Ever since I first realised that I was different to the rest of my peer group (or at least I assumed that no one else was in the habit of sneaking into their mother’s bedroom to try on her clothes), guilt has been a more or less constant feature in my life.
I felt guilty about ‘borrowing’ my mother’s clothes. I felt guilty that doing so had such a powerful sexual reaction. I felt guilty about hiding this side of my past from Mrs A for so long. I felt guilty about CDing behind her back. I felt guilty that in a single short confessional sentence – I’ve been bad, I’ve been crossdressing – I blew up her life. I felt guilty that even though I’d given my solemn promise to stop, I could not shake off the urges. I felt guilty that I resumed CDing in secret despite promising to stop. I felt guilty that my feminine activities were mushrooming out of control. I felt guilty that I neglected management of our business, so preoccupied was I with becoming ‘her’. I felt guilty indulging the inner woman with new outfits while Mrs A was making economies with her clothing purchases.
And I feel guilty every time I think about ‘Amanda’ because I know she runs far deeper within me than Mrs A could ever contemplate or want to contemplate.
I guess you could say that guilt goes with the territory here. That certainly seems to be the case as far as I am concerned. And I suspect that I’m far from alone in having these feelings. Naturally, there are any number of people only to happy to give well-rehearsed reassurance: ‘you’ve nothing to feel guilty about, they’re only clothes’, ‘all marriages have secrets’, ‘you should never feel guilty about expressing your true self’, ‘you can’t help being this way so why feel guilt?’, ‘better to keep it from her than blow up your marriage’ and so on.
We shouldn’t really be surprised at this. After all, these and many more like them are ever present in our own minds as we try to justify what we do to ourselves. And is anyone ever going to dare to write ‘and so you should feel guilty, you’re a despicable human being for doing all of this behind your wife’s back. If it’s so harmless, why not just tell her?’?
Now, the point of this post is not to debate the rights and wrongs of covert CDing within a marriage but, rather, to assert that guilt is a completely natural emotional reaction to what we do and, furthermore, is a good thing. I’ve already listed a number of reasons for my own guilt over the years and, believe me, that wasn’t an exhaustive list. The question is whether that guilt was justified.
Let’s look at my early forays into the world of CDing first of all. I honestly don’t know why I experienced those early uncontrollable urges to wear women’s clothing. My parents were both very conservative in outlook, my mother made her disapproval of men wearing women’s clothing very clear and I never played dress up with a female friend & realised that wearing a princess dress felt far better than being the prince. Of course, like every one of us, I can assert that a particular incident or trait was an early indication of what was to come but the truth is that I can think of many times that number of occurrences which emphatically disproved it. I’m almost certain that my mother was prescribed DES while pregnant with me but the linkage between DES and transgenderism remains unproven. Is it in my DNA? Who knows? Was it having girls as friends when I was young but then being separated from them in an all-boys school from age 10 onwards? Perhaps. Or maybe it was just curiosity as puberty arrived that lit the fuse with the rather pleasant reaction that followed when I succumbed that cementing the deal, so to speak.
Whatever it was, I think it’s fairly obvious that I couldn’t help it. But did that then give me the right to indulge my nascent feminine side by trying on my mother’s clothes when the house was empty? It’s very easy to concoct an excuse (as CDers we all get very good at concocting excuses for what we do!) – a parent should always want their child to be happy for example – but there’s a simple question to ask ourselves here; if I had gone to my mother and stated that I wanted her blessing to dress in her clothes whenever I wanted to, what would the answer have been? Let’s just say that I don’t think it would have been a ‘slam dunk’!
I’m not a religious person but what I do know is that you don’t have to get too far into The Bible before Adam & Eve develop a taste for the forbidden fruit and it doesn’t end well! And despite my own (lack of) religious beliefs, I was brought up with a strong sense of morality so it’s hardly surprising that the guilt of borrowing what was not mine without asking first plagued me.
More problematic, though, was the reaction I experienced whenever I indulged. Trying on tights for the first time, it was almost immediate but as time went on, things fortunately took longer to reach a climax. And the feeling of crashing down to earth immediately afterwards not only magnified the guilt of being where I shouldn’t be, I then had to add the guilt of being a deviant into the mix. Whilst there was nothing illegal in what I was doing, the feelings of guilt and disgust were often overwhelming, at least until the next time the urges struck and the whole cycle started over once more.
And then we get to marriage, a true melting pot for my guilt if ever there was one. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and, of course, I should have told Mrs A at the outset that I was fascinated by those who crossed the gender divide and had experimented with it myself in my younger days. But that, I reassured myself, was all in the past and now that I was in love, I was over it. In fact, that’s one of the few things in my feminine life that I’ve not felt guilty about; marriage is about making a life choice for the future and we all have things in our past that are better left behind. I don’t want to know every detail about Mrs A’s activities before we met and she can withhold whatever information she wants with my absolute blessing.
But that said, my respite was short lived. Whether it was a programme on the TV or a newspaper article covering transgenderism I don’t recall but I soon realised two things. The first was that the fascination with the whole idea remained and the second was that the urges to join the party were starting to creep back. I was ‘clean’ for 18 years of marriage before things became overwhelming and I was able to take advantage of periodic working from home to rekindle my feminine side. That was back in 2009 and the ensuing years have been covered in my now extensive back catalogue of posts here so I won’t repeat myself. Suffice to say that I’ve come a long way since then and whilst Mrs A has given her blessing for DADT, I’m almost certain that she has no idea about the extent of my stash, my Kandi’s Land writings or my excursions into the outside world. But even if she did know and gave her blessing, I know that I would still feel guilty about putting her in the position of having to compromise her own beliefs for the sake of the marriage.
Are my persistent feelings of guilt understandable? I would say yes with certainty. Are they rational? That’s probably more debateable but I do sometimes think that I have allowed my feminine side to evolve to the point where it’s not dissimilar to having an affair. I’d certainly want to date Amanda if things were different and I do spend money on indulging her with outfits I like to see her wearing. I’m absent during the times I’m seeing her and I miss her when she’s out of my life for extended periods. The guilt I experience because of that at least underlines that I value my marriage.
And to me, that’s an important point. In the early 1990s, I made vows to Mrs A which I intend to keep ‘for as long as we both shall live’. My marriage isn’t perfect but, there again, no marriage ever is. We’re human beings, we have flaws and often those flaws don’t manifest themselves until long after our commitments are made. Sadly, for too many marriages, those flaws become dealbreakers and I will be eternally thankful that my flaws were not. But what’s particularly important here is the inequality between the compromises that Mrs A had to make and mine. My compromise is only that I have to restrict my feminine activities. Mrs A has had to put all of her own prejudices to one side and accept that something she hates the idea of will go on behind her back. She has had to overcome the feeling that she was deceived for nearly two decades of marriage and understand that her husband needs to cross the gender divide from time to time. She has felt disgust, grief, anger, betrayal and many other negative emotions while I have experienced euphoric happiness. So is it really surprising that I continue to feel guilt about all of this?
In the end, it’s the guilt that keeps my feet on the ground. It reminds me where my priorities really lie. It stops me making rash decisions that could blow up my life. And, to use a metaphor, it reminds me how lucky I am to be able to both have my cake and eat it.
Life is full of ‘what ifs’ and I’m sure that most of us have, at one time or another, wondered how we’d live our lives if we’d realised the extent of our feminine lives sooner or if we lived in a parallel universe where we were free to live however we wanted to. I certainly often have those thoughts, particularly when I compare the euphoric bliss I experience when I can spread my feminine wings against the challenges of my ‘normal’ life at other times. It’s all too easy to chase those highs but I’m well aware that I’m walking on the tightrope of Mrs A’s tolerance; one slip and I’ll come crashing down. And every pang of guilt I feel reminds me that I have far more to lose than to gain from all of this.
As far as the guilt I experienced regarding dressing in my mother’s clothes is concerned, I’m well over it. Maybe she realised and understood, maybe she was oblivious, but she’s long gone and the chapter is closed. And the guilt from the belief that I was a deviant? Again, I was well over it as I soon realised that it was neither the primary driver for my need to cross over to the other side nor, in time, a consequence of it. But as for the guilt I now experience, I embrace it and am thankful it’s ever present. Because more than anything, it reminds me to be thankful for, and fiercely protect, what life has given me. I’ve already seen the catastrophic consequences of bad decisions concerning this side of my life and am now truly thankful for that little voice in my head that constantly reminds me not to make the same mistakes again.
17 Responses
Amanda,
This is a very open and honest writing. I somehow feel privileged to be allowed to be temporarily in the mind of Amanda Johnson. Thank you.
I don’t know what the right thing to do regarding our CD/TG life and our spouse. If there is a right answer, I haven’t heard it yet.
I too feel the guilt you describe. And this post really helps me come to grips with it.
We all plod on, trying to do what is best. Whatever that is.
Congratulations on becoming a KL fixture. You’ve come a long way ‘baby’!
Love you,
Jocelyn
Jocelyn, thank you.
I’ve come to realise that guilt is a destructive force if we let it get on top of us. It causes us to fight battles that we can’t win – the best we can ever hope for is an uneasy compromise. But accepting the guilt helps us make rational decisions as you have done; we don’t live in a perfect world and whilst we can all dream about what we’d do if the world was perfect, the guilt we feel is a reminder of where our priorities in life really lie. That’s not to say that what we do is wrong in any shape of form but just that decisions we have taken, whilst seemingly unrelated at the time, put boundaries around us and our guilt just lets us know where those boundaries are.
Thank you as always for your support.
Amanda,
This post could easily have come from me. The guilt that has built up over the years could have broken me completely. Most has been due to my borrowing clothes from my mother, sister, and wife (both before and after we married). While I now have bought my own items, the reminder of that time is when I borrow some jewelry to augment my meager amount.
The remaining guilt is definitely because I am hiding so much from my wife. Yes, she knows that I dress and that I have some clothes in my closet (jeans, my one blazer, and my one coat). But she has no idea of the bags of dresses, shoes, unmentionables, and the wigs and makeup I use (not her makeup either!). And the fact that I have gone out dressed multiple times, both from a hotel and from home, is another source of that guilt.
But I feel so free and happy when I get those chances, it’s only after that the guilt creeps in. My self-acceptance has grown in the last 10 years (along with the wardrobe) – wearing what I want to wear no longer holds a guilty feeling. I am more comfortable and confident being seen by and interacting with other people.
My opportunities remain quite limited, with no sign of any chance to get out in the coming months. So I have to keep pushing the urges down and cope in other ways. Virtual shopping does help somewhat, although I won’t actually buy most of the items I look at. I don’t feel guilty about buying one or two small things, as I look at it as keeping myself from making rash decisions.
I think guilt is just a by-product of the times we grew up in. We seem to be of a certain age group that did not have the resources and understanding that younger generations have now. Yes, we can change our lives as Gwen and Teresa have, or continue along our own journey and manage those guilty feelings as best as we can. Talking about it with a professional can help, but each of us needs to make that choice for herself.
Amanda, I look forward to your contributions and am excited to see you on a regular basis here at Kandi’s Land. Though we may be an ocean apart, I feel a great kinship with you and your adventures.
Tina, thank you for sharing so much. I think we have to accept that guilt goes with the territory and I’m well aware that if I did decide to reveal all to Mrs A, the guilt I feel about hiding so much from her would be replaced by the guilt of causing her unimaginable hurt. The time is rapidly approaching when I’m going to have to negotiate a way forward with her but even if she gives her blessing to something akin to ‘out of sight, out of mind’, I’m sure there’ll be residual guilt because she didn’t ask for any of this. But as I intimated in the post, that guilt means that I love her and that really is more important than anything else.
But like you, I feel free and happy when I can spread my wings and that’s something I really don’t want to lose. I love this side of me that lay hidden for so long and whilst I’m happy as I am, I would hate to have to lose this side of me.
Amanda,
Lets consider the point about possible affairs , can we relate dressing to cheating on a partner very much like cheating with another person . ( I have made the point of saying that affairs can happen with either gender , sometimes hormones can initiate that complication .) When my ex and me sat and talked honestly we both accapted that my CDing had kept me loyal to her , by then she knew we shared her clothes . Otherwise it was possible I could have had affairs , my type of business made it all too easy .
When I read pieces like this I try and stand back to consider the other side , meaning F/M transgender people . It’s far easier for a girl/woman to dress in a masculine way than it is for a boy/man to dress in a feminine way . In that respect do they suffer the same level of guilt ? If a wife said to her husband , ” I hope you don’t mind but I borrowed your shirt and trousers , would the husband simply shrug his shoulders and say that’s OK and think nothing more of it ? If you told your mum or wife you borrowed their clothes , well you’ve alrady given your answer to that question .
Guilt in a male life is so common , if we didn’t feel guilty about dressing we might feel guilty about buying a new set of golf clubs for example , women know how to make men feel guilty , in some respects we often feel guilty for not feeling guilty !!
To look for excuses why we dress is wrong but I do feel it’s important to know we we have the need . It really is accepted now that the misalignment happens in the womb , we are born into it , there’s is nothing we can do to change that situation . Some can deal with it better than others that is dictated by the depth of dysphoria , we must accept that it is a very wide spectrum ranging from the occasional dressing to hating you body so much you require medical intervention . The guilt come from the male core , we know we should be male but we can’t help the moments when we want to appear female , that conflict destroys some people , suicides aren’t uncommon . ( I know from personal expereince how bad the situation can become ) .
Sometimes this raises the question should wives/partners be more understanding and forgiving ? I was surprised how many wives attended the social groups and really enjoyed them , I often spent much of my time talking to them perhaps in the hope I could persuade my wife . It’s often said they didn’t sign up for it but my reply is , ” No neither did I but I’m stuck with it !”
Some might accuse me of being selfish as I apparently walked away from 40+ years of marriage with a son and daughter and three grandchildren but it was an amicable decision . It was the best course of action for everyone , we knew we couldn’t continue a marriage on this basis . Do I feel guilty ? NO because we both now had the opportunity to find happiness , does my ex feel guilty ? Yes she does because she knows she could have handled it differently , she lost a good , loyal partner .
Please don’t beat yourself up over this guilt , perhaps the one thing you and your wife are guilty of is not talking openly and honestly . It was like a breath of fresh air when we discussed the possibilty of separation , we talked openly for the first time .
Teresa, thank you for sharing your thoughts. In the end, we have to do what’s best for us and there is no ‘one size fits all’ for any of this. As I suggested in the title to the post, I’m embracing this guilt as the price I pay for all of the other things I have in life. As you say, we can’t help being the way we are and those of us who have tried to change quickly realise that it’s an ultimately fruitless endeavour. To her credit, Mrs A understands that and I sense that she also understands that I keep it well clear of everything else in our life and particularly well clear of her and our marriage.
For me, the paradox is that, on the one hand, I wish I didn’t have to deal with all of this but, on the other, feel incredible happiness when I do spread my feminine wings and would hate to lose that side of me. I’m sure a therapist/psychologist would have a field day trying to analyse me but, in the end, who cares as long as we’re happy. I’m certainly not going to beat myself up over a bit of guilt because in the end, it means that I’m both having my cake and eating it, so to speak.
Amanda,
Basicaly therapists and counsellors are are on your side , they must remain impartial , so their assessmenst may tell you what you suspect or what you may be reluctant to accept but they are there to help you come to terms with it . A professional diagnosis is important when if you are struggling with acceptance from people close to you . My ex came to terms with me going to social groups after my gender counsellor suggested them to ease my mental situation , she was concerned about the suppression I was living with . I did raise the point with her that I could be using her for my validation but she was ready for that and soon put it to bed .
Happiness is very important for our wellbeing but we must also accept it can come at a price to other people , no matter what course we take it’s a balance of everyone’s needs .
I would say that the life of a transgender person is very much a paradox , society has strange values at times .
You’re right about happiness but what many find is their happiness comes back to bite them on the behind. CDing makes me happy but makes Mrs A unhappy which in turn saddens me. I’ve been very lucky firstly that she tolerates it and secondly that she wants no part of it so I can, to all intents and purposes, step into a completely different world when I need to express my feminine side. As I said in the post, it’s the guilt that keeps me withing boundaries and I’d hate to push my luck too far so the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
As a teenager in the 80’s without any resources like the internet, crossdressing brought on a ton of guilt. I thought I was the only one. The endless cycle of taking every covert moment to wear my mother’s clothes, the (unknown feeling at the time of “gender euphoria” which I had no words for), which eventually lead to self gratification, and then feelings of shame and deviance. And then there is the persistent fear of being caught and how much embarrassment and humiliation that would bring. You would think with all of that it would prevent one from dressing again. And it never did. Am I a masocist? Why can’t I stop dressing? Why is this so compelling? It brings guilt but I can’t stop. Our mind is trying to tell us something very important that we are just not ready to understand. It certainly took me decades to understand it all.
Emotionally, you are never more vulnerable than at around puberty when you are just trying to “fit in.” And you have that one massive secret. Yeah, I have felt that guilt.
-Christina
Christina, thank you for sharing your thoughts.
One of the reasons I wanted to write this post was to bring the whole guilt thing out into the open. For too many of us, it has been a destructive force, not least because we have felt that our only option was to bottle it up and try to carry on with life as best we can. Many of us have good reason to feel guilt but I think we have to embrace it rather than fight it. I’m a much nicer person with my blonde wig on (!) and that has had a positive impact on the other side of my life too. There’s no shame in wanting to be happy and whilst we may have a slightly unconventional way of achieving that state, we only get one go at life so we need to run with it.
In the end, I’d far rather have what both sides of me have in life and the guilt that goes with it than suppressing half just to appease my conscience.
Amanda such a well thought out perspective on this part of us
So well said
I’m not sure my guilt of what I was doing in my marriage ever fully effected me but I guess because my ex knew about my feminine side before we were married
However I was not prepared for the absolute need to be Rachael more than even I knew and so that’s at least in part why my marriage failed
I knew the first time I put myself totally together with a wig and the best makeup I could do that Rachael just could not stay totally hidden
Today I’m single and alone and unfortunately it’s likely how I will stay. While I can be me most of the time now I do still wish I could have boxed up my girl somehow but maybe some of us just can’t do it
That is probably where my guilt is in that I just can’t be the man I should be
Thanks so much for sharing
Rachel,
Is it right we should feel guilt of rejecting the masculine side , I prefer to call a male straightjacket , something I needed to escape from but I was made to feel guilty about that rejection . I console myself in the knowledege that I did my best as the husband , father and later grandfather , I gave as much as I could to fill those roles . At some point in our lives you have to consider YOU , what your needs are , eventually I couldn’t ignore them .
I do live alone now but I make sure I’m not lonely , I believe now it’s almost impossible to find a partner who fully understands and could live with a transgender person but I’m OK with that . I can rely on good friends but I’m not sure if I could rely on a person in a relationship , I’m possibly too old but saying that I like the freedom to please myself now .
Rachael, thank you for sharing your thoughts which I know are particularly painful for you.
I suspect that many who read your comment will agree with your final point about being the men we should be. We try but it is almost always an ultimately fruitless endeavour. All we can do in the end is try our best to balance everything in a way that works for us and perhaps take an altruistic view and hope that future generations are more understanding.
Wow, Amanda, talk about laying it all out on the table and I really like a person who calls a spade a spade. Lastly all I can say is you always impress the heck out of me every time I read one of your posts. And again, it would have made my life so much easier if had your writing abilities. But having you as a friend is just as good. Take care girl….love ya.
Trish ❤️
Trish, thanks! I often surprise myself – I was rubbish at English & Creative writing at school!
Amanda, I had the guilt when I was younger. Early on I started to purchase clothes for ME instead of ‘borrowing’ clothes from women in my life. That took care of some of the guilt.
My wife and I parted over other issues, however I don’t think I would be where I am today if I was still with her. When she mixed our underwear and put her panties in my drawer, I ran with it so to speak. (My urologist, head urologist at a well known teaching university had suggested I wear panties.) She got upset, but then found she had put some of my underwear in her drawer, so I hadn’t taken them from her drawer. I got her to order my first 5 panties from VS. However, from that day on I washed my own clothes separate from hers. This was also the start of my closet’s transition. A few years later we parted ways. Since then she has asked to borrow my nail polish and askes where I get some of my clothes (she loves my Felina lux leggings for example). And always wants to look at my nails (with ENVY). :)))
Someone above talks about being happy which made me smile. Just in the past week I was told by several people that I look really happy. And I must say I am. I was talking about how I’m thinking about retiring soon and some people questioned that I didn’t look old enough to. When I ask how old they thought I was they said 10 to 15 years younger. Now that makes me even happier.
Rachel –
I too am in my 70’s and I am also looking for a partner. Will I find one? Who knows, but I know that she must take me as I am because Cali is present all the time and is never going away.
Cali
Cali, thank you for taking to time to share your thoughts.
Our lives can be a minefield and you bring an interesting angle which I too have experienced – assumption that I have done something when I haven’t. In my case, it was having a liaison with a man which did get pretty unpleasant at the time but fortunately soon blew over.