Was my wife turning into a man?
Larry and Julia Roach, just after their wedding
Monday 1st October 2007
Women's problems, they baffle men, don't they? My wife, Julia, 51, had experienced her fair share of women's problems and I wouldn't pretend to understand what she'd been through. Before we'd married, in July 1986, she'd suffered several miscarriages and a hysterectomy.
'I can't give you children,' she'd wept when we'd started dating.
'It doesn't matter,' I'd assured her.
It was Julia, with her long dark, curls and her girlie giggle, that I loved.
But the hysterectomy meant she suffered with a hormone imbalances. Over the years doctors had put her on hormone replacements but nothing had cured her terrible headaches and dizzy spells. These days Julia had given up on doctors.
'I'll cure myself,' she'd insisted.
Which is why I wasn't entirely shocked at the scene I'd stumbled upon. I'd got up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and caught Julia bent over the settee, knickers round her ankles, injecting herself in the bottom.
'What are you doing?' I sighed.
'Injecting myself with testosterone,' she snapped.
Testosterone? It was the male hormone she lacked since her womb had been cut away. But should she really be injecting herself with it?
'It makes me feel better,' she said.
'OK,' I shrugged.
What did I know?
If it helped with her headaches who was I to stop her?
But over those following weeks I grew more and more worried about Julia. She pulled away from me and started sleeping on the settee.
'Is anything wrong?' I quizzed.
'I just need a little space,' she told me.
I hoped it was just a phase she was going through but as time passed I noticed her behaviour changing in other ways.
While I worked at the local sewer plant Julia ran a cattery and kennel from our home in Seminole, Florida. Usually the cats and dogs were her life. Suddenly she seemed preoccupied. First she bought some dumb bells and started pumping weights.
'It makes me feel healthy,' she said.
Healthy was good but as I watched her biceps grow I felt a little uneasy.
Then, one afternoon, she was lying on the settee in a vest top, her hands clamped behind her head, when I noticed thick hair sprouting from her armpits.
'You've stopped shaving?' I gasped.
'Yes,' she smiled. 'It's very European.'
I screwed up my face. European or not, I didn't think it looked right on a woman.
A few weeks later she gave me another shock. She was suffering with one of her terrible migraines so I helped her to the car and drove her down to Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. As she lay on the hospital bed the light from the window fell on her face - and I froze.
'Oh My God!' I gasped.
'What is it?' she asked.
Leaning in closer, I studied her chin.
There was no mistaking it. Julia was defiantly sporting a 5'o-clock shadow.
'H-Have you been shaving?' I spluttered.
'Yes,' she nodded. 'It's a side effect of the testosterone.'
'Isn't there other medication you can take?' I asked.
'No,' she snapped.
But it wasn't just the muscles, or the hairy pits and chin. Julia cut off her beautiful, long hair and started wearing t-shirts and jeans. Then there was the way she walked. At 4ft 10in she'd always been such a dainty lady but now she stomped around like a man. A man! That was it. My pretty wife was acting like a man. Was it the testosterone injections?
'Go to the doctors,' I begged her.
'I'm fine,' she snapped.
It was obvious she wasn't fine. One morning, six months after I saw her injecting herself, I was lying on my bed in my boxer shorts when Julia walked into the bedroom. Without saying a word she straddled me and tugged down my boxers. At first I was a little taken aback.
We were like roommates these days. I couldn't remember the last time we'd had sex. Was she finally feeling more like her old self?
'Do you know what transgender is?' she asked me one morning. Eh? What was she on about?
'I think I'm a man trapped in a woman's body,' she said.
Stunned, I opened my mouth, then closed it. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Leaving seemed the best option. Grabbing my coat I rushed off to work. But, as the day passed and I thought back over the past few months, suddenly Julia's strange behaviour made sense. After 17 years of marriage my wife HAD turned into a man!
My mum, Bonnie, 71, felt the heartache the worst.
'Oh, son,' she wept. 'You've got to leave her.'
But after so many years I couldn't just walk away so we carried on living together.
It was six months after Julia's revelation that she finally packed her stuff and left. Crushed, I filed for divorce. Nine months later, the divorce settlement gave Julia a second home we had in Florida and ordered me to pay £625 a month to her in alimony.
But since then I've discovered facts that have made me wonder if I should be paying out any money at all. Julia has had a full sex change operation and goes by the name Julio Silverwolf. Her birth certificate, driving licence and passport all state that she's a man now - yet in the eyes of the law she's still a woman. I found that out when I took her to court in attempt to stop my alimony payments.
'Why should I pay money to a man?' I asked the judge.
In March this year, at Pinellas County court, Judge Arnold explained that because Florida courts believe sex-change surgery cannot legally change a person's birth gender, I'm technically not paying alimony to a man. That angers more than anything.
I haven't seen Julia - or should I say Julio - since he walked out on me. In fact, I've moved on with life and, after a whirlwind romance I've married my childhood sweetheart. But I haven't given up my legal fight to end my alimony payments. I've written to top politicians in an attempt to get the laws changed.
If Julio wants to be a man then he should stand on his own two feet and act like a man! Not rely on handouts every month from me.
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