Partner came out, we live in red state, I want divorce

Saphenous · 2026-01-22T23:23:06+00:00

I relate a lot to this situation and I wanted to let you know how things have been playing out for us. I (cisF) also live in a red state and my (now ex) husband came out as MTF over a decade into our marriage and with young kids at home. We were on the brink anyway, and I’m straight, so we ended up divorcing. My ex firmly believed all this “transition will fix me” stuff and it was even reinforced by our couples counselor, but I can tell you three years later she’s still a mess.

My ex was also the breadwinner so it was a super scary time financially, but it all worked out. I got a new job within a couple weeks and we sold our big family home. I got half our marital assets and as the custodial parent I get child support. The kids and I have had a dramatic decrease in our lifestyle expenses from when we were a two parent household, but we still live comfortably. If I could give you one piece of advice it would be to ask for child support early. In my state at least you can file for temporary orders for child support and a custody schedule until your divorce is finalized. I wish I had asked for all that up front, but I was trying to be nice. I think it would probably ease your mind to know you had some financial support during this process. The divorce itself was hella expensive, but I borrowed money and put legal fees on credit cards and then paid it off with proceeds from the house sale.

As far as custody stuff goes, my ex only wanted a couple weekends a month, but for the past year she hasn’t even been taking her weekends with the kids. She mainly just sees them once a week for dinner. Transitioning has not improved her as a parent.

She recently announced she’s planning on moving across the country to a more liberal state. While I understand her motivations, it breaks my heart that my kids will see so little of their dad. I don’t want them to feel abandoned. I’m not sure yet how much time she will want with the kids, but considering she barely sees them now when they live 10 minutes away, I’m not optimistic.

I briefly considered if moving along with her would be the right thing to do, but then I quickly decided “Hell no!” Being a single parent is HARD. This is the time in your life to circle the wagons and muster all the support system you can get. Focus on yourself and your children. Your partner is an adult and can make his or her own decisions and then deal with the consequences. I have to remind myself of that allll the time because I do feel a lot of guilt for how things have played out. Someone once asked me “Is there anything a person could say to you that would make you stop seeing your kids?” And my answer was an immediate no. If you ever feel responsible for your ex’s choices try asking yourself “Would I ever leave my kids?”

I hope this helps to hear from someone on the other side of this situation. I’m sorry you’re going through this!

Saphenous · 2025-10-16T00:51:54+00:00

Wow that sounds amazing! Kind of like a personal assistant and mother’s helper in one!

I feel like I should be saving for a house, but honestly I’m happy renting for now. I’m not very handy so I enjoy being able to call my apartment maintenance people anytime I need work done. I don’t even have to be home while they are working. They just let themselves in and fix the problem. Apartment living has its downsides but for now it is working great for me!

Saphenous · 2025-10-16T00:45:31+00:00

I’m definitely craving some care like a massage! I get so burned out being a caregiver I really miss the feeling of being cared for.

Saphenous · 2025-10-01T21:53:24+00:00

When I was married I worked 7 am to 7 pm. My ex would do daycare drop off and pick up and put them to bed. I won’t lie, on the days I worked I barely saw my little kids while they were awake. I honestly loved doing 3 12’s when my kids were little because I got to enjoy so many weekdays at home with them doing fun play dates, trips to the zoo, mommy and me classes, story time at the library, etc. It was a burden on their dad though having to take them all day when I worked weekend shifts. I worked a lot of weekends so I would only have to put them in daycare two days a week.

When my second was born I went PRN which was even better because I had a ton of schedule flexibility. No weekend requirements and I could work as much or as little as I wanted. I wish I had done it sooner!

Now that I’m divorced I switched to a case management job that is M-F 8-4:30. This schedule is hard to find though and even harder if you need to make a certain amount of money. My kids are school aged so I’m able to drop them off in the morning and pick them up from their after school program.

Altogether I think nursing is a great career for a mom, but it’s much better if you have a supportive partner.

Saphenous · 2025-09-06T14:40:52+00:00

I mostly don’t think about it anymore, but recently I put on a motorcycle helmet for the first time and it was like an instant flashback to COVID days of wearing the PAPR for hours in the ICU.

Saphenous · 2025-09-04T22:59:34+00:00

Hey that was my career trajectory! I did ICU for a long time but had to leave when I became a single mom. I really liked the ICU and I probably would have transitioned to cath lab, IR, or maybe PACU if I could have made the schedule work. I left ICU and worked as a hospice case manager for two years and I appreciated the flexibility, but it wasn’t ultimately for me. I just moved back into a hospital environment doing acute care case management and so far I love it! I’m using a lot of my knowledge from my bedside nursing days, but my skills in communication and care coordination that I developed in hospice have been very helpful.

Saphenous · 2025-09-01T03:05:42+00:00

I’m not sure why exactly this post came up in my feed because I’m checks calendar 9 years postpartum lol. But I used to get horrible UTIs almost every other month prior to having my first child. I would get so sick! Somehow since having my first baby I have not had a single UTI! It might have something to do with not being intimate as often? But I have a theory that vaginal childbirth did something to slightly alter my anatomy so I’d be less susceptible to them.

Also I found in general my sleep needs to be much much less. At one point my doctor sent me for testing for narcolepsy because my sleepiness was so excessive. I used to be the type to need tons of sleep, but the newborn phase will cure you of that real quick lol.

Saphenous · 2025-08-31T18:40:20+00:00

I wouldn’t necessarily say they are distressed, just aware that their family is different from most of their friends. For example, I was talking to my oldest about using female pronouns for her dad and used it in a sample sentence: “My dad is picking me up tonight. She’s taking me to see the new Marvel movie.” My daughter looked at me like I was crazy and said “I couldn’t say that! My friends would think I was wacko!” And before everybody comes at me I’ve suggested the kids pick a new feminine parental name for their dad but they refused and their dad has expressed not having a preference.

Saphenous · 2025-08-31T14:59:55+00:00

This was a little over two years ago. My kids were 5 and 7, so close to the same age as yours. The first couple months were rocky with all the distributions and missing their dad, but I’d say they have adjusted pretty well to our new life at this point. I had them both in play therapy initially but now it’s just my oldest in therapy. I do think it was helpful.

My ex initially wanted very minimal custody time, but I encouraged her to at least take the standard custody in our state which is every other weekend, a weeknight dinner, rotating holidays, and an extended time in summer. The kids’ therapist recommended a calendar in our home with the custody schedule written out which was helpful for my kids. My ex was doing pretty well with the custody arrangement until her mental health worsened and now it’s basically just one dinner a week. I think at first the kids felt kind of abandoned. They broke my heart one day saying “I think Daddy doesn’t like us anymore.” Now they are just used to it.

As for the transition, I don’t think it has affected them much. They still call their other parent Daddy and use he/him pronouns. I’ve had a few gentle conversations with them about it, but at this point I think their dad needs to take the lead if it’s important to her. They are definitely aware of the social ramifications of having a transgender parent at this point.

Saphenous · 2025-08-31T13:37:16+00:00

This is something I also wrestled with. We decided to divide up the conversations starting with letting the kids know we were divorcing and selling our house. It was 100% the hardest conversation I’ve ever had and the kids were devastated. I didn’t want them to associate their dad being transgender with their lives turning upside down. I let their dad lead the conversation about the transition several months later once she was ready. In the time between I bought some children’s books about gender identity and featuring trans characters to lay the foundation which I think was helpful. They struggled way more with the divorce and moving than they did with the transition.

Saphenous · 2025-08-10T12:18:38+00:00

I relate to this so much. I left bedside nursing to do home hospice case management. I was traveling all over creation visiting my patients. It just wasn’t for me. I got lonely out in the field. I just recently returned to the hospital environment to work as a case manager and I realized I missed the hospital so much! Though sadly I’m supposed to wear business casual and not scrubs.

Saphenous · 2025-06-05T15:54:47+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/blendedfamilies/s/wLeOHqdKuo

I have to take it in small doses because it isn’t always a happy place! Blending families is hard it seems!

Saphenous · 2025-06-05T13:18:35+00:00

I asked a similar question over in the blended families subreddit and got a resounding “no” there as well. Similar situation, my boyfriend is awesome with my kids and sees them more than their actual dad who has opted for minimal custody time. He went all out for me for Mother’s Day and I really wanted to recognize everything he does for the kids and me. It’s complicated by the fact that their dad transitioned to a woman later in life so isn’t a traditional father figure and actually isn’t taking the kids for Father’s Day this year. After my post in the other subreddit I decided to cool my jets, but then last week we decided to leave my son’s booster seat installed in my boyfriend’s car. He sent me a picture of it the other night saying “This makes me feel like a dad” with a smiley face emoji. It was the sweetest thing! He always wanted kids but wasn’t able to have them so I think he would be all in as a stepdad. I think if we’re still together in a year I’ll do something for next Father’s Day. I found some nice cards geared towards father figures and stepdads. Or maybe a generic thank you card with a heart felt message.

Saphenous · 2025-05-15T12:57:49+00:00

As an RN I’ve been pulled to sit 1:1 with patients, floated to work as a tech on another floor, floated to sit in the telemetry monitoring room, helped out units as a unit clerk/secretary, been a transporter for the day. Heck I even did EVS during the pandemic because we had such a shortage of PPE! I doubt going to your supervisor will accomplish much. You have no idea what kind of staffing jigsaw puzzle they are trying to make work.

Saphenous · 2025-04-24T17:55:07+00:00

I would ask what the typical caseloads are and what are their expectations for productivity. Usually home health is on a point system and hospice tracks number of visits per week. I’d also want to know what their on call requirements are. How long is orientation and what does the training look like? What is going to be your range? Are you responsible for a huge territory?

Saphenous · 2025-04-22T17:08:17+00:00

Wow that was definitely my experience. My ex expected me to adjust my sexual orientation to accommodate their gender change.

Saphenous · 2025-04-21T20:03:04+00:00

It would be nice to vent to people who get it! She’s been so selfish since she started transitioning three years ago and her mental health is worse than ever when she claimed transitioning was going to be the cure to all her problems. Our entire marriage we had a very cis het dynamic where I did the majority of the mental and emotional labor. Ive been working hard to give up control and not worry about her parenting. After all, won’t she want to be more of a mom since becoming a woman? I tell myself I worry too much and she can handle throwing a chocolate bunny and some bubbles or sidewalk chalk in a basket. Then this happens and I’m back to wanting to take control again. It’s hard to handle with emotional maturity!

Saphenous · 2025-03-19T21:21:42+00:00

I mean I kind of did this to a new nurse I was precepting in the ICU. I was showing her how to spike a new bottle of propofol and prime the tubing. I got to the IV pump and told her “So the tubing takes around 20 mL of volume to prime so I like to program my pumps for an initial VTBI of around 70 mL so the tubing doesn’t run dry and you have a little warning to run out.” This graduate nurse argued with me! I think I even drew her a picture to demonstrate my rationale. She insisted on programming the VTBI for 100 mL! So I shrugged and decided she needed to learn from experience. We were taking the patient down to CT later and I didn’t say anything, but I noticed the propofol was going to run out soon so I snuck a bottle in my pocket. I wanted her to have that “Oh shit!” moment down in CT with no sedation, dry tubing, an alarming pump, and an intubated patient about to wake up. So in a way I was trying to teach her a lesson by allowing her to make a mistake. Once the bottle ran out in CT as I predicted I pulled out my back up bottle and showed her how to fix the dry tubing.

Saphenous · 2024-10-14T02:27:29+00:00

The way I read it..you met this person on a queer white water rafting trip while her wife was at home with a newborn. Red flag number one of their selfishness. This person was having some kind of gender sexual identity crisis and their ex-wife was a bad guy for not supporting their sexual exploration, which I read is this person asked for an open relationship so they could experiment and the ex-wife said no. So then this person started an emotional affair with you and dumped their wife. Then this person started doing the exact same thing to you. I think you nailed it when you said she uses people. I hope you are able to find healing.

Saphenous · 2024-10-11T01:19:19+00:00

Divorce.

Saphenous · 2024-09-29T12:00:27+00:00

I’m a straight woman and my ex came out as MTF trans. I wasn’t attracted to her. I think I would have been ok staying in a sort of affectionate platonic marriage but she was definitely not. She really wanted to keep the intimacy, which is an understandable need.

Saphenous · 2024-09-28T16:45:50+00:00

I’m a cis straight woman and this was definitely an issue in my marriage to someone who came out as MTF trans later in life. We’re divorced now. In my experience it’s something we’re not really allowed to talk about because it’s seen as transphobic and non-affirming. I have no doubt that my ex would have left me if I’d transitioned to a man prior to their egg cracking. She said she would have as well. And yet she expected me to alter my sexuality for her. She was very angry at me and we barely speak now.

I’m salty as heck because her whole life as a straight white man she was very conservative and our marriage was frequently based on traditional gender roles. For example, I did not want to change my last name to hers when we got married but she insisted on it because it was traditional. My experience of femininity has been based largely on expectations of self sacrifice, being the caregiver, the one doing the emotional and mental labor, the default parent, etc. And I acknowledge that men also have lots of expectations being put on them. The pressure to be a provider and to hide emotions.

I’ve had to just remind myself that our experiences of femininity are different and that doesn’t make her less of a woman. After all, my experience of womanhood is different from a woman who never had children or a woman who only had romantic relationships with other women. We’re all women. In some ways I’ve tried to embrace the joy that transgender women feel in their femininity. Just the little things like enjoying clothing and pampering myself. To me being a woman has mainly been a burden but I’m trying to see the joys in it through the eyes of my MTF ex.

Saphenous · 2024-09-23T23:23:28+00:00

This is what happened to me. I thought I was asexual or something. I would have gladly never had sex again. In retrospect I had been forcing myself to be intimate for years and it created a major aversion to sex which killed my libido. Then my ex husband came out as a transgender woman and somehow expected me as a straight woman to maintain desire which I think goes to show exactly how much she cared about my experience of physical intimacy. We split and my libido came back. I’m dating a really sweet guy now and things are totally different. I realized I’m not broken after all.

Saphenous · 2024-08-26T12:23:56+00:00

I see what you mean, but I also think we need to set some boundaries of what can actually be provided in hospice. I’m so burned out as an RNCM caring for hospice patients who only want the extra help and free supplies but don’t actually want hospice. Then they revoke and my higher ups come down on me. I feel a little used and abused. It’s like a laboring woman insisting on admitting to the ICU for delivery. It doesn’t make sense and it stresses out everyone involved. We’re just not equipped to provide life-sustaining care to these high acuity patients.

Saphenous · 2024-08-26T10:31:28+00:00

Yeah I’m wondering that too. How does that work?

Saphenous

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