up appearances for the sake of the “story”.
Didn’t see the show. Personally, though, I would be willing to try keeping the marriage together if my hypothetical husband turned out to be transgender.
I am not bisexual and generally do NOT find women appealing in “that way”.
However, I think I would still see the person as being the same person I fell in love with even after the anatomy change.
Penises are a dime a dozen, but a person whose mind and personality are compatible with mine is a rare find.
I didn’t see this show, but I have seen other specials in a similar vein. When I was on dialysis six days a week, I saw a lot of educational and news and history TV.*
I wish I knew more about the husband-patient’s real attitude before I condemn it. Crazy Cat Lady is right: the editors could have simply picked the juiciest and most controversial things to put into the show.
I can’t condemn Victoria, though. She definitely knows what she wants and she’s going through with it; I wish her all the luck in the world. I don’t think that someone undergoing SRS should be thought of as selfish for putting him- or herself first. Asking her wife not to change throughout the process is a bit much, though.
If I had a SO who wanted to become a man through surgery, I’d be as supportive as I could. I’d have to make it clear—as the wife does here, kudos to her—that I wouldn’t be able to be the same person in all ways, especially not a lover.
Sheesh. I sympathize with them both but I also don’t foresee this ending well for either of them, as far as the marriage goes.
Mr. TeaElle is my other half. The idea of walking away from our marriage if he revealed that this is where he really needed to go is just appalling to me, because our lives are so completely interconnected.
Of course, I am also bisexual, though I came to that realization after i was married and have therefore never done anything “with it” so to speak. That makes it easier, I suppose, to not feel that a committed, spousal relationship with Mr. TeaElle after he became, er, a Ms. TeaElle, such an odd thing.
Honestly, I don’t know how I would react. On one hand, if this is someone I’ve loved enough to marry, perhaps be with for years and maybe have kids with, then there will always be some sort of relationship there.
As far as sex, though…I’m not interested in sex with women and never have been. I can’t see that changing just because the person I love and married became a woman. I can see the relationship changing to something that’s more of a sisterly relationship perhaps.
The more I think about this, the more I just don’t know how it would work out.
Yep, SS, they’re still legally married. Although two people can’t legally start a marriage as a same-sex couple in most states, they can maintain an existing marriage that becomes same-sex in all fifty states. And oddly enough, most of the couples (at least the natal female half, who seemed to do most of the talking) were unwilling to identify themselves as being in a lesbian relationship. One of them said “we’re not lesbians, we’re…spouses.” To which one of the former men said, “Well, I’m a lesbian!” I think maybe it’s a generational thing, but most of them seemed very uncomfortable with the idea of going gay, as it were.
As for Victoria’s sexual needs, I’d have a lot more sympathy if it weren’t for two things: she had fair warning that sex would likely not be a part of the deal if Joyce stayed, but wanted her to stay anyway, and they didn’t have sex at all for a year and a half before the surgery. Victoria willingly agreed to a marriage that would likely be sexless, which to my mind makes her willingness to leave because of a lack of sex pretty reprehensible. What’s worse, though, is the fact that she apparently had no regard at all for her spouses emotional or sexual needs during the entire preoperative phase, even when Joyce is standing there in the same room talking about how she misses the intimacy. That went on for the better part of a year, and Victoria expected Joyce to just grin and bear it, so I’m having a hard time mustering any sympathy for Vic after four months, you know?
Hmmm… if my SO decided to become female would I stay married?..
Um, no.
I’m on the extreme end of heterosexual. Women just don’t get my motor running. Looking at a naked, hot, wet, willing female is about as arousing to me as looking at a display of pickle jars at a flea market. Possibly less so. I don’t have a problem with lesbians and bis getting it on, I just don’t happen to be one of them. Asking a het such as myself to “go bi” or “go gay” is just a wrong as asking a lesbian to “go straight”. I’m just not wired that way.
If, for some bizarre, inexplicable reason I myself decided to have SRS I expect I’d still be attracted to men, not women. In which case I suppose I’d be on the extreme end of homosexual. Or something. Truthfully, some of this is very confusing to me.
Hey, if other people can work it out more power to them, but not everyone will be able to.
If my husband pulled that stunt I would get a divorce and move to the other side of the country, if I didn’t just up and die when he announced to me that he wanted to become a girl.
I honestly don’t understand how some of them could stay married. Despite what their spouses say, they are most definitely not the same person they married. True, everyone changes over time in a marriage, but to a entirely different gender?
I’m surprised by how many people are saying that what is on the outside is more important than what’s inside. Especially when it comes to someone they loved enough to commit to for the rest of their lives. Never mind my spouse, if my best friend said she wanted to be genetically engineered to be a lizard-woman I’d still love her as much as I do now.
Well, Lola, I don’t think it’s a matter of loving someone any less. It’s more a matter of whether these lifestyle changes are something you can live with in a spouse. Some differences are just too wide to bridge in a way that makes both of you happy. Cliche as it might be, the simple truth is that sometimes love just ain’t enough.
Um, when it comes to having sex with them, yes, what’s on the outside is pretty darned important in my mere heterosexual view. I’m not surprised that people are saying this. There are a huge number of loving, caring, decent, funny, compassionate, intelligent, dedicated people in this world, and fully half of them I will never be attracted to because they are men. My loss? If you insist; I can’t change who I am attracted to simply because it would be more fair.
Attraction is only one thing, though. I would still want to be as (non-physically) loving and supportive as I could be. I hope that wouldn’t change about myself. It’s hard to know for certain.
Oh, I’d still love my SO after SRS, I just would be completely NOT sexually attracted to the person anymore. When I married I didn’t take an oath of celibacy, quite the opposite. If my SO changed in such a manner the sexual part of the partnership would end. In which case, while we could remain very good friends, I don’t think we could remain married over the long term.
Granted, my husband could suffer some sort of disease or injury rendering him impotent, but that doesn’t elminate hands, tongue, and various toys. But a woman in my bed would not, as I said, be at all arousing, interesting, or fun for me. Our relationship would move to something non-sexual and non-physical. That doesn’t mean I’d stop caring, just that I’d stop having sex with that person.
Is sex absolutely vital to a marriage? Hmmm… not 100% but it IS important. And if not actual intercourse, then physical intimacy. Being held tight and falling asleep in the arms of a woman is NOT the same as the arms of a man to me. Men feel different, smell different, and taste different and it’s those differences I seek for physical intimacy. If they’re absent, it’s not the same thing at all.
I am in love with my husband, a man whom I know intimately. If he were to announce that he were a woman, it would seem that I had never truely known him at all.
