By Trish White
[Editorial comment: Trish and I have never met, although we have talked and emailed back and forth. You can also see she has commented here frequently. She is the lady I helped with my Open Letter to Our Wives. As she sent me a few emails for this post, the thing that stuck me most, her smile. It is radiant! And that ladies, is what it is all about! Okay I’ll shut up now and let Trish have the floor.]
As you see this is the Cornbury Society dinner party I attended in late November the last pic of me was the following day in Kamloops. I made it back from Vancouver in time to meet my local girl friend at our favourite pub for happy hour. I was so excited to go to this dinner party I was just beside myself. All the dinner parties are themed and the theme for the one I attended was ‘little black dress’. When I saw that on their email I just had to go. The dress I was wearing is one of my favourites. All the girls there were so welcoming and friendly and I felt right at home with all of them almost right away and I had a wonderful time getting to know them all. I can’t wait for the next dinner.
Part 2 of Trish’s Vancouver adventures was actually the first girl get together I attended in Vancouver in late October. It was a luncheon so it was a 4 hour drive down and a four hour drive back and not including the luncheon and it was the most exciting time in this girl’s life. I’m 72 and started cross dressing when I was 5, so it was a very lonely, introverted life I lead full of lies, hiding things and depression. But that all changed for me and you know why. The actual best thing about this luncheon had nothing to do with lunch. I was almost to the restaurant and had to go….badly, too much coffee on the way down. So I found a Tim Horton’s in Langley and rushed inside, past everybody and down to the washroom which was locked. So I went back to the counter and asked the girl if I needed a key for the facilities and she said “no, I’ll just buzz you in”. On my way I was thinking which door will be buzzing, the men’s or the ladies’? I turned the corner and the ladies was buzzing loudly, I smiled as I went in. Then on my way out I stopped at the counter and ordered a coffee to go, she smiled and gave it too me and I gave her a big smile back. As I was about to exit a man was coming in, saw me leaving, and quickly turned around gave me a big smile and opened the door for me. I gave him an equally big smile and thanked him. What a great way to start my first day meeting my new girl friends.
From there it was a short trip to the restaurant. One of the Gurls in the Burbs founding members was outside waiting for me to show up, That made me feel so good and welcomed right away. Once inside Candace and I sat together and she introduced me to all the girls and they all warmly welcomed me and made me feel I was a part of the group right away. So over lunch and drinks I got to know them all pretty well and it was feeling like family more and more. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive back and not just because if was 4 hours to home but more because I had to leave my new friends so soon. They let me know that in the spring they spend 3 days in Kelowna in April, right after Easter doing wine tours, shopping, make overs and of course drinks and probably one night clubbing. So I really have something exciting to look forward to in 2023.
All of this Kandi from you sending me a letter that has literally changed my life [false modesty by your genial host….] and I will be eternally grateful for what you’ve done for my wife and I. She is at this point still not interested in meeting Trish or joining Trish at any of these events. But you know, after how my life has changed I can really see the possibility of it actually happening. If it does I’ll be ecstatic and if it doesn’t I will still feel blessed for what I have and for being fortunate enough to have met you.
14 Responses
Trish, let’s start with the obvious – you look amazing and your claim to be 72 is obviously an overstatement by at least 20 years! And your smile in those photos says it all, really.
What I’d be interesting in hearing about is exactly how Kandi’s ‘Open Letter’ helped you. It’s actually the reason I contribute here as, when Kandi posted it, I found it an incredibly moving ‘treatise’ on how to face what is almost certainly the biggest hurdle we will ever face. Sadly, it came several years too late for me to avoid royally screwing up my own confession and drive me into the murky world of deception and secrecy but every time I hear that someone has had a positive outcome, it gives hope that perhaps ‘confession v2.0’ will go better (not that it could go any worse than v1.0!).
There, that’s your next post sorted out – can’t wait to read it!!
Hi Amanda,
Thanks so much for your comments, your very kind and they’re much appreciated. As far as Kandi’s letter goes, it was “a letter to the wives of crossdressers. I told Kandi when I read it I was in tears. It’s like it was my biography she was writing about, right down to being an overweight slob with a cheesy mustache.
I thought I’d done everything right when it came to my crossdressing in that I told her I was a crossdresser before we got married. I couldn’t bring that secret into a marriage. We made love after I’d told her so I was thinking everything was going to be ok. In her defense she is a religious girl and very black and white, to her way of thinking there are no grey areas. So the first time she saw me dressed to say she wasn’t happy is an understatement. It was not a pretty site. So after that Trish was in the closet for many years.
Every time we tried to talk about it reasonably, reason left the table, and it quickly turned into a shouting match with her bringing up the same old questions and fears. I was a lonely depressed girl with no place to go (there was no internet back then). Then I joined a crossdresser site last year and met a good friend of Kandi’s who told me about her and her blog. That is when I saw Kandi’s letter and emailed her asking if she could email it to me which she did almost immediately. I printed it off and gave it to my wife to read.
The next day we were talking about the letter and she said I don’t want to see Trish. When you were working you always dressed when went to Vancouver. Why don’t you go to Vancouver where you can meet people like yourself. So I researched CD social groups in Vancouver and found the Cornbury Society’s web site with the president’s email. I emailed her and found out she lived in my home town and she also told me about Gurls in the Burbs.
The next time my wife and I talked I filled her in on what I’d found and what they did and told her I wanted to go to Vancouver and meet these people. The first being the luncheon with the Gurls in the Burbs. When I told was going to go to the luncheon she said “well, drive carefully and I hope you have a good time. I found out from Kandi there was hopefully going to be a CD conference (Confident U) in Vancouver. I told my wife that if it happened I wanted to go and to my surprise she said “well, ok but won’t that be expensive”? Hearing that I just wanted to yell and dance around, I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All of this from one simple letter that changed my life as well as immensely helping my wife understand what crossdressing is about.
I don’t want you to get the impression it was as easy as it sounds because it wasn’t and isn’t. She still has her fears and once in a while does a complete 180 but the important thing is she has become somewhat accepting and getting more so as time goes on. Will she ever be supportive? Time will tell but I am a very happy blessed girl right now and as I said, if she does become supportive I’ll be ecstatic and if she doesn’t I will still feel blessed for what she and Kandi’s Land has given me.
Love,
Trish
Trish,
Thank you for opening up and telling your story with such candour and honesty.
As I said in my original comment, this is a story that I think you should base a full-scale post on. It’s far more valuable than leaving it as a response to a comment. There’s a very important message contained within what you wrote and that is that the right approach can make a difference. There’s no sugar coating in what you wrote (and if anyone reading it believed that there was, your final paragraph well and truly dispels that view) and what I found particularly significant is that it was not only an account of confession leading to some degree of acceptance but one that moved your wife’s viewpoint from one of what appeared to be outright hostility.
As I mentioned, I got my confession spectacularly wrong doing untold damage to my marriage in the process and culminating in me agreeing to a ‘cease and desist’ ultimatum – a promise that I have been unable to keep. That taught me an awful lot about how not to approach this (and spawned a five part series of posts on Kandi’s Land) and I always felt that my biggest failure was not understanding the true impact that this sort of thing has on wives. They have to contend not only with finding out that the man they married enjoys a bit of femme-time but also, in many cases including mine, that it has been going on behind their backs for years or even decades. If we’re going to have any chance of success, or at least an acceptable compromise, we have to step into our wife’s shoes and try to understand the impact of our revelation on them. Kandi’s ‘open letter’ demonstrated that perfectly and your experience proves the point.
Of course, there’s no formula that guarantees success as we’re dealing with a huge unknown variable – the wife’s attitude to crossdressing in general and her husband’s participation in it in particular. But what you, Kandi and others show is that the odds of success can be improved by thinking about the issue from all angles rather than just seeing the confession as an opportunity to seek approval to continue.
If there is a positive in my situation, it’s that I’ve never succumbed to the ‘cheesy moustache’ condition which seems prevalent on your side of the Atlantic! As for being a slob, I’ll leave that question hanging!
Thanks again,
Amanda x
I have re-read Kandi’s open letter post many times
Hi Amanda,
I think you’re idea of extrapolating on what I wrote in my reply to you is a good one.
I actually have a zoom meeting with Kandi today about her Confident U venture that she’s working on. So I’ll give her a heads up about what you and I are discussing. One question for you, are you alright with incorporating some or all of your above reply in what I put together along with Kandi’s help? I like things short and sweet and I have a hard time stretching things out but it is apparent doing exactly this is what’s needed for the girls going through what we all have or contemplating it, hence Kandi’s help.
Have a great day girl.
Love, Trish
That’s great, Trish. Please feel free to include anything I’ve written either in the reply or that I wrote in my ‘Matrimonial Challenges’ series of posts which you can find via the following link:
https://kandis-land.com/author/amanda-johnson/page/2/
I think this subject is the most important issue that anyone in any form of relationship faces, not least because there are far more ways of screwing things up than there are at tipping the balance of probability towards an acceptable outcome. And it’s not just during the confession that we can screw up either – I’d got to a point where I’d reassured my wife that I wasn’t seeking any sugery or permanent changes, she’d bought me a couple of things and had even suggested that my clothes should hang in the wardrobe. What went wrong for me was agreeing to her invitation to dress in front of her, something that neither of us had thought through.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Amanda
Trish,
I agree with Amanda you look great for 72 ( I hate to say this but I’m also 72 years young ! ) My hairstylist thought I was 50 -55 so I joked that if a had my hair styled every week I would wind back to 21 !!!
It’s good to hear you had a great time but I must admit the driving is mixed blessings .
Hi Teresa,
Thanks for commenting. You’re one up on me…..you have hair to style 😂. But for your sake I hope your hairdresser is right and if she is I’m going out and buying Rogain! It was a very good time and when the drive involves going through the Cascade mountains it makes for a very nice and relaxing drive. Well except for the winter time, the highway is the Coquihalla or better known as “The highway through hell” from the same name as the popular TV show shown world wide. And besides when you live in Canada there is no such thing as a short drive from city to city. Thanks again for the comments and have a great day girl.
Trish 💖
Trish,
Sorry I must have mislead you , I go to the hairdresser and pop my wig on it’s stand while she tidies up the grey strands underneath , then quickly pop my wig back on . So her comment about my age was lovely considering what I look like without my wig . It has lead to some funny moments in her salon with other customers !
Trish, thanks for sharing you story and adventure with the ladies.
It is nice to find acceptance in this crazy world
I’ve discovered that most people are kind to girls like us and if we smile as you do so well then it allows those around us to relax and realize we are just people and not scary lol.
Thanks again an welcome
Rachael
Hi Rachael,
You’re absolutely right, the town I live in used to be your basic red neck town. I go out once a week shopping with a girl friend in town. We go everywhere the mall, costco, drug stores and Walmart (my friends fav store for groceries) and end the day for happy hour at the pub. Honestly we have never had any issues. I like to think I pass and probably do most of the time. My girl friend is over 6′ tall but is very out going and pretty and there are 6′ Cis girls out there so she is probably passing as well. Things certainly have changed since the 60’s and for us girls it’s a good thing. Thanks so much for your comment girl.
Trish 💖
Trish, I was delighted to read your story. We have many things in common, including age and the same outlook towards Cornbury. I am also a newcomer and have attended three dinners so far. I also found that the group was a lot of fun to be with. I have a feeling that our paths will cross in the near future.
Hope to meet you soon.
Christine
Hi Christine,
Thanks for commenting and we obviously do have a lot in common. I have only been to the dinner that is posted here on Kandi’s Land but it definitely won’t be my last. I also know a girl from the coast that wants to go to one of the dinners, her name is Clair but she hasn’t been out in public so has been a little hesitant about going but I think she’s ready and I told her to let me know what dinner she wants to go to and I will be there too for moral support. So being involved with Cornbury you obviously know Dara, when I joined Cornbury I found out she live just outside of Kamloops which is where I live as well. I look forward to meeting you at one of the dinners. My wife and I are heading to Mexico for three weeks and will be back February 25th. Oh, and I’m going to the 3 day Kelowna wine tasting, shopping etc function with the Gurls from the Burbs April 28th, 29th and 30th. It should be a great time you should come.
Trish 💖
Trish,
I have read your comments both here and on the other crossdresser forum site and the one thing that always stands out to me is how happy you are being Trish. Enjoy your trip!
Fiona
Hi Fiona,
Aren’t we all when we’re who we want to be, thank you for your comment. It is appreciated.
Trish 💖