Woman Shares How Husband of 18 Years and Father of Her Kids Came out as a Woman

A married couple from New Zealand spoke openly about the transition of the husband to female gender after a long struggle against depression and anxiety.

Natalie, 42 Christchurch, New Zealand, told how different she feels since the transition began, "life seems much fuller to me and I genuinely feel happier and a calmer sense of peace that I never had before."

His wife Shoko, 36, is very understanding. However, at first she had her doubts: “I went through three or four months constantly thinking ‘am I okay? Can I support her or can I love another woman?’ I wasn’t sure myself.”

Shoko could accept her husband's transition after recognizing that she herself had always been attracted to personality rather than gender. "I always fell in love with the personality," she said. “I love her and I loved the way we have our intimacy.”

However, the hardest part was revealing the secret to their daughters, Ashley, 11, and Sonia, 13. As expected, the girls didn’t react very well to the news, they were still little and didn’t want their dad to change.

But their mother managed to calm them, quickly the girls understood the situation and supported their father in his transition to becoming Natalie. Now that almost three years have passed, they are increasingly happy with their father's decision.

Natalie had fought all her life against depression but now feels much better and the transition has been the only thing that has addressed her feelings of "gender dysphoria".

In addition to starting hormone replacement therapy, Natalie traveled to Spain to perform a facial and vocal feminization, then undergo gender reassignment surgery. All this has cost him up to now about $ 68,000.

After the transition that Natalie has made so far, she and her wife have decided to open their relationship and start dating men. Although they have only left a few times, their intention is to add a man to their family.

Another of Natalie's recent achievements in this transition process has been to wear a women's swimsuit for the first time in public.

“Putting the swimsuit on in public for the first time was a bit scary at first, but after 10 to 15 minutes I just relaxed and enjoyed myself and had a really fun day just spending time with the kids and Shoko.

And while the couple says their future is uncertain, Natalie has a vision that she and Shoko made it.

“I really do see us being together for the long term,” she said. “I see us being two old ladies sitting together in a village talking to our great-grandchildren about all our amazing experiences, all the places that we have traveled, and all the amazing things we have done.”

In another story, a man wrote to The Good Men Project in search of advise after his wife of 33 years came out as a lesbian. Now, he doesn’t know what to do to save their marriage since his wife doesn’t want to have sex with him anymore.

He wants to be with her but doesn´t know if he can handle a sexless marriage: “She’s not looking elsewhere, but her long struggles against her same-sex desires seem to have killed all desire. And if she were to re-awaken desire, it would be for another woman, not for me.”

This reminds us of another story of a transgender man who got pregnant. He met his partner and they decided to have a child together, so he stopped hormone treatment for a few months and then he was able to conceive naturally.

Seeing a pregnant man is something that will surely surprise anybody. While modern times are progressive, not everyone shares that view. The couple received many negative comments on their decision, especially in the form of cyberbullying.