I live with my transgender ex-hubby and my boyfriend!
Kristin Collier’s world collapsed when Fred became Seda. Now, though, the pair are something better than husband and wife...
Enjoying a sunny day with my family in our garden, I smiled. My tall, handsome husband, Fred, 44, and I had done good. Our sons, Trin and Sam, were beautiful young boys, our marriage rocksolid, our life idyllic.
We’d met the decade before, when I was 18, and we were engaged three months later. A year after that, we celebrated with a traditional wedding. I became a marketing director, Fred a housing designer.
Yet, 10 years on, everything changed – and I was forced to change with it.
Trin was two and Sam was seven weeks old in 2005 when I took them to see my mum, Akassia, in California. Fred stayed home in Oregon.
While I was away, he called and said we needed to talk about ‘clothes’. His tone sounded odd. ‘I need to wear women’s clothes,’ Fred explained bluntly. ‘I don’t understand it, but I can’t pretend any more.’
In that moment, our lives changed for ever. I told him I loved him and we’d figure it out but, inside, I was reeling.
I tried imagining myself as someone who could support her husband wearing skirts and heels. But I shuddered at the thought of my broadchested and bearded husband dressed as a woman.
Back home, Fred confessed that, while I’d been away, he’d worn a skirt every day. As it swished around his ankles, things had become clear. He was meant to be a woman. But to me, life became hazy.
At first, we kept Fred’s desires secret. I wish I could say I supported him from the beginning, but it wasn’t that simple. I felt terrified and alone, desperate to keep our picture-perfect image intact.
I’d always trusted Fred and, now, it felt like everything I thought we had was false. And I worried I’d have no place in Fred’s new world. He told me he was sorry it was all so scary. ‘I wish it wasn’t,’ he said. ‘But the woman inside me has been locked away for too long. If I don’t set her free, I’ll die.’
Fred became more soft and feminine. He started watching me put on my make-up, asking questions about how to apply it. It infuriated me, like I was encouraging his fantasy. And I liked being the woman in our marriage. I didn’t want Fred to become one.
‘I’ve tried being a man,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been a soldier,