I’m Worried by Wife is Straight

Throw-away account to protect her from my anxieties. Sorry if this is lengthy, but I want to make sure her point of view is well represented and necessary context is provided. 

My wife and I met when we were trapped in conservative evangelical circles. She was raised in them, and I was pulled in via conversion therapy in a desperate attempt to fix myself. We were married happily for ten years and produced four kids with Bible names. But I’m a trans lesbian, and there was just no way to keep that locked down forever. 

Six years ago, I came out to her. It wasn’t out of nowhere or a total surprise. We had conversations about how good it felt when she called me a good girl or reversing gender roles in our home or bending gender in the bedroom. We were calling me bi to try and to account for the gay (aka feminine, but that’s a longer story) aspects of my past. She had been processing for a few years that she thought she was bi, had come out to a few friends, and I had come to the conclusion that transition was the only path for me to have a happy and healthy life. 

I was told I could not transition. I don’t remember every detail of the conversation, but I do remember spending most of it recovering from the whiplash of thinking this was a safe space and not wanting to blow up my life. I thought of losing my kids, and I was willing to agree to whatever to keep that. She insisted that she wanted her kids to have a father, that she liked my name, my deep voice, and wanted there to be a man of the house. She thought it was silly to get on HRT when I could just dress femme and solve my problems, so we called me non-binary (apologies to all the enbys), used he/him pronouns, and I could dress more androgynously. 

Two years later, she was starting to feel like she might be poly. I didn’t feel threatened by her seeing other people and she had never dated a woman before, so to give her the chance to know all aspects of herself, we opened up the relationship. I only bring this up because she did not date any women during this time. There were no ongoing chats between her and women on the apps that I knew about. She definitely could have been trying or struggling to make first moves and make things happen due to comphet, but there was no outward sign of same sex attraction that I saw. 

I won’t get into it, but I came out again, this time saying that I was definitely going to transition. It went way worse. She didn’t threaten to divorce me, but she accused me of lying to her. Normal response. The significant detail is that she kept saying her life was ruined, went to her mother’s house with the kids for two weeks, and came back with a trans flag and unwavering support. She started doing research and challenging her own biases, tried to unlearn misconceptions and stereotypes she had been taught. I don’t know what happened during those two weeks, but she came back flipped. 

We had historically had an incredible hot and heavy sex life, but things dried up when she returned. We were both learning what triggered my dysphoria and what spots or terms were no goes. I was relearning my own body because I wasn’t disassociating so hard to avoid the pain of dysphoria. There was also the emotional rift from her repeated negative reactions, and my hesitancy to trust her change of heart. 

A year later (I swear, I’m not trying to write a novel here), I was bullied out of my job my transphobic peers, and something in my snapped. A bunch of repressed memories from repeated childhood SA via my parents came flooding in, and I was basically comatose for a month. She took care of me. Supported me. Helped me get to a hospitalization program that saved my life. But all that was another blow to our sex life. Now we didn’t know where to touch that wouldn’t trigger dysphoria or traumatic memories. Not to mention I wasn’t feeling sexy at all. 

Almost three years later, we’re in a much stronger place. We moved to a place with a much stronger queer community. We’re totally detached from toxic faith communities and out of the South. Relationally, we’re as strong as we have ever been, but the sex is just not there. I’ve finally learned how to orgasm with a vibrator that doesn’t cause dysphoria, but I struggle to do it when she’s in the room/bed. I feel like she doesn’t know what to do with a female body? That seems strange to say, but there’s not a lot of sexual tension or chemistry. It’s mostly groping at my tits while I touch myself. Seriously. That’s been my sex life for years. But now when we try that, I feel pressured to finish in time and to make her feel comfortable and be verbally responsive so she knows I’m feeling good. I just get locked in my head. She typically doesn’t talk whereas we used to have a vibrant dirty talk and BDSM life in the bedroom. Again, she was treating me like a land mine that could go off with the smallest trigger, but that doesn’t make a girl feel sexy. I stopped initiating, and sex stopped happening. 

I would have accepted a truce where we just handle ourselves separately because the relationship is strong, but a few months ago, she comes to me saying she’s really not satisfied with our sex life. She’s demisexual, but she really wants sex with her person. She wants to feel pursued and wanted. She wants orgasm and intimacy. Absolutely. Let’s give it to her. It takes some wheedling, but specifically, she’s asking for penetration. I’d happily strap up for her, but she’s worried it will trigger my dysphoria (it won’t. I told her. She doesn’t fully believe me? I dunno). So I started initiating more. Fingering more. Using toys on her more. Making more comments about how desirable she was. I did the thing to the best of my ability, and it was not reciprocated in bed. 

There was a talk during this process that maybe if I can’t give her that sexual energy, we might open the relationship again (it was closed when I transitioned). The thought was that we didn’t want to divorce if we couldn’t sexually satisfy each other, but we didn’t want either person to go the rest of their days sexually unfulfilled. We didn’t lean into this plan, but it was discussed at this time. 

A few weeks later, she’s drunk and going on about how I totally satisfy her needs for feminine intimacy. She kept saying I was her girl, so she didn’t need any girls. She did, however, miss having that masculine intimacy and energy. She no longer expected that from me, kept saying I was free, but she wanted something masculine. 

Later, when she was sober, we talked about it some more. She brought up poly again. I agreed, and then things escalated too quickly. She has later apologized for this, but it went like this. Sunday - she wants to try poly again, I say okay. Monday - she tells me about an app for poly people. Tuesday - she asks if she can keep Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings as potential date times for people. Wednesday - she has a date on Thursday. At no point have we talked about whether or not I can date people, what our boundaries are, testing, whether I want to meet people, etc. I knew we needed to have those conversations, and so did she. Her best friend has been poly for over a decade, we talked it through last time we tried poly, she absolutely knew that we hadn’t discussed it in depth enough to warrant this speed. 

I called things off when I learned that Saturday, she met another person without telling me the meeting was happening. She took our kids to a birthday party, left them there, and went on a date. I didn’t know my kids were going to be without their mother at the party, and I didn’t know she was going on a date. She said that she knew because of her demisexuality and how impossible it is to date on these apps, that it would take months before anything romantic, intimate, or sexy was happening. She had to get the ball rolling as soon as possible. To me, it sounded like she really really wanted to speedrun getting laid by a guy. That could definitely be my insecurity. 

Oh, and she only chatted with and planned dates with guys. 

We had a long talk. I didn’t want to let any weird biphobia or bi erasure or whatever leap into my mind by overly fearing same sex attractions. I wanted to understand more than fear. We decided we wanted a sex/relationship therapist, but it would take time. We talked more about why she felt so reticent to connect with me in the bedroom, but she once again brought up that she’s intimidated by my gender dysphoria and PTSD. 

My therapist had a fantastic idea. I got some whipped cream, and we played a game where I put it on my body where the safe zones were. It was a game. I told her how I liked it. I was very explicit about what were my danger zones and words and what still turned me on. I gave her instructions and practically wrote her a manual about how to interact with my body. 

It didn’t work. 

We have started working with a couple’s therapist, but we’re in the early steps of the process. I love this woman so much. She is my favorite person and best friend. She’s done some real shitty things and hurt me tremendously, but we’ve pushed through a lot, forgiven a lot, and learned a lot. 

Here’s my fear: she’s straight. I worry that she’s straight but so afraid of divorcing me and being by herself that she stuck with me. That she was maybe really only bi-curious when she came out as bi, but not that she’s slept with a woman, it’s not doing it for her. But we’re already married. It could simply be that comphet and her upbringing have locked down her beliefs and body so much that she’s wading uphill to be sexy with a trans woman. She struggles to touch me and talk during sex. She doesn’t initiate sex at all. She plans one out of every twelve dates. If I don’t initiate sex or plan dates, they don’t happen. 

I don’t want to divorce her, but I don’t know what it would take for me to believe her when she says she’s attracted to me.