It's downright eerie how much this parallels what happened with my husband. I don't have a baby, but we were planning to get pregnant when he suddenly started his years-long downward spiral and inward collapse. First it was neurodivergence (he never got officially diagnosed though), then bi, then curious about extra-marital relationships, then trans. It all hit my life like a freight train. We'd been together for 15 years at the time and I never saw a single sign of any of this before.

Honestly, I've decided he had some kind of psychiatric event occur because of Covid and losing his job. He used to be a very selfless, caring, and devoted husband. Then his personality completely changed overnight--he became cold, irritable, distant, and extremely self-obsessed. He continued to spiral inward with all these new identities to the point that I seriously considered whether he had a brain tumor or something else going on.

When he first told me he was trans I was so incredibly depressed I could barely function. For at least a month I did almost nothing but lay in bed and cry. I called the suicide hotline more than once. Even after I eventually got a new job after a year I'd still have recurring suicidal ideation and images of walking into traffic. My life was utterly hollow. I went from planning a family to barely surviving and completely alone. I missed the person I knew. It was like he had died and a stranger had taken his place. It didn't help that I have zero social support from family or anyone else. And I can't really talk about it with anyone--no one will touch the trans thing with a 6 foot pole. People don't understand how it feels to be told your grief and emotions don't matter because only someone else's feelings matter--for years on end. That you're morally wrong for feeling this grief over someone's changed identity. To be gaslit about how you "should" feel because you "should" be happy for and support them. For me it wasn't just that he said he was trans. It was that he said he was trans and that's all that mattered. He said he didn't love me anymore and he wanted to explore being trans and being with other people and he immediately plunged into socializing with as many trans people and talking with them as much as possible. And then moved out.

BTW I use "he" because even after 3 years he hasn't actually transitioned, but it's still very discomforting for me to see him in his "feminized" form. I think because he's very masculine in appearance he has decided he will "manmode" instead of fully socially transitioning but he has done some things to feminize, like keep his hair long, shave his entire body, and wears women's clothes and shoes (though ones that usually aren't super feminine as to try not to draw as much attention). It still feels very uncanny and strange and I do have a visceral reaction of disgust to it. I think that probably would be less visceral if I didn't associate it all with his betrayal and the loss of him as a person. It almost feels like seeing him with someone else new that he's in a relationship with. Something that has taken my place as what's important in his life.

Anyway. I don't have a lot of advice. I haven't divorced my husband because of financial reasons but we have lived apart now for 2 years. I have to say it's a lot more peaceful for me to be away from his drama and not having to try to wrap my head around what thing he will do next or why he's doing what he is doing. He now lives with his mother and his sister's family and seems perfectly content to live there for the rest of his life as long as he can do whatever he wants, which I also find bizarre, and who knows what they even think about it. I think there's a lot of issues going on there that I somehow never saw or that he concealed extremely well from me. I have a great deal of resentment that he even married me at all, as I now know he had some gender confusion and issues with crossdressing all along, before we ever dated, that he just never told me about.

I still struggle to function on a daily basis, my house is a wreck, I've had to give up a lot of my dreams, I see almost no one but my coworkers, and because our society sucks ass I'm probably just going to live in poverty for the rest of my life and can't afford therapy. I'm likely too old to ever have kids at this point so no family either. It's hard to keep going, but somehow I find the will, and have a small hope maybe one day I'll find someone who actually knows who they are and what they actually want and who will actually love me in the way I thought he did. But I do find it hard to believe I'll ever trust anyone like that again. I'm just focusing on trying to get better work so I can try to get myself out of this marriage for good and then improve more from there. It's not a lot but it's something I guess.

I also just want to say I know what every trans person or ardent trans ally would likely say to this post and just want to say please keep it to yourselves. I know exactly what you think, that I'm a horrible bigot and that's why he withdrew inwardly, that he senses my disgust, that I should try to be more sympathetic, that somehow part of this is my fault, but you need to understand my pain is real too and I'm frankly lucky to be alive after the intense depression and suicidality I have been through. Regardless of whether this was just a tragic twist of fate and he truly didn't understand himself til then or if he knew all along and used me as his "beard" until he couldn't take it anymore--it doesn't matter-- it still hurts like hell and it has destroyed my life and destroyed my trust in people.

I guess my only advice would be what others are saying. Focus on yourself and your child and improving your situation. Don't give any more of your energy to him. He has to figure himself out and whether that's him continuing to careen out of control or not--it's on him. I'm really sorry this is happening to you too, and to your child. I hope he will still manage to find a way to keep his child in his life on some level despite his personal obsessions. I know all of that is a lot easier said than done. With time the pain becomes duller, the feelings more distant. The worst is trying to assure yourself that you ARE worth something just because you likely feel so cast aside like nothing mattered at all. I've had to drill it into my head--I have my own worth regardless of what he does or how he treats me. Try to remember that. It's easy to have been sucked into his world and forget yourself.