A Belgian man wants to have his marriage annulled after he found out that his Indonesian wife of 19 years had actually been born a man.

For many years, the man named as Jan, and his wife Monica, had a nice, normal-ish family life. Normal-ish because Monica wasn’t always Jan’s wife. First, she was the au pair to Jan’s family and wife at the time, before Jan decided he actually preferred Monica to his previous wife.

Monica, 48, and Jan, 64, stayed happily married for 19 years before Jan made the discovery that Monica had in fact been born as a man and had undergone a sex change. They had decided not to have children because Jan had two from his previous marriage. Monica also fooled Jan when she pretended to menstruate – something Jan said was to “conceal the truth”.

However, everything came to the fore one day when Jan had heard enough rumours about Monica carrying on amorously behind his back. He found messages from other men on her computer, and decided to confront her. That led to a violent row, and the police ended up being called.

Jan told the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper:

I feel I’ve been assaulted. I brought her to Belgium. That was not easy. The Belgian courts had serious doubts about the authenticity of her birth and her identity papers, but eventually they accepted it anyway. I thought she was an attractive woman, all woman. She had no male traits.

Even during sex, I never noticed anything, Monica began to change very much. My oldest son saw her sometimes at a nightclub. She began to wear very flashy clothes, those ultra-short skirts or tiny tops, so her abdomen was completely exposed. Monica began to change very much. My oldest son saw her sometimes at a nightclub. She began to wear very flashy clothes, those ultra-short skirts or tiny tops, so her abdomen was completely exposed.

A friend told me that he had heard that Monica was actually a sex-changed man. I could not believe it. My son heard similar rumours. I pushed her against the wall and said: Now I know the truth. Are you a man? She then announced that she was born as a boy and that she had been operated on. She was now a woman, and so she did not need to tell me about her past as a man.

My world collapsed. That evening came to blows. The police came.

Jan has had to seek psychiatric treatment as a result and his lawyer, Liliane Verjauw, said he had been deliberately deceived:

That person has deliberately deceived him for years, even scammed. Presumably she has also forged documents used here to get a residence permit. The children, who for years have lived with her, are devastated.

So far the Belgium courts have not allowed Jan to kick Monica out of the family home.

[Source: Telegraph]