EXCLUSIVEI thought I had the perfect marriage until I 設立する my husband's secret 定期刊行物s. My 血 ran 冷淡な, I felt sick...
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Ute Heggen thinks of herself as a 未亡人 ? and in one sense, she is 訂正する. The man she married as a college student is dead.
He is now living as a woman, so Ute is, 適切に speaking, a 'trans 未亡人', a woman whose tumultuous life experiences have presaged the culture wars gripping America today.
It is more than twenty years since she discovered a secret diary Neddy (not his real 指名する) kept, 詳細（に述べる）ing his secret life of cross-dressing and visiting New York 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s hoping to 'pass' as a woman. She was profoundly shocked.
But there was, to her, worse to come: when Neddy finally decided to medically 移行, Ute said, he seemed to use her ? his wife, by then, of many years ? as his template of womanhood.?
He grew his strawberry blonde hair into the same style as Ute's. They wore the same shades of make-up.
'He began copying my mannerisms to try and look more 納得させるing as a woman,' she says (she 辞退するs to use 女性（の） pronouns for her ex, so as the Daily Mail 株 her story we will not either).
'I saw the way he moved his 手渡すs when he talked. I often put my palms together and bump them off my chest when I'm making a point. He began copying my mannerisms to try and look more 納得させるing as a woman.'
It was all terribly unnerving, 特に as he also started copying the way she walked. 'He'd stop and straighten up, then try to move his 武器 and shoulders loosely,' she says. Without a 疑問, she says, it was an 'imitative gesture.'
Ute Heggen thinks of herself as a 未亡人 ? and in a sense, she is 訂正する. The man she married as a college student is dead. He is now living as a woman, so Ute is, 適切に speaking, a 'trans 未亡人', a woman whose tumultuous life experiences have presaged today's culture wars.
When Neddy finally decided to medically 移行, Ute said, he seemed to use her as his template of womanhood. He grew his strawberry blonde hair into the same style as Ute's. They wore the same shades of make-up.
These days, the 68-year-old author can laugh about it. 'A good friend said it was as if he was trying to be an ugly 見解／翻訳／版 of me,' she says, still struck by the absurdity of the 状況／情勢. 'You could certainly argue that he 欠如（する）d imagination.'
But いつかs she can't sleep or has nightmares and 嘆く／悼むs the loss of the wife she once was.
She 会談 about her ordeal in the docu mentary, 'Behind The Looking Glass,' 解放（する）d last year after the director, Vaishnavi Sundar, interviewed more than 40 trans 未亡人s.
Sundar tells the Daily Mail that their lives were universally derailed when their husband became an autogynephilic ― a man who is sexually 誘発するd by the thought or image of himself as 女性（の）.
She says that our 政治上 訂正する society 推定する／予想するs their wives to 'go along with it' and, instead of 存在 認めるd and 申し込む／申し出d support, if they don't they are slammed as bigots or transphobes.
'When a wife or partner speaks out,' Sundar explains, 'She's （刑事）被告 of transphobia, kink-shaming, 存在 a prude or attention 捜し出すing.
'It's a 激しく揺する-and-crazy-place 状況／情勢 for women either way.'
As for Ute, she has learned that men who 移行 often try to bury their past along with their former 身元 ? いつかs literally, burying an old item of 着せる／賦与するing, such as shoes or a 商売／仕事 控訴.
But at the same time, she says, they 'erase the history' of the spouse they leave behind. And that, over the years, she has 設立する very hard to take.
'I'm not even supposed to 陳列する，発揮する wedding photos,' she 追加するs, 公式文書，認めるing that some trans 未亡人s are 軍隊d to 配置する／処分する／したい気持ちにさせる of them 完全に.
In a 静かな 行為／法令／行動する of 反乱, she keeps a collection of pictures of her 1978 wedding 儀式 ? in which she's wearing a 伝統的な, off-white dress - in her home in the Hudson Valley of New York.
The Daily Mail has agreed to use her pen 指名する and not publish her 正確な 場所 because, 予定 to speaking up about the 損失 her husband's 移行 did to her family, she has received 脅しs from transactivists.
She could not have imagined 存在 in this position when, 老年の 18, she met Neddy, then 20, when they were both undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin in Ute's native city of Madison. They 株d a love of dancing and met through joining a Balkans dance group.
Ute (pictured) could not have imagined 存在 in this position when, 老年の 18, she met Neddy, then 20, when they were both undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin in Ute's native city of Madison. They 株d a love of dancing and met through joining a Balkans dance group.
'It's a combination of Bulgarian line dances and Hungarian couple dances,' Ute says. 'Neddy had a wiry masculinity, and I was attracted to him. He wasn't a big guy but, at nearly 6ft tall, he was four インチs taller than me.'
The romance 繁栄するd. They got married soon after 卒業. Neddy became a database 経営者／支配人 for a 一連の high-profile art museums after getting a master's in library science from an Ivy League.
Ute went on to become a professional ダンサー and later a teacher, 専攻するing in 早期に childhood education.
They discussed starting a family. 'I turned to Neddy and said, "You know, I think it's time for us to have kids,"' Ute says. '"You have a good 職業 so we should 人物／姿／数字 this out."'
She says the pair had a healthy sex life. 'When we decided on having kids, I was almost disappointed how quickly I got 妊娠している,' she 解任するs.
Their sons were born in 1987 and 1991. Ute embraced her 役割 as an at home mom while Neddy worked for a 非，不，無-利益（をあげる） organization in New York City.
But even though their youngest child was barely one and Heggen 対処するd with the baby and toddler on her own, Neddy was keen to go on 商売／仕事 trips across the US.
Looking 支援する, Ute says there were telltale 調印するs that he was 主要な a secret life. Neddy gave her 宝石類 such as bracelets and necklaces that didn't come in a box.
'I bought it in a flea market,' Neddy told her. With hindsight, she believes they were items Neddy had been wearing himself.
Another time, she was 現在のd with a pink sweater with a rose on the 前線. 'It wasn't my taste at all,' she says.
In August 1993, Neddy returned from a 商売／仕事 trip to San Francisco. They were 再会させるd at Neddy's parents' home in Chicago where Ute had been staying with the kids, then one and four,
'He was wearing shorts and a T- shirt,' Ute says. 'I was shocked because he had shaved off his entire 団体／死体 hair.'
Next, as she says, she 'opened Pandora's box.' Neddy had told her his スーツケース was 十分な and there was no need to repack for their on-going 旅行.
But, 疑惑s raised, Ute 設立する three 定期刊行物s inside the luggage. The handwriting was so neat, it looked like calligraphy.
'They were cross-dressing diaries,' she tells me. 'He wrote things like, "Should my 指名する be Diana, or Donna or Dorothy?"'
Neddy also wrote about going to 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s in women's 着せる／賦与するing, hoping men would buy him a glass of ワイン. 'He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to pass as a 女性（の） and see what he could get away with,' Ute says.
She checked the dates in the 定期刊行物s. 'I could tell that he must have been doing this behind my 支援する when I was 妊娠している with our second child, if not before.'
Ute felt 肉体的に sick and unsteady on her feet.
'I saw a 見通し of myself 落ちるing out of a window from that high rise apartment,' she says. 'Everything I'd thought about Neddy, and I seemed inauthentic.'
Ute 直面するd her husband. He was mostly 動揺させるd that I'd read his personal 定期刊行物s,' she says. 'I asked if I was 安全な because I didn't want a sexually transmitted 病気. He didn't spare a thought for me or the kids.'
Neddy 保証するd her that her health wasn't in danger. Then, as Ute puts it, 'he played the 自殺 card.'
'It was the emotional ゆすり，恐喝 narrative,' she says. 'But I wasn't going to 危険 my children finding him on the 床に打ち倒す with a knife in a pool of 血.'
She packed up the kids and called Neddy from Newark Airport before 飛行機で行くing to Madison, where her parents still lived. 'If you truly feel suicidal, go to the closest 緊急 room or call 911,' Ute told Neddy. 'They will take care of you, but that's not something that I can help you with because I'm not trained and need to 保護する the children.'
Neddy said he had 協議するd a therapist ― whom Ute is quick to point out was not certified ― and been given the diagnosis of 'transsexual.'
A month passed before Neddy 控訴，上告d to Ute's father by mail. 'It was a misdiagnosis,' the letter said.
Ute says Neddy, who had somewhat performatively grown a 耐えるd, coerced her into coming bac k to Brooklyn three months later, 非難するing a 中央の-life 危機. Ute says she felt 圧力d to keep their young family 損なわれていない.
She 述べるs the next two and a half years as 'purgatory', 没収されるing her own happiness to concentrate on 存在 a good mother. 'At that point, I felt lonely, neglected as a woman and stuck in a 冷淡な marriage.'
There was barely any intimacy between them 予定 to her knowing what she did and him 身を引くing from her.
'I felt that my husband didn't love me, but my 焦点（を合わせる） was always the kids.'
The couple had sex いっそう少なく than three times a year. The '商売／仕事 trips' become more たびたび（訪れる）. Neddy showed a penchant for wearing pink-colored shirts and turtlenecks.
Ute (pictured) grew 怪しげな of her husband, and decided to check his スーツケース from a 最近の 商売／仕事 trip.?Ute 設立する three 定期刊行物s inside the luggage. The handwriting was so neat, it looked like calligraphy. 'They were cross-dressing diaries,' she tells me.?
Then, after a while, Neddy 溝へはまらせる／不時着するd the 耐えるd and, によれば Ute, started taking estrogen.
Ute, who knew nothing about the 医薬 at the time and was appalled when she saw Neddy without a shirt one day and saw his developing breasts. 'They were little buds on his c hest, just like me around the age of 12,' she says.
Neddy 認める to receiving hormone 治療 and spoke about 計画（する）s for gender reassignment 外科. But he didn't want this to be the end of their marriage. Instead, he asked Ute to come with him to see a therapist who, Neddy said, had much success 説得するing wives not to leave.
The 協議 in March 1995, Ute says, was a joke.
To her horror, the therapist talked about the 'kinky delights' of lesbian sex, 示唆するing that Neddy's 移行 might re-点火（する） the couple's love life in a 相互に 満足させるing way.
'She 侮辱d 異性愛の sex, asking me, "Aren't you getting 肉親，親類d of bored with it?"' Ute says. 'Then she insinuated she could get me prescriptions that would 静める me 負かす／撃墜する and help Neddy through his second adolescence.
'She peddled the 仮定／引き受けること that, if you're in a marriage with a man who starts wearing make-up and dresses and identifies as a 女性（の）, you will 具体的に表現する his 願望（する）s in your intimate physical 関係.'
Ute did not agree: 'It's 損失ing to your psyche to be coerced or cajoled into engaging in シナリオs which your husband has derived from watching porn.'
Disgusted, she told the therapist that she had 無 利益／興味 in saving her marriage.
She （刑事）被告 Neddy of 'an unforgiveable betrayal' and とじ込み／提出するd for 離婚 ahead of her ex's 操作／手術 at Stanford 医療の 中心 in 1996. Neddy spent five weeks 回復するing from the 外科 in California before returning to Brooklyn.
Neddy told their sons, 'I'm a woman,' and that 'Daddy was now called 'Dee Dee.'
Ute, who fought Neddy in a bitter 法廷，裁判所 戦う／戦い over child support 支払い（額）s, says the emotional 激変 was 抱擁する.
Ute 会談 about her ordeal in the 文書の, 'Behind The Looking Glass, ' 解放（する）d last year after the director, Vaishnavi Sundar, interviewed more than 40 trans 未亡人s.
Kids at her sons' school would say things like, 'Oh you have two moms, now.' when Neddy 選ぶd them up. 'No, that's just another 親族,' her 11-year-old would reply. His younger brother cottoned on to men Ute knew and ask if they would become his father, she （人命などを）奪う，主張するs.
Around the same time, Ute says, she discovered that Neddy had not only started to mimic her, but he had also co-選ぶd her experiences of childbirth.
'I'd had two natural 配達／演説／出産s when the first labor lasted 12 hours and the second was five hours,' she says. '
As part of his 代案／選択肢 personality, Neddy was dropping little 観察s to people about how the doctors and midwives had been happy with his 進歩 during his labors.
'I was appalled and felt more erased than ever.'
Ute says her sons, now 37 and 34, 結局 （機の）カム to 条件 with Neddy's gender reassignment. Sadly, they've been estranged from their mother for several years because of differences in opinion about transgenderism.
'They're both very 進歩／革新的な, and my younger son will call me by my first 指名する instead of Mom,' Ute says. 'I've told him that I w on't answer him unless he 演説（する）／住所s me 正確に.'
The children have failed to 支援する Ute's activism in the trans 未亡人 movement.
同様に as appearing in 'Behind The Looking Glass,' she is a 正規の／正選手 contributor to Trans 未亡人s 発言する／表明するs, an on-line organization that 申し込む／申し出s advice and support to women like her.
'We wives got put into the closet behind the closet our husbands decided to come out of,' Ute says. 'Woke society wants us to stay hidden, but it's time for us to be seen.'
When approached by the Daily Mail Ute's ex-husband 拒絶する／低下するd to comment.?
