Weddingbee boards

Let me just say upfront that I am looking for advice and support, not someone trying to convince me to change my mind.

Anyway, I've had issues with my father for a long time. Whether it was because I did not feel respected or he was trying to control my life, I have never seen eye-to-eye with him. He seemed to have a certain view of me and refused to believe that I could change. He refused to compromise with me on issues that I found important. For instance, I'm an author and my father self-published my first two books. If I felt strongly about keeping or getting rid of something, he would always refuse to listen and would do whatever he wanted, some of which I didn't find out until the book was printed.

In May of last year, I found out that my father was crossdressing and wanted to be a woman (and I mean as in wanting to have the sex change surgery and everything). Since then, he has legally changed his name (first and last), which my mom did not find out about until he was in the process of having it done already. He is taking hormone pills, dresses like a woman full time outside of the house, and has changed his entire persona. I will note that he is going to counseling (so is my mom). My parents are still married.

Understandably, I was very hurt by all this, but especially because of the deceit. My parents had been married for 25 years when everything was revealed. The name change was occurring around the time of my wedding last year, but I didn't find out about it until January. This, to me, is like him throwing our family name into the dirt and stepping on it. It said that he didn't care about his family at all, because his crossdressing was more important to him.

He has a very skewed view of what a woman is, which makes me extremely uncomfortable. He tries to deal with me as if he were a woman, which to me comes off as emotional and meek. He doesn't want to outright confront me and apologizes for how he made me feel, not for his role in it. Also, I'm a Christian and he outwardly expressed doubts that I can know where I feel God is leading me, especially when it comes to my decision to move to Indiana instead of staying close to home. 

When I found out that I was pregnant, it raised a lot of issues. I had to start thinking about what kind of role I wanted my father to have in my family. My family had a mediation in March about the issues, where my husband and I were setting some boundaries when it came to our future child. However, the mediation ended horribly. My father basically said that the last year of his life was more important to him than any other time before that. He said that we (my brother, myself, and our spouses) could not possibly know anything because of our age and our lack of emotional, spiritual, and mental maturity.

After the mediation, my husband and I decided to cut off all contact with my father.

The day after the mediation was my baby shower. It wasn't until just a few days ago that I found out that my father was very upset that he wasn't invited. A lot of drama followed that night as well.

Just a few weeks ago, my aunt had a baby shower as well, and since my father is not allowed in their home, he went out, rented a hotel room, invited himself to the shower and arrived as a woman. Mind you, everything was already planned out and arranged, and he did this without warning. Nobody is happy about the situation.

My decision to not be around my father has started other problems as well. My mom was originally planning on coming up in July after the baby is born. However, since I refuse to be around my father and do not want him to be around my child, my mom has changed her mind and isn't coming. There were a lot of excuses thrown around about why my father would have to come, such as so he could drive, though there are other options. I know for a fact that my sister-in-law offered to come with my mom, but my mom said no. To note, my mom was going to stay with a nearby relative about 4 hours away and needed someone to pick her up from the airport and then down to visit me. She's keeping herself away from her first grandchild and has made it seem that I have to go down to her to visit if I want her involved in my child's life.

My brother and his wife are very supportive of my decision to keep my father away from my child, but my mother, while understanding, keeps trying to convince me that he hasn't progressed so it's okay, or that my child won't remember him anyway because he/she would be too young. This doesn't change anything for me, and I'm sticking to my decision, but I don't know how to deal with this, especially when it comes to my mother.

I do love my dad, I just don't agree at all with what's he's doing. He's being very manipulative and trying to make it seem like my husband and me are purposely keeping her away, when it's him we don't want around our child. He's trying to make us look like the bad guys.

And it's more important to stand my ground with my father. I just hate that my mother is letting it stand in her way.

sudslover - I'm not afraid of my father sexually abusing my child. If anything, I'm worried about my child having a skewed view of what a woman really is. Most of my issue with my father is that he's a married man. I would feel differently if he was single. 

I have told him how I felt; that's what the mediation was for. Whenever I say anything though, he takes it as me telling him that he can't have emotions, even though I strictly said that he's allowed emotions, I'm just not comfortable with how he displays them to me. He claims that he's the same person, but he's completely different as a woman.

And no, I don't care what others think. It won't change my decision to not have him in my life. Personally, whatever he does is his business. What other people think of him isn't my concern.

I do understand where he's coming from as well, but I think he's going about it in the wrong way. Anything that my brother or I say is automatically labeled as intolerant or immature. He refuses to listen.

Angela83 - I never said that I didn't understand her point of view. I wasn't surprised when she decided not to come, and I certainly don't blame her. I outright told her that I was sorry if what I said changed her decision to come. However, she never mentioned him coming at all until recently. She talked about the trip for a long time as just herself coming, and when she brought this up, it shocked me. Also, there's no way for me to go visit anytime soon.

We have sat down and talked with my father multiple times. He knows how I feel about what he's doing and that I don't find his portrayal of a woman to be correct. I also know his entire story, how this started and everything. I'm not going into this situation uninformed of the details. He's allowed to do whatever he wants, but I don't think he's going about it in the right way. His view of men is as skewed as his view of woman, because he thinks men aren't allowed to show emotions and he thinks we're telling him he can't when we express our concerns.

To stress a few points that I said earlier, I never said he wasn't allowed emotions. I expressly said that everyone is allowed emotions, I just didn't like the way he was displaying them to me. It very much feels like he's trying to take the place of my mother or being a grandmotherly figure to me. That's not his role in my life.

As I also said before, I would feel differently if he was single, but he's not. It also has a lot to do with the way he's gone about it, with changing his name in secret (which understandably would hurt anybody, especially my mom) and completely writing off anything we say as intolerance. If he was willing to work with us, I would be more willing to be around him, but he's not. I tried for several months to work through this with him, and it was an extremely difficult decision to decide not to have him in my life. The breaking point for me was really the name change. I would have been more okay with it if he had only changed his first name. I know he never liked it much to begin with; I even know that feeling of not liking your name. But changing his last name only said (to me) that he didn't care about his family. My mother changed her last name to his, and my brother and I shared that last name. It represented our family, and it hurt when I found out. By the way, he does know how I feel about this.

This sounds like a really difficult situation, and I assume it's difficult for your father as well.  The only advice I really have is to try to leave open the possibility that, at some future time, you and your father will be able to have a relationship again.  Right now that might not seem possible, but if he's just come out as transgendered, his life must be very much in flux.  Who knows where he'll end up five years from now?  And maybe your mom will take it better if you phrase it as "I can't handle interacting with him now, we can revisit the situation in a year (or a few years, or whatever), but at the moment it's too emotionally charged for me and trying to force it is just going to make things harder in the future."

If you do want some kind of communication with your father (if only to be able to state how you feel) it might be worth writing a letter.  Right now, he probably takes your unwillingness to be around him as a rejection of his being transgender.  It sounds like you are actually more upset about feeling lied to, and about the way that he's treated you recently.  A letter might let you express that clearly.

Finally, yes, counseling of some sort to help you deal with your own emotions might be helpful.  You mentioned you are religious - is this something you could talk to an understanding pastor about?  (Also, I know it's hard, but try not to take your father's rejection of your religious beliefs too seriously right now.  Transgender people spend a lot of time hearing self-identified Christians say hateful things about them, and it can make it difficult to remember that Christianity can be a force for good in peoples lives).

historienne - My father is a Christian as well, so his idea that I can't know when God is speaking to me is a bit harder to take. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I moved. Once I announced that intent, that's when a lot of drama started with the wedding and when my parents started to protest it. Before, they were absolutely thrilled that I was getting married.

I am also very open to the possibility to opening up communication again. This could just be for the time being, and I certainly hope it is. My father and I have never gotten along in general before; this really only adds to the issues we already have. I also know that for now, being in communication with him just isn't an option. It was already difficult to talk to him before. Even before I knew about the crossdressing, I often disliked being around him and many of our conversations were arguments.

A lot of what I brought up at the mediation had to do with wanting to feel respected (both myself and in my marriage). The mediation (which involved everyone, meaning my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, and my husband) was supposed to be about setting boundaries when it came to my child, not directly about his crossdressing, but that's what it turned into. The counselor didn't have good control of things and let it go too far.

This sounds like a lot to handle and a very emotional situtation. I think that you have every right to do what you think is best emotionally for yourself and your new family. To me, it sounds like all the issues are still fresh and it will take a lot of time to settle into this new life situation.

I do have to say that I don't 100% understand why you decided to cut your father out of your life (because he lied about his gender-preference or you have trouble communicating or you feel like he would be a negative influence on your child?) but I don't think that's the point. It sounds like you're comfortable with your choice, but upset that others haven't made the same choice (like your mother).The only advice I can even begin to give is to let everyone have space and time. This is a huge life-changing event for your family and your mom must be going through more than we could know. I wouldn't push the issue with her coming to visit when you give birth too hard. Let her know it will make you sad to not see her and you want her there, but you understand she has her own choices to make. Just like you don't want people trying to change your mind, she probably doesn't either.

That said, I just wanted to give a different perspective about two points you keep bringing up that upset you. One is the family name change. I'm guessing you didn't change your last name when you married, but you may want to take some time to consider that your father might not feel like he needs a name to bond him to his family. Many women change their names when they marry, but they aren't doing it to "throw their family into the dirt". Also you have concerns about the way that he stereotypes gender with his actions and that will negitively impact your child. I feel like you can't tell your father how to act (if he wants to be a meek-acting women, that's his right) and that it probably won't impact your child as much as you think. You and your husband will be your child's primary resource for how to behave (and will encounter many, MANY gender stereotypes in his/her life), so your actions count FAR more than your fathers.

I hope that your family becomes more comfortable with your choice and your father's choice in time for them to have a great bonding experience with your child while he/she is young. Remember to "keep calm and carry on"