By Amanda J.
This series was supposed to be a three parter but, in conversation with another girl whose opinion I value greatly, I started to realise that if I’d used the original part 3 here, there would be a significant gap in the story so the original part 3 will now be part 4.
I’ve always felt that the big mistake I made when I confessed to Mrs A was that I failed to look at things from her viewpoint. That’s very true and the magnitude of my failure in that respect was spectacular. I assumed that she’d be fine with the idea of me slipping into a pair of heels from time to time and, apart from failing to consider that she may not be completely ‘fine’ with that idea, I’d completely overlooked the issue of how she’d feel about finding out that her husband had kept a secret from her for 22 years, a secret that if she’d known at the outset would have been a dealbreaker as far as marriage is concerned. I can offer a reasonable defence of that and had I used that defence as the basis of ‘The Talk’ it might have led to a better eventual outcome. But, there again, it probably wouldn’t because the eventual dealbreaker was Mrs A seeing me in all my feminine finery and declaring that she didn’t want to be married to a woman.
The problem is that as soon as the words ‘I’ve been crossdressing’ sunk in, the whole issue was completely out of my hands. I was having to constantly defend my actions whilst trying to hold myself together against a near-constant barrage of disapproval. Basically, I didn’t stand a chance.
But let’s take a step back. Suppose, when Mrs A returned home on that fateful night, I announced ‘I took a Nurofen/Advil today’. Or ‘I put a plaster/Band Aid on my finger today’. Yes, she would have surmised that I had a headache or cut my finger but it would have told her nothing about what caused the headache or how I came to injure my finger.
The point is that the tablet and the plaster are therapeutic treatments for the conditions, they don’t define them. I could just have easily had a lie down in a darkened room until the headache subsided or run my finger under the tap/faucet until it stopped bleeding. Or I could have taken the pill for a debilitating migraine or used the plaster as I’d painfully split my nail. In other words the treatment doesn’t tell anything like the full story.
And this is a key issue. Whether one is an occasional crossdresser or hovering on the cusp of full surgical transition, they are therapeutic strategies for underlying conditions, they do not in themselves define the conditions.
So bringing this back on topic, what on earth is a wife supposed to think when her husband drops the bombshell that he’s a crossdresser? Is her husband a fetishist, deriving pleasure from the whole exercise – pleasure that he seemingly isn’t looking to her for. Or is he the proverbial woman trapped in a man’s body? Or about to burst out as a high camp drag act? Or homosexual and a danger to children. And so on. I don’t think any of us could fail to be appalled by the thought of our wives having those mental images of us but we can’t control what our wives think and, as I found out to my cost, fail to put it in the correct terms and the whole thing is in danger of becoming a firefighting exercise. At one time or another, I was accused of being all of the things I’ve just listed either overtly or by implication but the truth is very different.
I crossdress because I have a nagging discomfort about my gender. It’s not a strong enough discomfort to make me want to transition in any shape or form but, equally, it’s not weak enough to ignore. For most of the time I can live with it but sometimes, like the aforementioned headache, I need to seek relief from the symptoms. There isn’t a pill I can take but there is a very effective therapy that deals with all of the negative aspects of it and, for a few hours, gives me the relief I need to be able to make a positive contribution to life at other times. I don’t know why I should feel the way I do but I suspect that the die was cast during my mother’s pregnancy, possibly as a result of her being prescribed diethylstilbesterol to combat miscarriage (which I believe to be the case as I was the only one of four pregnancies that survived the full term and my mother often talked about being prescribed something during her pregnancy).
How would ‘The Talk’ have gone if I’d set the scene talking in general terms about the struggles that I was facing, my concerns that I was affected by something my mother took during pregnancy and how there were times when things got so bad that I needed to do things that, on the one hand, plague me with guilt but on the other enable me to be the person that other people expect me to be when I interact with them?
I have no way of knowing of course but it would take a very hard-nosed person to either not feel any compassion or not want to be in some way supportive of the fight to live with it. It still wouldn’t be a walk in the path but the question ‘why didn’t you tell me’ may just have a subtext of ‘didn’t you think I’d be here for you’ rather than ‘why the hell have you been deceiving me for so long’.
The bottom line here is that none of us asked to be this way. But if we’re going to ask for understanding from others, we need to give them the opportunity to understand. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crossdressing, whatever our drivers and motives are for doing it. But if we fail to understand that others may have a markedly different view to us and we fail to guide them in their understanding of our viewpoint, we run the risk of rapidly losing control of the situation with potentially catastrophic outcomes for all concerned.
In part 4, I’m going to look at what I’ve learned as a result of my own botched confession and give some thoughts onto how to reduce the risk of doing irreparable damage to relationships by failing to properly plan. As I’ve said before, it won’t be a blueprint for success but it may just give relationships a fighting chance of surviving the matrimonial maelstrom which sadly all too often follows the confession.
30 Responses
Amanda,
Thank you so much for your continued account on this very difficult matter. This whole situation is very, very difficult for all of us.
If nothing changes for us, at least we know we are not alone in our struggles.
I continue to wish you a reasonable outcome.
Always,
Jocelyn
Jocelyn, as always thank you for taking the trouble to comment, it’s very much appreciated.
I think the important thing here is that none of this is our fault. We didn’t ask to be this way and none of us set out to royally screw things up. When my big moment came, I just didn’t know any better. But in a perverse way, perhaps the situation I’m in is for the best. I don’t condone my actions in carrying on under the marital radar but at least if the issue does blow up again, I should be able to handle it a whole lot better than the first time (as long as I follow my own advice of course) rather than it being an ongoing festering sore in our marriage if the line hadn’t been drawn by the ultimatum all those years ago. I would actually give anything to be able to have the conversation again but, for the reasons I gave in a previous instalment, it’s a discussion that has to be initiated by Mrs A when she’s ready, not by me.
One day in a few centuries time, our descendents will look back with incredulity that hostility to crossdressing really was a ‘thing’ in the 21st century!
Amanda
Amanda,
Lets deal with the mother sitaution first .
When I was talking about my separation with her I dropped in the coverstion about my problem being part of the reason . when she pressed the point I told her the whole story . She sat and listened and appeared to understand , I do wonder if some of my behaviour as a child might have sown that seed . A few days later she rang sounding very upset because she was totally blaming herself as my mother who gave birth to me . I explained that it was no one’s fault , it part of our wiring not aligning with our physical development , the brain is weeks behind and sometimes it doesn’t get all the messages . ( I know she wasn’t taking any form of medication when she was pregnant ). Now I see her every two weeks to cook her lunch , we are closer now than we’ve ever been , I take her out shopping and meals . She’s very defensive against some parts of the family , she tells them straight if they don’t like my appearence don’t bother calling .
When I told my ex , I received the same response as you experienced , at first it appeared fine but the DADT wall was gradually growing . I was accused of so many things and obviously had the inevitable questions to answer , when the dust had settled I tried to get a straight answer from her over what she feared the most . I’m sure like most it was what society would think , there wasn’t a point where she assured me we could work through this . I knew then that I was on my own , how I worked it out was up to me , the stark truth was I couldn’t live with her and continue how I felt , I was at the start of my journey not the end .
Perhaps you should consider those words , ” I was at the start on my journey not the end “. You know Amanda will never go away , she also has a future .
Teresa, thank you.
It’s important to remember that this was written over four years ago before DADT was agreed. This and the other posts in the series were intended to give insight to those who either wanted or needed to confess to their wives to avoid them making the same mistakes that I made back in 2013/14 when i first confessed. The point I was trying to make here is that a discussion focussed on the struggles we endure is far more likely to resonate with spouses than blurting out that we’re crossdressers. In particular, it can help frame the reason for non-diclosure as a product of the struggles rather than, as it could be interpreted, to keep our little secret away from prying eyes. And whilst I wasn’t to know it at the time, what I wrote in this post was to be proved right when I had to confess again just under a year later.
As I said throughout this series of posts, there’s no guaranteed formula for success but there are plenty of ways to royally screw up and all we can do is to try to mitigate the risk of that as far as possible.
the use of “wiring” really explains it all.perhaps pointing out that gays also have a wiring misfire might help a bit in a marital conflict. the major problem is that our “wired” condition was so unheard of when we grew up that of course we kept it hidden.we were possibly also ashamed. well things have certainly changed for the better now but that doesn’t help trying to explain the past deception. Really S O L.
Emily, thank you.
In the end, we can only do our best and try to avoid the pitfalls that will almost always guarantee failure.
I am married 53 yrs. I told my wife after 10 years after she found something. I could have explained it away but I was sick of lying. At the time we had 3 children. We now have 5 children and 10 grandchildren. If I had known how strong my femme side was I wouldn’t have married. My keyword is balance. I couldn’t find myself to leave her. I tried to stop dressing. If I didnt married I probably would have transitioned. The world was different when I married. I still love my wife even though she will have nothing to do with my femme side. Life isn’t always fair.
Terri, it’s often a tough call, I think. But as you said, things were very different in the 1960s & 70s and transition was nowhere near as viable a proposition as it is now. You’re right about balance – it’s not always easy to find that point, particularly when the attendant costs of finding it may be high.
Hi Amanda, another great post and one that I will point others to so that they can try to continue their journeys as safely as possible without jeopardising their relationships.
My experience is that keeping the subject in the open works well, and also being the best husband/ partner that you can be when you aren’t wearing a pretty dress and heels. My wife is probably more open about my dressing than I am!! Whilst I might look at a dress or a skirt and think it would suit me, she will actually tell me in the shop, and not in a whisper either.
DADT will lead to a cloud of mistrust in a relationship, partners will know that you are up to something, but they won’t know to what extent… is it more than they thought? Is it kept private? Is there a social media presence? Once Pandora is out of that box she is really difficult to get back in! I know that my wife wouldn’t be happy to see my pictures on Flickr, that is a whole different secret!!
And finally, and I am sure not intentionally, you say “homosexual and a danger to children”, we all know gay men and we all know that they aren’t a danger to children. We need to be careful not to promote the tropes that are already out there, the mainstream press in the UK does that well enough already.
Mary,
I tried to be all things to my wife and family before and after the disclosure but as you say Pandora won’t return to her box , once the words are spoken there’s no changing the fact that your’e a differnt person in your wife’s eyes .
There are no secrets now as I’m full time and divorced . Pictures do still cause some problems but not on social media . Every year now since I moved to my new home my daughter gives me a picture book of her family including ones snapped of me when I meet them at Xmas or when out and about . My mother also gets a copy with pictures relevant to her but again I’m included in the book , my ex picked up my mother’s book flew into a rage and walked out her house . She then had a heated argument with our daughter , the outcome was obvious the reply from both my daughter and mother was if you don’t like it don’t look at the book because they aren’t your property and won’t be hidden away .
Mary, thank you for sharing your thoughts and for your kind words.
I should probably start by clarifying something – Mrs A didn’t actually ask if I’m ‘homosexual and a danger to children’ with the implication that they’re connected. What she actually asked was ‘do you do this to attract men/’ and then ‘are our children safe?’. The first question was reasonable but the second wasn’t and I pointed that out to her. But in summarising that in the post, I inadvertently connected the two and gave an impression that I hadn’t intended to give.
Your assessment of DADT is spot on. For me, it’s been both a dream come true and a nightmare. Being able to dress without guilt was fantastic and I can still remember the first day I was on my own after the deal was struck – the feeling as I got dressed was off the scale! But as you observe, boundaries quickly get pushed back and I’ve gone far further with this than Mrs A (or I for that matter) envisaged when DADT was agreed. I’ve now come to the conclusion that I have to rein my activities back to something approaching where they were at the time as Mrs A’s retirement is imminent and renegotiation of the deal will be necessary. I actually wrote a complete post about DADT – ‘The DADT Dilemma’ which you can find on page 7 of my back catalogue via the ‘More from Amanda J’ button above.
Amanda, one again your insight is spot on. There are some many issues that can affect how our wives will react to this situation. Perhaps the most important is having a loving, trusting, and overall positive relationship. I have found that to be the case, when a wife does accept her husbands feminine side. The second is how you go about revealing how you feel about your gender expression. Having her find your feminine thing is probable the worst possible outcome. The third thing is letter her have a say in when and how your express your feminine side.
Nothing guarantees a positive outcome, so there is always a risk. Even if your wife does understand and accepts your gender identity, that does not mean things will not change in the future. This uncertainty will always be with you.
My wife has said she will never accept this side of me. She did not sigh up for this and had she known would have never married me. Acceptance has to come from within and if it is not there, it may never be their. Love and acceptance is the greatest gift a person can give another person. Even if a did everything I mentioned at the start of this reply, it may not have changed anything. I think that may have been the result. I know she will always see me differently from how she felt about me when we first were married.
I know I never meant to hurt my wife and my gender identity is not a threat to her in any way. I cannot change the past, nor can I change my gender identity. For me my male and female gender are who I am as a person. Even if I stopped dressing, it would not change how my wife feels about me. It would not change my past mistakes, and it would not change how I feel about my feminine identity. The future is an unknown journey, and there are always possibilities. Let’s just love the best lives we can under the circumstances.
Thank you Amanda for your insights and observation, and thank you to all the girls who have replied. Self reflection is an important part of growth as a person.
Love you all.
Julie
Julie, thank you for sharing your thoughts. The whole thing is incredibly hard to deal with because there’s no common thread running through wives’ attitudes and your point about things changing is spot on – attitudes can soften but they can also harden. But I do think that the CDing is often seen as a convenient focal point when there are more general issues in a marriage because it puts all the blame onto the husband and makes the wife the victim. Like you, I was told that disclosure at the outset would have been a dealbreaker and whilst I have no regrets about the course my life has taken, there will always be that question as to whether that would have led to a better outcome in the long term.
In the end, often all we can do is hope – hope for a change of heart but, failing that, hope that we will have the fortitude to navigate life through the constraints placed on us.
Mandy J,
(just teasing you). I over 70 and divorced. I left because of a financial matter in her will and when I asked to talk about it, I got “That’s the way I want it, if you don’t like it, you can leave”. Not a loving response, mentally I left that day. I stayed until the kids where out of school.
After see all these DADT issues, I will make sure my next partner knows I like to cross dress. And I don’t I will have to bring it up. I don’t want to live a life where I have to hide who I am.
Cali – feel free to tease!
Hiding is exhausting and I think your strategy is absolutely right. As many of us have found out, non-disclosure at the start of the relationship often leads to far bigger challenges in the long run. It’s a lot for a woman to accept but for my situation, the sad thing is that it has made both of us unhappy and I sometimes wonder whether that has been a price worth paying.
This is for Kandi, the song that I loved to sing was the Eagles “Already Gone.”
😊
after reading this 12 hours ago it has been on my mind since.—we were born with screwed up wiring but we join a host of people who were not born perfect. If for example you had a bad limb you just would have to adjust and live with it. In our case it is NOT doing something that we have to deal with.
Our case is like taking a job with a great company -things change -the company goes bust . Our situation changed too and the opportunities to express our female side were greatly enhanced. But tough luck-we kept this on the down low when we got married and it turns out that like working for that company we made the wrong decision.
How many programs have you seen where people are happily married and then one spouse finds out the other had a major problem like excessive gambling or worse.Didn’t you feel sorry for the betrayed spouse?
With all this rambling what I’m trying to say is life isn’t fair-we made the wrong decision so if we truly love our spouse we should
honor the marriage contract as painful it may be.(sorry-I know this is not what you want to hear & it calls 4 a lot of misery)
Emily, I completely agree with you. Life isn’t fair but what we have to live with is far less challenging than the hand that has been dealt to many others. Circumstances change, often outside our control and I can look back at several occasions in my own life where a different decision may have had a better outcome. But it the end, the operative word here is ‘may’ and I would far rather try to work with the hand I’ve been dealt with all of its imperfections than face becoming consumed with resentment by dwelling on the imperfections. As you say, honouring the marriage contract can be painful at times but that’s pain I will always endure.
a related thought to add to the confusion= in my experience there seems to be 2 kinds of women-1 wives 2 others.
the others seem to have no problem with us and in fact I have developed several female friends as Emily. Wives are a whole different ball game just considering what has been outlined here
Agreed and I remember an occasion in my old Flickr days when a woman left a comment on a CDer’s photo indicating that she was an enthusiastic ally (from what I remember, she was in the beauty business in some shape or form) but conceded that she would have a different view if it was her husband. There’s a similar two tier issue with the whole macro v micro issue where ~70% of the population is against headline trans rights (sports, women’s spaces etc.) but a similar number are quite happy for trans people to be protected from discrimination. Even simple maths confirms there’s an overlap.
Where in the marriage contract does it say one cannot change? Where does it say either partner cannot crossdress? The wife constantly crossdresses. Where does it explain what crossdressing is?
The marriage contract says we are to love one another, through good and bad. It’s not a one way street.
Amanda,
It’s OK to be trans but not on my doorstep !!
I’m resigned to the fact that I may never have a close relationship again , it’s far too complicated , like Emily I have many friends .
I have a female friend and we have done many things together. But I am not boyfriend material, and I am not girlfriend material – or at lease going out in person together. We have gone out on Halloween as two spice girls. However, I am the only constant in her life for 10 years, so we have long girlfriend phone calls, hour plus. She now lives a 2-hour flight away.
It also seems that younger women are more likely to be okay with a cross dressing boyfriend, even going out together.
Cali, I think your observation could spawn a complete post in itself. I think many of us have had very positive experiences when out and about and interacting with women. Sometimes, I suspect this stems from their desire to show that they are an ally, sometimes it’s their way of letting us know that our hard work in our transformation has paid off, sometimes and appreciation of aesthetic choices we have made and so on All of these reactions plus the more negative ones result from societal conditioning and as society gets used to something, its benchmark for what is normal/acceptable moves. We very much saw this with the shift of public opinion regarding gay marriage from very against it to very accepting.
But when we move to relationships, attitudes are hardwired – they have to be to ensure preservation of the species. I don’t know much about anthropology but once heard someone who did highlight the differences between the sexes with men instincively drawn to beauty but women drawn to someone who they feel can provide for them and protect them. And whilst this is pure guesswork on my part, I suspect that many women are of the view that men who are in touch with their feminine side whilst being great as a friend, may not fit the bill as a life mate, particularly if they subconsciously perceive that it may be crossdressing today and full surgical transition tomorrow. I’m not suggesting that that’s the case for all women but with there being plenty of anecdotal evidence online of women who were initially supportive hardening their attitudes, I suspect that it is a factor for many wives.
During our life time people change, we are not the same person we were in our twenties or thirties. That is when most of us marry. Couples need to adapt to those changes, I think that is why we have such a high divorce rate in our society. Couples that can adapt to those changes and compromise are the ones who continue to have a good relationship.
Julie, that’s very true but I think the perception of some wives is that we haven’t changed – we’ve always been as we are and just concealed it. We are in a difficult position if our CDing dates back before we married – we can either be honest in which case the focus immediately moves onto the deception (which is what happened in my case) or we lie and declare that we’ve only realised recently. Assuming the latter is believed, whilst the deception side becomes more or less a non-issue, it still raises many other questions in a wife’s mind and there’s no simple answer to the question of where the boundaries of acceptability lie in a marriage. And then there’s the issue of the emotional effect on wives – many of us gravitate towards the more glamorous side of feminine presentation so I’m sure that many wives wonder whether it’s the husbands’ way of both having their cake and eating it – preserving the marriage to avoid divorce and all that that entails whilst emotionally swopping them for a newer model, so to speak.
In our defence, if this is something that we did conceal at the outset of our relationships, there may be a very good reason for it. As far as I was concerned, I was convinced that I’d put it all behind me. I had been an occasional CDer and only did it in private and I felt no responsibility to disclose it, not least because I don’t really want to hear about Mrs A’s past either.
The sad thing is that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to navigating through this and I’d already realised when I originally wrote this series of posts four years ago. At the root of this is the simple fact that different marriages are built on different foundations – some are based on looks, others on shared interests, others on necessity, others on compassion, others on convenience and so on. And then there’s another dimension – consequence. A wife has to weigh up what the consequences of approval v disapproval are. And there’s also the question of whether she approves or disapproves of CDing in general. All of these plus many other factors all have a bearing on how things will move forward.
To put it mildly, it’s not easy and in the end all we can really do is avoid the obvious pitfalls and hope for the best.
Amanda,
I partly agree with you that I also thought crossdressing was something from my youth I would possibly mature out of , while I knew nothing of being transgender I did feel something wasn’t as it should be . Did I deceive my future wife ? It’s not a straight forward answer because I’d had a girlfriend who didn’t have a problem with sharing clothes , we both enjoyed the experience . So when I married I didn’t see it as a big problem , it had it’s place and it was fun and as she was her best friend the chances were she might have talked about it as females do .
Did I wish to replace my wife ,? There is always that possibility that they may feel inadequate , undermine their femininity and knock their confidence . Most of us go through the stages of trying to perfect our appearance , to produce the perfect woman , when we first see the full transformation in the mirror the effect can be mind blowing . I remember clearly the moment I became Teresa , the man had totally disappeared but at no point did I feel I had replaced my wife I had become a new version of ME and one I much prefered .
When I finally accepted I was transgender it was unrealistic to think my marriage and the majority of others could survive that revelation , if it’s attempted often it usually means living separate lives but saying that Jan Morris did finaly achieve that harmony , Jan and Elizabeth thrived on the goodness they saw in each other .
In the end, we’re dealing individually with a lot of unknowns both in terms of what’s driving this in us and what wives’ attitudes are to crossdressing in general and their husband’s participation in particular. I don’t think anyone will ever fully understand why this affects some males, small in percentage terms but still significant in terms of absolute numbers but I’ve seen a couple of interesting perspectives recently and I can understand why some wives are so hostile. It would be nice to think that this sort of thing could be tolerated in a marriage but I don’t see us ever coming anywhere close to that aspiration.
Amanda,
Often when we discuss this situation I try and think of the altenative situation , how does a husband feel when his wife declares she is transgender and would prefer to be male . I’ve never looked into this gender question , it’s also interesting that we very rarely hear about women desparate enough to wear male clothes . It is far easier for a woman to hide those inclinations with clothing choices . Personally I’ve only met one F/M ( J**** ) I’m not sure if he was married or not but did give birth to a son before the transition , I can’t say if how the father reacted but the son struggled with the fact that he’d lost his mother
I realise this isn’t about crossdressing but it does bring up the subject of how close family feel about problems they have to face .