A request for CD's who's wives are involved :)

[Davita]

BTW Jennifer, there are some heels out there that wont scuff floors

[Susan]

The heels and hardwood floors effect is easily explained

Stiletto heels have a heel that is about 1/4" - 8mm square. All a person's body weight is concentrated into this small area. Even small people can exert a force measured in tons/square inch through the heels to the floor. To save your floors get a broader heel, increasing the size to 1/2" quadruples the area on the floor and reduces the force by a factor of 4, a one inch square heel reduces the force by a factor of 16.

Wood nails work on this principle but the opposite way, the point is narrowed down to increase the force on the the point to make it easy to knock the nail into the wood.

I can produce exact figures if anyone is interested.

[Paula G]

I didn't tell my wife, when we first married I thought my CDing was a thing of the past, I was wrong, then I was asshamed and embarrased.

last year I was dreessing a lot more around the house, and was caught. Nothing was said about this for a while, then she voiced her concerns and was not at all accepting. I have tried not to dress so as to please her, however ignoring this compulsion causes all sorts of other emotional problems. We have now adopted the ostrich approach, if she can't see it, it's not happening.

I wonder if I had told her, rather than letting myself get caught if she would have been more accepting, I'll never know, but I'm sure that it would have been more honest of me.

In case this all sounds a bit negative, I have to say I love my wife dearly and would hate to to hurt her. The other night was a bit caoctic, all of us rushing around to different places, I had set a couple of eggs to hard boil for my lunch the next day, but forgot to turn off the gas, she came home and found the saucepan boiled dry, the eggs burnt and the (rather clever) agg timer ruined. Did she rant and complain? Did she tell me how stupid I was leaving a gas on in an unoccupied house? Did shee insit that I replace one of her favorite gadgets? no she cleared up and cooked me another couple of eggs for my lunch.

When I stopped work for my sandwhiches I was overcome with the need to tell her I loved her, when she got my text she thought that either I had gone mad, or must "be up to something" I think I am very lucky but must accept limits on my CD activity for her sake, a little give and take eh.

[Erin Francis]

i have been marred for 14 years before i told my wife it got to the point that i was stressed out and would lash out at any one over the littlest thing. one day she told me that i had to find somthing that would make me happy so i thought about it for a month or so and decided that i neaded to be honest with myself and her so i told her. and much to my suprise she was understanding and helpfull. as she is geting used to this side of me we are taking it slow but she says she is happy with the changes to my personality and we are geting along so much better it has definatly helped my relationship with my wife

i dont know what i did to deserve a woman like her!!!!!!!

[Sophie Scot]

I was always,if I ever found another woman to share my life with,adamant that this time I would be open from the start,my first wife detested my dressing.I met my lovely wife online.my username made it no doubt that I was a CDer,we clicked Immediately and after chatting fior months we met,and soon she met Sophie,and to my relief she didn't run a mile

We have so much fun together,enjoying girly pamper nights.we love shopping and sharing girly times.I know that my wife loves both sides of me and she always says that she married the person she fell in love with,no matter how I am dressed:)

HUGS Sophie

[Davita]

You might say Ro and I have a peaceful co-existence with respect to Davita. Before when there was that gawd awful closet, i was not the happiest person in the world and hence we were not the happiest couple in the world. I cannot get Ro to go out with me en fem. She is still worried about society and what they would think. Has our marriage gotten better? It wasn't bad. It's changed, but years together will cause that too. Has it gotten better? Maybe it's gotten easier because we have that understanding of who I am.

[Vivian]

My wife and I have been married 16 years and we have so much fun shopping, doing each others makeup and nails and buying clothes. It is wonderful and fun. She always asks my fashion opinion in the mornings when she gets ready for work. I love dressing up and she supports me fully and helps with my makeup, nails and such. It really makes us close and is really fun.

Hugs Vivian

[Kittie]

My wife now ask my views when buying clothes

[Vivian]

Kittie,
It is so much fun when your significant other has fun with you. I am in fun clothes, black heels and stockings, with a burgandy top and black skirt, and my wife is doing homework next to me and we are enjoying each others company. She loves me dressed as a man or a woman. it is wonderful. Your perspective as what looks good on her is really important. Women tend to dress for other women, which isn't necessarily the best at work depending on what the ladies at work are like. A cross dressers opinion keeps it real.

Hugs kittie, love ya Vivian

[Jabbela]

Well I have seen both sides.

My ex-wife has hmm.. mostly ignored it, not really accepted and for sure not supported me. So... it is no good recipe how to get an SO knowing, understanding, accepting and even supporting. But - yes - this is also a personal issue of my ex-wife. But we did not separate because my CDing. There were enough other reasons.

With my SO it was completely different. I told her even before we started our relationship. We had a lot of open-minded talks about this. She was never in touch with T* people before, but she felt comfortable with it quite easily. Quite often, she senses me as female, even when I am not dressed en-femme (or even not dressed at all).

She often encourages me to dress up on the rare occasions we have, she enjoys to have her girlfriend at her side and she also suggested to spent our fist vacation w/out kids as a women couple. So.. it is almost perfect... just a few more occasions.. hmm.. we will see...

There is only one issue: too often she thinks, that a lot of clothes fit me much better than her. I don't think so... well but she does, and that akes her a bit sad from time to time...

[Lori Q.]

I asked my wife again if she would join here and yet again I got an unequivocal "No"

She wants nothing to do with Susan and no matter how many times I try and approach her on the subject in many different ways nothing is going to change.

Susan is persona non grata according to my wife and there is no way this side of hell she will move her position.

I am more sorry than I could ever have believed at this. I have met so many lovely people here and elsewhere. I wish she would just open her eyes for once.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Just out of curiosity why do some CD's talk about themselves in the third person? Like in this example you say, "She wants nothing to do with Susan"

[Ralitsa]

Just out of curiosity why do some CD's talk about themselves in the third person?

It's the "boy mode" / "girl mode" dichotomy. Evidently, many CD'er feel like they have 2 persona's one of which is male and the other female. So when wearing womens clothes they want to do everything like a woman, and hence the concern about "passing". Then, in boy mode, they feel like they much hide the girl part of themselves and hence the anxiety of a part of themselves being suppressed.

For myself, I deny that dichotomy and don't think that I have 2 persona's but rather one that is a blend of male and female qualities. That is confusing anyway because trying to define a quality as male of female is rather arbitrary anyway. So I don't do the modes, and Ralitsa is not an alternate personality for me, but only the name I use here. When I'm wearing womens clothes, which is essentially all the time, I do not necessarily try to pass as a woman. This saves me the confusion of trying to remember whether I'm supposed to be acting like a man or a woman, but causes people around me some confusion instead.

There are some old threads on this subject, I think in the "coping for crossdresser" section. They have some really interesting discussions.

[Lori Q.]

Just out of curiosity why do some CD's talk about themselves in the third person?

It's the "boy mode" / "girl mode" dichotomy. Evidently, many CD'er feel like they have 2 persona's one of which is male and the other female. So when wearing womens clothes they want to do everything like a woman, and hence the concern about "passing". Then, in boy mode, they feel like they much hide the girl part of themselves and hence the anxiety of a part of themselves being suppressed.

For myself, I deny that dichotomy and don't think that I have 2 persona's but rather one that is a blend of male and female qualities. That is confusing anyway because trying to define a quality as male of female is rather arbitrary anyway. So I don't do the modes, and Ralitsa is not an alternate personality for me, but only the name I use here. When I'm wearing womens clothes, which is essentially all the time, I do not necessarily try to pass as a woman. This saves me the confusion of trying to remember whether I'm supposed to be acting like a man or a woman, but causes people around me some confusion instead.

There are some old threads on this subject, I think in the "coping for crossdresser" section. They have some really interesting discussions.

How come you aren't concerned about passing? Yeah the ones that refer to themselves in the third person makes me feel like they have 2 personalities. Like they have a splitting of the mind.

[Paulette]

Ralitsa asked and several answered the question about why some refer to their female selves in the third person. Many do. Many don't. And it's not confined to cross dressers.

It sometimes happens to those who suffer from early PTSD, caused by sustained trauma of any kind. It also sometimes occurs in adult veterans with PTSD who periodically suddenly just appear to become an entirely different person - though usually of the same sex.

Discovering at an early age that one is a CD or wishes they were the opposite sex or feels that they really are of the opposite sex but have been denied the right body, can be quite traumatic. Sometimes it is traumatic enough to make the person reject that portion of themselves because it is too frightening, yet they can't reject that person because they are that person. So they split their recognition of themselves into two separate personae.

If it happens when they are children or adolescents, the rejected self sometimes remains "stuck" at that age, while the accepted self more or less grows up and learns to be the gender-appropriate person they are "supposed" to be. More rarely, both aspects grow up enough through play and socialization to learn the roles appropriate to each ones gender, whether or not they recognize each other.

Sometimes the CDing is repressed or does not appear until well into adulthood, and the easiest way for them to deal with it is to refer to their non-cis-self as another person, even though there is no real separation of consciousness.

Some reconcile their two aspects. Some don't because, again, it is simply to frightening to accept. And it is perfectly possible for them to be well-adjusted and fully functional despite this oddness.

This is not gospel, but it is what I've gathered and figured out from my reading here and elsewhere, from working with veterans, from being a veteran, from being a cross dresser at 72, and from being married to someone who was beaten daily from age 9 to 14 and now is coming to accept that she has a nine-year-old self that pops out under stress and who needs to be accepted and loved and allowed to grow up.

My wife's nine-year-old does not have a name yet (she just asked me to give her one!). My female aspect is Paulette, and it's pretty integrated, I think. We (all four of us) support each other through our love and commitment, and try to become as whole as we possibly can, despite our fears and terrors. I suspect it will take a life-time. Fortunately, we have several.