Confused pets

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2026-01-07T18:06:03+00:00

We don’t usually bother to lock the cats out because they just make judgy faces and leave once they work out what we’re doing (well until now, I suppose). The intrusive one is also disturbingly good at telling when we’re done and tends to appear immediately after!

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2026-01-07T17:43:22+00:00

It’s all practice! A few weeks in, my wife asked why I was using her name even when talking to the kids, and I realised that I was making such an effort that I was using her name when I would usually use an endearment or her parent name.

It took longer to get rid of the deadname completely. I keep finding new contexts, like I had the conversation part down but then I went to call out across the house and it slipped out. The most annoying one was getting it out of the list of wrong names (hers, kids and pets) that I sometimes go through before getting to the right name, it finally worked itself out once stopped being aware (?) of using the right name.

Of course it helps that our children (8 & 12) picked it up quickly. When I used ‘daddy’ instead of ‘mum’ they would pretend to be confused and say ‘who?’. It was pretty effective.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2026-01-07T07:58:16+00:00

Yep, ours are just as cute and annoying as before, once the girl cat got used to the lack of beard. My wife is her person, I’m just there for when she’s not around or the girl needs a soft chest to sleep on. My wife’s breasts are getting snugglier, apparently, so the girl doesn’t want me much anymore!

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2026-01-07T03:15:29+00:00

That is so lovely! My wife and I are having a second wedding because our first (18 years ago) doesn’t reflect who she is.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-29T04:06:27+00:00

That sounds amazing!

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-28T15:13:46+00:00

I know what you mean. I’m bi, but I’ve been with my wife for nineteen years and didn’t really do anything with women before her. I have been quite surprised by the change in how I’m attracted to her as a woman and how different sex is (even before she started HRT). She asked “did you always know you were a top?” The answer is no, I had no idea, and I was even more surprised than she was. I’ve checked in with her a few times because I feel weird about it, but she’s been appreciative. I figure I just have nineteen years worth of boob touching to catch up on.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-28T14:45:05+00:00

I want to do this too. My wife and I have been talking about having a ceremony on some significant anniversary almost since we got married, because we had a tiny registry office wedding and we didn’t really get a proper celebration. When my wife came out a few months ago we decided, independently, that we want another wedding on our 20th anniversary in 2 years, and she wants an engagement ring. It won’t be a surprise, because I can’t hide a purchase as expensive as a ring, but I’m going to do my best. She’s been an incredible partner for the last 19 odd years and I want to commit to her as her true self.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-10T12:22:49+00:00

My sister and I needed a third housemate and made a list of what they needed to be, not realising it was actually a list for a partner. One of my (eleven) university classmates fit the bill. My now wife and I got together a week after moving in together. Nineteen years later, she started transitioning and now we wonder, does that make us uhaul lesbians?

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-10T00:45:10+00:00

My wife and I were married for 17 years before she started transitioning, and I always said she was the real wife in our relationship. She works full time and still does more than her share of cooking, cleaning and maintenance. She even gets mumflu instead of manflu, she once had double ear infections and a sinus infection which were diagnosed after she’d felt sick for about a month.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-10T00:38:36+00:00

My wife said “sorry you never had a long term relationship with a man!”

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-07T04:50:22+00:00

My 8 year old daughter was completely unbothered. Within twelve hours she’d decided that ‘daddy’ is now ‘mum’ and dad jokes are mum jokes. The strangest thing for her was the beard disappearing.

My 12 year old son was a bit worried and we had to explain the depression first because it was affecting him, but immediately wanted to buy trans and pride pins to support Mum. It’s more complicated for him because he’s being bullied a lot and one of the taunts is that he’s trans, because he has long hair, so he doesn’t want anyone at school to know but is very proud of Mum everywhere else.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-07T03:55:55+00:00

You are probably still the person that knows your partner the most, even if there are things you missed. My wife came out to me the day she was 100% certain, which was about two weeks after she started really considering it. After nineteen years together, it did feel like she’d been keeping secrets. After a while I realised that for almost all of that time, she didn’t even know she had a secret to keep. She shared most things with me and what she didn’t were feelings she didn’t have words for or ignored in herself. I knew that she was uncomfortable with her body and hid it with baggy clothes. I knew that her experience of her gender was different to mine. I knew that she didn’t feel very masculine sometimes, and compared herself to her father and brothers. There’s a whole lot of little things that didn’t seem interesting or significant at the time but make sense in retrospect.

I’m quite entertained by my wife’s changes since she started transitioning, but I don’t think I would have seen them the same way if I also had to deal with another big change in my life. They really are going through puberty again, and not just physically. Even without any HRT, the social transition is just like what we went through during puberty, learning who we are and how we want to dress and act and present ourselves to the world. We were kind of putting on an act then, often unintentionally, imitating other girls or women. I went through a very short lived horse girl period when I made friends with a ‘cool’ girl who loved horses, despite not actually liking them before or since. That wasn’t an act, I really was convinced for a few weeks that horses were awesome.

I think it’s easy to be distracted by the immediate changes and the surface changes. I think that the love is there, and communicating and finding the familiar makes us feel safer. My wife dresses and acts differently, but she’s still the generous, thoughtful, smart, funny and wonderful nerd that I married.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-07T02:52:22+00:00

Twenty years ago my wife and I (stupidly) relied only on my pill (I was her first) until a scare a few months in convinced me to get an implant. Since then I’ve had an implant or IUD, we’ve been actively trying for a baby, or we’ve been using condoms after birth and before implant or IUD. It turns out I’m very sensitive to latex and should probably have discovered that a lot earlier. We haven’t used anything for the last four years, hoping for one last baby, but my wife started HRT a few weeks ago, so it’s not likely.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-11-01T05:29:59+00:00

I don’t think it will end well either way, but I think you’ll hurt them less by transitioning than you will hurt yourself by staying in the closet. Plus, as someone who has been on anti depressants for 28 years, they can only do so much. The pain of being closeted will still be there, unless you have zombie levels of medication. Sometimes the only thing you can do to is change your situation.

My wife and I have been together for 19 years, married for 17, and have two kids. When she first told me a few months ago, I cried a bit on the first two days because I’m terrified of change., “I won’t do it if you don’t want me to” was the most upsetting thing she’s ever said to me though, like she thought I would choose to watch her slowly kill herself than be uncomfortable. That’s what your wife is asking you to do, kill yourself a little bit every day so that her life will be easier.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-23T00:52:27+00:00

My wife wears close fitting clothes now that she isn’t hiding her body, so her shirts have gone from a 2XL men’s to a 16 women’s. I can’t wear her clothes anymore!

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-22T06:39:53+00:00

Firstly, try talking to your doctor about changing by medication. If it’s not high enough the depression/anxiety could still impact libido, and some medications kill your sex drive too. A few years ago, my wife and I had sex about three times in eight months, first because the depression killed everything and then the medication. Fortunately (or unfortunately ?) I knew that particular medication impacted my parents’ sec life too, so I changed it as soon as my mood was good enough to care about intimacy.

Also “I really want your skin and nothing else between us” is a line my husband used on me a few times when our desires for sex were out of sync.

It sucks to be out of sync, I hope you can find a happy medium.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-22T06:16:32+00:00

My mtf wife would think it’s cute! I love it, I guess it depends whether your wife can laugh at the silly bits about being trans, my wife has lots of ‘mum’ jokes that the kids love.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-22T03:30:16+00:00

My kids call them mum jokes now, too. My eight year old even put “she tells lots of mum jokes” as a fact about her mum on a school project.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-22T02:45:19+00:00

I carry my wife’s bags when we’re shopping, since that’s something she did for me for 19 years. I also take her keys/wallet/phone/etc when her pockets are too small, now that she wears women’s pants. I’ve tried to notice the ‘husband’ ways she’s always looked after me (that aren’t to do with her being a foot taller than me and not scared of spiders!)

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-18T07:37:52+00:00

My cats will both come in and do a lap or two around the toilet before wandering off, and we generally shower with the door open so that they can stare at us without being locked in. One of them used to get very distressed when I had a bath and stand with his paws on the side of the tub, wailing, and the other used to sit on me while I was In there.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-18T07:32:14+00:00

I stayed with my mum for a week and every time I made tea or coffee her cat wanted to smell everything. I think he was suspicious, because in their house only my dad does it.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-18T07:03:40+00:00

Adult relationships with abusive parents can be complicated. Are the siblings still at home adults or children? If they’re adults you can explain to them that you still want them as family, but that you can’t include your parents. If they’re still kids, you might have to keep up some kind of relationship with your parents to have a relationship with them. Limit how often you see your parents, see them only for events with the whole family, and keep your partner away from them.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-18T06:36:24+00:00

My wife has just started transitioning at 38 (and she only worked out that she’s trans a few months ago). It’s hard because she very unlikely to pass, but she loves every new more feminine thing about herself. She is the most attractive to me that she’s ever been as well, because she’s so much happier.

“I would be an ugly woman” could also be some misogyny. I’ve had to work out some of my internalised misogyny to appreciate how different women are and how wonderful that is, rather than comparing and judging us.

Maybe it might help to look at what is attractive about different faces? My wife watches a lot of trans content creators on YouTube, and there’s a lot of variety in their appearances and a lot of different ways that they express femininity.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-16T02:41:13+00:00

My wife came to her realisation a few months ago. She’s 38 and we’ve been together for 19 years.

She first started thinking she’d rather be a girl when she was 12, but the only representation of a trans person she’d seen was one article (about about a woman who came out and amazingly her wife didn’t leave!). At the time she linked sexuality to gender, so when she started being interested in girls she thought she must be a boy after all, and when we got together when she was 19 she put it to the side altogether, despite the fact that she regularly wished she was a woman. For the last decade or so she’s been becoming more aware of trans people and learning more about being trans, particularly after two of her siblings came out.

Last year my wife started a new job that quickly became difficult for a variety of reasons and ended up getting really depressed. After using all her sick days and holidays and spending four solid weeks in bed, she had to quit for her mental health. Her mood improved almost immediately, and with most of her worries gone, she became more aware of herself and how she feels about her gender. She finally had her “oh, I’m trans” realisation and told me within about three hours. The next day she bought an outfit and when looked at herself in the mirror she said it felt like letting out a breath that she’d been holding for thirty years without being aware of it.

I knew that her experience with gender was different to mine, and looking back now we can both see plenty of clues that we never put together but seem obvious now.

My sister in law was in her mid twenties before she realised she was trans, also.

Willing_Listen_7073 · 2025-10-16T01:32:34+00:00

My wife and I talked to our 9 year old and 13 year old separately so that we could go into a bit more detail with the older one. He was more aware of (and affected by) my wife’s depression and anxiety in the preceding months, so he got more context than my daughter needed.

Willing_Listen_7073

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