How to Crossdress and Keep a Happy Marriage or A Wife’s Unconditional LoveOf all the visits we receive to our NJ retail showroom, we estimate less than 5% are made by a couple and of that small percentage maybe half are in a traditional marriage. We are always intrigued as to how couples met, when the subject of crossdressing was introduced and how the couple has navigated a path of understanding (and in some cases, encouragement) to what can be a potential mine-filed in a marriage. For many married crossdressers, one of their wishes is that they could share this wonderful part of their life with their true partner. But how do you introduce the subject to your life-partner when you kept it a secret for 5 years, for example, without your partner feeling betrayed? Our lovely contributor Michelle from Australia has written a post to give insight into how she and her wife cope with this crossdressing conundrum. For those of you even remotely contemplating the subject then read on as you will learn a lot from Michelle’s journey. “For some of you dressers out there who have loving wives they come home to but, love to dress as females, might know how hard it is dealing with partners that are aghast to the ‘hobby’. These people know how hard it is having a wife they love, not being accepting or even supportive of this lifestyle. They understand the overwhelming feeling of guilt for wanting to dress. It takes us over and we become afraid of harming our marriages, yet we are driven by an unfathomable urge/need to dress. However, the pleasure that comes from dressing alone lessens our fears and drives us to need to hide and even lie to our spouses to fill this need and keep the marriage going. Because of this constant battle, many crossdressers begin to believe thoughts like: “my wife doesn’t really love me, otherwise she’d accept me for the good caring person I am’. I hear this often and indeed I thought it myself some time ago. Some even wonder what life might be like if they were by themselves; with the freedom to dress as often as they please. I have no statistics to reliably conclude that the feeling of not being loved is more prevalent in our community than in the general population, but our ‘hobby’ is definitely more likely to generate a negative response from any wife.
My hope, in sharing my story, is that those who face the same feeling of rejection can find solitude in their relationship and that the conditional love that, that couple shares can surpass the issues they face. Of course, the relationship dynamics are different for every couple but, at the least, this might provide some food for thought for other couples out there dealing with this same issue. It took me 9 months to truly get over being utterly rejected by my wife when I revealed to her my returned emotions that I felt over 3 years ago for crossdressing. I believed that if she loved me totally and unconditionally, surely the clothes would make no difference. However, I was wrong. Completely far from it, actually. For a future together with my wife, I would have to remain fully male, which hurt me. Telling my wife this secret was one of the hardest things I have ever done and it did not go as well as I had hoped. My wife’s reaction to my well planned and honest reveal was, to threaten suicide. Somewhere along the lines: ‘I can’t live with you but, I can’t live without you’ followed by 36 hours in bed crying. Devastating, to say the least. It was truly a tough choice deciding between stopping dressing altogether and continuing and risking my marriage. Then again, there was always the option to continue carefully and non-confrontationally by dressing without letting my wife know. So, at the end of the day my decision was, to continue dressing, but out of view. Some slips inevitably happened and the mutual hurt came flooding back in like a tidal wave. Each time though, the emotions and reactions became less severe. That was almost 4 years ago. It has been a long, thoughtful, and cautious endeavor to get where we are today; with a form of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) arrangement. I’m out dressed 4 or so days a week and use a storage facility to change. My wife doesn’t want to see me dressed, know that I dress, or talk about dressing. Period. Yet she knows, for example: where my clothes are, that I launder them, that I remove hair, shape eyebrows, and that I travel for work with a very large suitcase. As much as I wish I could exchange words about my femme life with my best friend, we remain thoughtful of each other’s wishes too, don’t ask, don’t tell. There is no point in trying to win my wife over to participate in my femme world at this point. Pressing could only undo all the good steady progress we have worked up to. There are times that I have tried, but the outcome was always a renewed feeling of rejection. However, I understand my wife’s feelings and do not resent her for not accepting my femme world.
I am grateful we have reached this period in our lives where we can find mutual peace and happiness in our relationship. I cannot and will never push her into something that she cannot accept. By not pushing, I have the space to live my femme life. Equally, she knows the importance of dressing to me and I never feel any negative thoughts or pressures from her to get me to stop dressing; even though, I know she is not accepting of the idea. This is true unconditional love-being able to see past something you cannot understand because of the love you share for one another. Love can be unconditional – just not always in the same way that we might hope. I hope my story can help any of you out there struggling with the same thing. Remember, just because you cannot get your spouse to understand your needs, does not mean she does not love you. Try this approach and see if you can work your way up to reach a balance in your relationship. Michelle |
