4 out of 4 stars
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My Husband's a Woman Now: A Shared Journey of Transition and Love is the non-fiction account of one man's transition into a woman, as told by his wife, Leslie Hilburn Fabian, LICSW (Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker). As indicated by the title and a frequently recurring theme in the book, the journey in Dr. Fabian's transition from David to Deborah was not solitary, as Leslie was required to go through a bit of a transition for herself.
Fabian takes us through her personal experiences of not only meeting her husband (and the interesting story she has about how he was wearing a dress when they first met), but also events from earlier in her life that she feels influenced how she reacted to the later transitions in her life. From being raised by a supportive father and a paraplegic mother to surviving the suicides of two of her siblings, Fabian shares a variety of emotional anecdotes that helped to shape who she is and to deal with one of the most eventful periods of her life. Encouraging her husband to live his life in the way in which made him happy, despite the uncertainty of what it would mean for their relationship and their marriage of twenty years, seems to be the most appropriate road to travel, but a journey they must make together.
Fabian doesn't hold back in terms of disclosing her feelings, both positive and negative. She talks of going through the stages of grief and the feeling of losing a husband, though without an actual, physical loss. So often the spouse or significant other of a transgendered person is overlooked, but in this book we get a wonderful insight into the thoughts and emotions of the other half of the transition.
While this story is focused specifically on dealing with a loved one going through gender transition, I found this book as a whole to be so much more than a simple memoir. It deals with a plethora of themes that almost everyone can relate to: disabilities, suicide, discrimination, homosexuality, marital problems, happiness (and its evil twin, unhappiness), familial love, and acceptance. As a counselor, which was probably a huge benefit to her and her family in dealing with this transition, Fabian's expertise in discussing and dealing with emotions becomes apparent on the pages of this book. Without intending to do so, I think that Fabian has created a self-help book that so many people could learn from.
In all honesty, given her supportive and amazing background (both family and career-wise), I was a bit worried that Fabian would come across as overly self-righteous once her husband officially made the transition and became Deborah full time. "Oh, look at me! I'm so wonderful, accepting my husband no matter what and staying married to him even though he's a woman now. I'm such a good wife; putting his desires before my own." I was extremely mistaken, and this is not the case at all. In fact, I was surprised at how often she mentioned her grief, annoyance, and frustration as she went through the different stages of transition; she certainly never attempted to label herself as a martyr. Though we have totally different personalities, I could easily put myself in her shoes and feel exactly what she was going through. Needless to say, I had to set the book aside several times just so I could compose myself emotionally before I began crying in public.
It is a pleasure for me to give My Husband's a Woman Now a rating of 4 out of 4 stars due to the wonderfully emotional story that is presented in this book. Fabian is an excellent writer, and her ability to effectively convey her emotions and experiences is unquestionable. That being said, I should probably mention that there was something a bit strange with the formatting of my copy of the book; section breaks appeared as the lowercase letter 'd' or the numeral '5' throughout the whole book. I kind of suspect that this was some kind of conversion error (a symbol or image didn't convert properly, perhaps?), but the content of the book is just so amazing that I can't bring myself to knock off any points in the rating because of this. It was easy to ignore these seemingly random characters once I figured out what was happening. Let's just hope that it was merely my old Kindle in particular at fault; the book is otherwise flawless. I would definitely recommend this book to so many readers who enjoy memoirs and self-help books. It's a wonderful, true tale that shows what marriage and love are really about.
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My Husband's a Woman Now
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