About this user
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A letter to my ex-wife's father:
I don't expect you'll get very far through this letter. But fifteen months after a legal complaint went into the public record at the Superior Court in Jersey City and one year after the Archdiocese of New Jersey granted an annulment between me and my wife, I'm finally writing to respond, specifically, to you.
This letter has gone into the public record as well - to my family and friends. It's my deposition. And since you are named I send it as a courtesy.
On March 8, 2005 a nullity was declared. According to your church my marriage to your daughter, for all intents and purposes, never happened. Catholic-ly, it never even existed.
But it did exist. For over three years it existed. I know this because I was there and I remember everything. And what I remember most is your ruthless duplicity throughout my entire relationship with my wife, your daughter.
I am a transgendered person and have been since the age of four. I was transgendered long before I met you or her. It was something I learned to hide, acquiring survival skills that I honed for over 30 years. I didn't tell a soul and couldn't admit it to even myself for that long.
During the marriage I came to the realization that it's something I "am" and not something I "do." And after that it was something I wanted desperately to tell her, and something I struggled with in the year while we were married to communicate.
Our marriage may not have occurred at all had I been able to tell her before the engagement. But one thing is certain: our marriage never had a chance in hell. And you made sure of that before, during, and after the day you confronted me secretly in your own kitchen and instructed me not to tell my own wife about my dressing.
Never mind that you are uneducated and disinterested in learning about the concept of transgenderism. Never mind that you mistakenly confuse it with sexual orientation. Never mind that you are Catholic, in all its close-minded and irresolvable hypocrisies. And never mind that you didn't take into account that I wasn't just keeping it from my wife, but from everyone - including myself - for over 30 years.
That day in the breakfast nook when we were alone, you bullied me with the tact of a shark and confronted me with what you had discovered. Whether or not it was before or after she found evidence of my crossdressing in the apartment, the fact remains that there was no communication between me and her, and that you merely accelerated the widening of that gap between us. You gladly drove a wedge through what was already our fast-failing union with a secret you wanted kept, a power you wanted to wield & lord over us.
You are a predator. You bullied me with my own shame and fear. Instead of reaching out and helping me try to come out with my secret, to the one person in my life to which I owed that much, you used this information against me. The moment you did that you selfishly chose your own controlling nature over the possibility, however remote, of your own daughter's happiness.
It astounds me that a mental health "professional" so grossly misused their education. Intentionally using hate, and fear, and manipulation, to exercise absolute power. How dare you. And how sad for your patients.
I know from manipulative fathers. And you are no different than my father. In fact, you may be worse, since you do it with a smile, always in the "best interests" of the family. But the words I use for my father are interchangeable with your qualities and include "bully," "selfish," "narcissistic," "passive aggressive," "petty," and "monster."
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Country
United States
Interests
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To wit: you confronted my mother during one of your Xmas parties and under the guise of a joke told her you hoped that she wouldn't miss me too much, since you liked having your family near you all the time. I will never forget how you hurt her with your words. It's a testament to those who have lived under your roof (myself included) that we are all still alive.
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Your daughter and I should never have been together in the first place. But my crossdressing was not the sole reason our marriage failed. In fact, was it not for that discovery, we might still be together. And we'd still be miserable, only not know why. And you'd be poisoning both of us instead of just her.
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Marriage is a union between two people. It's not a one-way street. Two people meet halfway. Side by side through life. And the union must be open and honest, and first and foremost shared between those two people.
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The rest is secondary and swirls around it: two cultures, two histories, two extended families. But the crux is those two people. Those people come above and beyond all others.
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Our difficulty in making that successfully happen in the relationship was hindered and prevented by your oppressive involvement. You preyed on our shortcomings. You were a professional hitman. We were defenseless.
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This letter won't discuss why my marriage to your daughter rightfully failed. It wasn't just the crossdressing, as I've said. There were many other things wrong. But that's her letter, not yours.