Coming out as a cross dresser

[Carol]

Well I see the logic in what has been suggested in the link Claire but really you need to pitch your story to suit your audience.
In my case after years of closet crossdressing, as my wife was thoroughly absorbed in her favourite TV show, I walked in and said “You are so involved in that you wouldn’t even notice if I was in a skirt” “Course I would” “Da da”.
That led to laughter and several gorgeous months of shared fun but finally she let me know she was over it and I went back into the closet for 30 years. I came out to her a second time three years ago but that is another story.

[Deleted User]

Article seemed pretty good to me. I definitely agree that you probably need to interpolate for your relationship but regardless of that all the points are still relevant. You don’t want it to be this joke so you do need to bring it up in a way that your partner knows how serious this is to you and how it is a part of your identity.

[Martina]

As Carol points out, we are all different and have different stories to tell. The article makes several generalisations which may be valid for some but not others, but overall it offers some points which may be helpful. The recommendation to see a therapist together is a very American thing; in the few consultations I have had with this breed, I have walked away with a sense of just completing an expensive waste of time. Surely if a husband and wife love each other and can communicate sensibly then there is no need for such things.

My experience is very different in that I started dressing after being married for more than 25 years. Two years later I confessed and was initially told to do it in my own time and not hers. Thankfully my wife is a very intelligent and caring person and after the initial shock and two weeks further down track she asked to see me dressed and declared that I was still the same person regardless of how I dressed. These days we go shopping for girls’ clothes together, for both of us. We are grateful for the shared interest and the extra dimension that has been added to our lives.

I pity those who live secret lives in the closet or whose partners have difficulty accepting them as they are and will be forever more. That’s a tragedy.

[Martina]

ClaireStafford wrote:

For whatever reason or happenstance I had chosen to be open about my cross-dressing to any girl I became seriously close to in my life. In the main this has served well, there were the occasional hiccups but I figured better to have discovered them before we became deeply involved than afterwards. As most are aware the stress of concealment and the trauma of discovery can be very difficult to recover from..

I have to agree with Claire. Being open about one’s cross-dressing early in the relationship is very important especially if something more than gravity is pulling you more and more together. I am reminded of a friend, a cross-dresser, practically from birth, whose wife left after saying: “You’re not the man I married, and besides I have a new boyfriend!” (For the purposes of this story, I shall call her Kate although that is not her real or assumed name).

Kate was devastated by this news but I suggested that she was better off seeking a new relationship than mulling over the now dead one. I encouraged her to get onto the dating websites. Kate (now 60) was, much to her surprise, deluged with contacts from single women seeking a new partner. The dilemma now was: should she tell them right from the get go or should she wait until after a few meetings to see if something positive was developing. My advice and that of several others was the latter; it was case of careful timing.

Kate soon narrowed her list down to two ladies and met with both of them but said nothing about her “hobby”. The meetings continued and eventually she told one of them, obviously the one she favored, about her part-time cross dressing and showed her some photos. To cut a long story short, the relationship is now thriving and Kate has returned to being the happy humorous and energetic person she once was. Most importantly, she can enjoy her periodic cross-dressing with her partner as a confidant and co-conspirator. Some times bad news leads to good news and it did in this case.

[Deleted User]

Martina wrote:

I encouraged her to get onto the dating websites. Kate was deluged with contacts from single women seeking a new partner. To cut a long story short, the relationship is now thriving and Kate has returned to being the happy humorous and energetic person she once was. Most importantly, she can enjoy her periodic cross-dressing with her partner as a confidant and co-conspirator

What joyful news, being confirmed in my opinion that such a relationship can work from the get-go. Of course there is more to a relationship than just being aware of one persons attractions to things femme, they need to be aware that it can alter, deepen in intensity.
Among my acquaintances there are two who live with their spouses as full time women. They possibly appear to all who are unaware of the situation to be living as either sisters or, dare I say it, a lesbian relationship. In one case the cd partner has informed me she is on hormones to improve her feminine appearance.
One is tempted to ask for the name of the Dating Service.
Thank you for that Martina.

[Deleted User]

jordan wrote:

You don’t want it to be this joke so you do need to bring it up in a way that your partner knows how serious this is to you and how it is a part of your identity.

I agree with Jordan wholeheartedly in her comments on how we inform, even using ‘hobby’ can have repercussions, as if it was like making model planes, “Leave it off you did it the other night”, if only that were possible. As we all know it can be consuming in its drive and overwhelming to such a depressing degree. Even saying that ‘I don’t do it all the time’ can be a huge understatement.
In my early days I would either use the word ‘transvestism’ in trying to describe what it is and why, usually making such a muddle of it that the girl got quite confused. Or I’d lighten the education by calling it a hobby. Obviously this was way before ‘Crossdressing’ came into use as a more user friendly term.
One thing which was odd in later years was how, if I was in an intimate relationship, my lack of bodily hair generally never raised a comment, not even my groomed eyebrows. At one time I had my eyelashes tinted, I am naturally fair in hair colouring, well I was, nowadays it’s mostly white. I went to work in a hospital one morning and one of the girls coming off night shift stopped me and loudly, made a list of these visibly obvious changes, expecting me to be embarrassed or make some reaction. As it was I just stood my ground, allowing her to continue speaking, when I gave no reaction apart from an ‘Excuse me, I need to attend handover’ she was visibly deflated.
This by the way has been a pose I adopted for most of my later life, if someone started to say something I let them, giving no reaction other than a polite smile while I carried on doing what I was doing at the time. Maybe an ‘Uh huh, and…?’.
But I have digressed, sorry Adrian. :whistle:
Thanks Jordan

[Anonymous]

“As we all know it can be consuming in its drive and overwhelming to such a depressing degree. Even saying that ‘I don’t do it all the time’ can be a huge understatement.”

I have to agree with Claire. As I grow more experienced (older) my obsession with cross dressing seems to grow and at times I feel like I am on a slippery slope to personal destruction.

My biggest regret is that I didn’t tell my wife before we were married. When I eventually did tell her, rather clumsily I add, she felt very betrayed. She is certainly not supportive and does not want to know about what I do and afraid that I might embarass her. Yet in our discussions I get the feeling that things would have been very different if I had.

My advice is to definately tell them before you enter into a long term relationship.

[Martina]

There’s no easy way to tell one’s wife. In the end, I just felt if I didn’t tell her I would go mad; I just couldn’t bottle it up any more. It was in the vernacular “living a lie”.

So I chose a time when there would be no distraction and no easy escape for either of us. Lying in bed in the morning, both awake, possibly thinking about getting up and facing the day I told her I had been dressing as a woman and wanted to continue whenever the opportunity was there. She was shocked of course and (as I said in a previous post) she told me to keep it to myself, but there were no threats of imminent separation or revealing my nefarious activities to the world. The subject had been broached and at least we could live without the lie.

The rest is history after two loving positive and constructive people worked through the “problem” and realised it was not really a problem at all.

(Best of all, my tiny CD wardrobe kept in an old locked briefcase could see the light of day and start expanding!)

[Paula_1]

I agree with Claire and Dianne. She needs to know before the relationship gets serious. My policy is she has to know before we hop in the sack.

Paula_1

[JaneS]

The ‘when’ to tell is as important to consider as the ‘how’ to tell. Whilst I acknowledge arguments for and against telling a prospective partner before things get ‘serious’ I think it is risky to set a blanket guideline. Actually getting to know the other person can be a big part in working out how and when to tell them.

In my own case I finally told my wife after 26 years of marriage, during which I’d had a couple of longer periods when I was able to refrain from cross dressing but about ten years before I told her the need resurfaced and I did so very much in secret.

As has been mentioned, I too felt I was living a lie but I also felt that I was being dishonest with my wife. As I later told her, it wasn’t so much the nature of the secret that I was keeping from her that did the damage as the fact that I was keeping one at all. As the need to cross dress began to consume more and more of my life the toxicity of keeping that secret from the most important person in my life began to tell. On two separate occasions I approached suicide, only to back out at the last moment, not because I was afraid but because I actually thought about the impact my death would have on those who would find my body.

Not going ahead with suicide though created its own problems because I felt an even bigger failure so I began drinking, increasing gradually in frequency and amount. I eventually became a totally obnoxious and unpleasant person to live with. Once I realised that my wife was not going to leave me I knew I had to come clean and tell her. I was prepared to lose it all if she rejected me because, in truth, I didn’t think I could feel any lower.

In order to tell her I chose a neutral location, a public park here in Canberra where there were no distractions but where we also had privacy. After some uncomfortable smalltalk, my wife being very much aware that I had something to say, I finally told her that I had been harbouring a secret since my childhood and then came out with it. “I am a cross dresser.” She was stunned for a few seconds and then essentially said “Is that it?” It turned out that she thought I was going to ask for a divorce, so the news that what had been causing my problems, and led to my abominable behaviour, was ‘only’ that I liked to wear women’s clothing was something of an anticlimax.

The road from there wasn’t totally smooth of course. It took her some time to get her head around it a bit more but especially after I’d told her how close I’d come to suicide she knew that how she reacted overall and how she handled the situation was very much like having my life in her hands.

She went through all the same emotions and feeling other wives have. She felt betrayed, mostly because she thought I’d felt that I couldn’t trust her. She felt confused and questioned my sexuality. She wanted to know if I wanted to “become a woman”. She also needed to know if I wanted a divorce after all. I answered every question honestly and told her whatever she wanted to know but no more. Together over the next couple of years we slowly worked together to become comfortable with Jane’s part in our lives, to the point now that we’ve no longer any fears and have told other family members, including our four children and relevant partners, and a number of trusted friends.

From all that though there is one small conversation that sticks in my mind. Early on after I told her, when it was all still quite raw, I told her that I probably should have told her before we married. She thought about it for a while and then told me that that might not have been a good idea because she was a very different person “26 years ago” and that had I told her then it’s very likely that she would not have married me. When I replied that given I was perhaps not the man she thought she’d married maybe that would have been for the best her response was unequivocal. “Honey, look at our four amazing children, their partners and our two beautiful grandkids, and the life we’ve had together overall and then tell me you really believe that.” She is a very wise woman. We’ve now been married over 33 years.

There is no right time to tell as far as a general rule goes. For some, before a relationship develops might be best. For others later in a relationship that has developed in love and harmony might be better. In the end, I believe only the cross dresser will know his/her circumstances and the other person involved. I would hate to advise telling someone early only for them to miss out on a relationship like I have but I am also aware that leaving it later might also provide the appropriate straw to break the camel’s back.

I’m just happy that it has worked out for me.

[Deleted User]

Sometimes you dont get the opportunity to choose a time to tell your partner!!

For those of you who took the positive step of informing your partner ,I say well done , not sure I could have done that but fortunately the outcome for me and my wife has ultimately been rewarding in many ways.

I took the path of Concealment for a LONG time in our marriage and that caused me distress for many years.

Eventually I got busted in the worst possible way, Distraught wife on phone to me while at work asking why I had female underwear under the bed on my side !!!
you can probbaly guess what goes through a womans mind when she discovers something like that.

I told her I was coming home and tried to reassure her everything would be OK and could explain everything . A stupid statement when I look back on it as I had no idea what i was going to say at the time.

We sat on the bed together with her (and me) in tears as I finally had to reveal the whole truth. Since then it has been a very gradual journey towards tolerance rather than 100% acceptance.

I suspect most women fear what might possibly happen to their relationship/marriage and thats why full acceptance is difficult for them.

I count myself very lucky as I have an understanding wife and we’ve always talked through concerns .

[JaneS]

Caroline wrote:

Sometimes you dont get the opportunity to choose a time to tell your partner!!…

Eventually I got busted in the worst possible way…

Whilst telling a partner or other family member can be difficult and it doesn’t always go well I do believe that confrontation is a much less successful method. That confrontation can be, as it was in Caroline’s case, discovery of items of clothing, it can be finding photos on a phone or computer or it can be that worst of all nightmares, being ‘caught’ crossdressed at home or out and about. I even know of some cross dressers who have allowed themselves to be caught out because they were unable to bring themselves to tell.

Along with all the fears and concerns expressed by those who were told these partners or family members also now have to deal with the fact that they were not told and had to discover the truth for themselves. I have a feeling that for them that is something much harder to come to an understanding of.

It’s another one of those situations where there really isn’t any ‘right’ answer.

[Deleted User]

Carol wrote:

Well I see the logic in what has been suggested in the link Claire but really you need to pitch your story to suit your audience.

Sorry Carol, I must have missed this. I don’t quite understand your point,
Claire

[Bridgette]

The article made for an interesting read. I can only say by my own experience that attitudes have changed for the better over the years. I have been married and my first wife, when I told her, said that I needed to speak to a marriage councillor. Strangely enough after two to three visits the end quotation was “The two of you would be probably better off going your own way”. Of course my then wife was a devout Catholic (yes church every Sunday) and it probably had more to do with religious beliefs more that the two of us working it out.

I’m luckier these days as I have a partner who is aware of my needs and tolerates them. Of course, we will never be shopping for clothes for me together but that’s ok with me as I like doing my own shopping anyway. To her credit she has bought me lingerie on occasions. So I’m both grateful and happier for her understanding.

Opinions have changed over the years, professionals have better reference material to assist people with Transitioning and/or assisting those to feel comfortable with who they are.

I think as we get older, we become more wise and more comfortable with what we have achieved as individuals and care little for peoples opinions on our physical characteristics or appearance.

Best to live life as the people we want to be rather than regret the years we may have missed.

[Carol]

ClaireStafford wrote:

Carol wrote:

Well I see the logic in what has been suggested in the link Claire but really you need to pitch your story to suit your audience.

Sorry Carol, I must have missed this. I don’t quite understand your point,
Claire

I can be a bit cryptic sometimes. Sorry Claire. There was good advice in the article but applying it uncritically to my family situation, there were some things missing and some others missed the point or would have exacerbated problems. I just meant that as with all generalised advice you need to adjust it to your own situation and to your partner’s attitudes.