Telling Your Wife

[DonnaT]

Amelie asked a similar question in another forum:

If your wife is aware of your CDing, when did you tell her, or when did she discover it?

If you told her after you were married, why did you wait?

Why did you tell her at all?

If you told her before you were married, was she ok with it and has that changed?

We were married in '75. We were both in the army at the time. I told her after we were married.

One day, being newly weds, she found my hairy legs uncomfortable in bed and 'threated' to shave them. Well, I was all for it, but did not express my enthusiasm and only said "you wouldn't dare. Well she did darre one night while I was in the bath.

Somehow this led to putting on panties and panty hose. I can't remember why. That led to putting on a dress. She then gave me a wig of hers to put on. Then I experimented with makeup to see what I would look like. All this time she was enjoying it as much as I was.

I looked good, and I wanted to go out. I wanted to go shopping for my own clothes. She asked why, and I told her that I was a transvestite. The term crossdressing was not familiar to me. I explained what a transvestite was. She then looked it up in the dictionary. Look it up, you'll see the term homosexuality in most cases.

THAT did not go over well at all. That was the beginning of her non-acceptance. Just one word in the dictionary, even though I explained that I was not homosexual and never had those feelings.

Why I did not tell her I was a 'transvestite' before we were married.
I did not think it was an issue. I was in the army, and the only time I dressed was when I went home on leave once or twice a year.

I did not know I had a need to dress and that this need would continue after we were married. In fact I didn't even think of it at all, because when we were dating, I never once dressed. So how was I to know that what I 'used' to do would become an issue during our marriage.

[Dixie Darling]

Amelie asked a similar question in another forum:

If your wife is aware of your CDing, when did you tell her, or when did she discover it?

Actually, she had really strong suspicions after we married since I would sometimes put on some of her makeup and a nightgown “”as a joke””. But as far as when I told her it was after we’d been married 30+ years. Oh, she already knew about it, but it was one of those ‘hush-hush’ things that was never brought up. I would suppose that the reason it was never discussed was because she probably had the mistaken idea that if she just ignored it, it would go away eventually.

If you told her after you were married, why did you wait?

For the same reasons that MOST crossdressers don’t tell their wives – the fear of losing their wives. Post marriage, most of the bonds between a man and grow stronger and deeper with age and the fear of losing her thus becomes greater as time goes by. Risking losing her has to be weighed against coming out to her and the possibility of the relationship coming to an end.

Why did you tell her at all?

Crossdressing needs intensify with time, and there eventually comes a time when the pain of keeping it a secret becomes too great a burden to bear. Such was my case and when that time came the only thing that we were ever at odds about were things due to my crossdressing. She would notice that I tried to spend a lot of time alone and especially on business trips. My thinking was that it wasn’t fair to her, OR to me to keep it from her any longer. My hope, in telling her, was that she would at least agree to research it before ‘passing judgment’ but sadly, that wasn’t what happened.

If you told her before you were married, was she ok with it and has that changed?

Not applicable in my case.

Why I did not tell her I was a 'transvestite' before we were married.

Like DonnaT, I didn’t think it was an issue. Furthermore, like so many others, I thought it would simply go away after we were married. Of course all of us know that THAT just doesn’t happen. I didn’t know I had a need to dress and that this need would continue after we were married. Also, the term ‘crossdresser’ didn’t exist at the time and word ‘transvestite’, as any other ‘trans’ word did, carried connotations of homosexuality along with it whether it was true or not. Remember. . . this was back in the 60’s and 70’s and reliable, useful information was scarce at the time.

Dixie -- http://www.geocities.com/senorita_cd

[Merinda]

good thread Donna ,
sorry I must have missed this one for some reason


Just before my relationship started I was getting further and further into the en-femme thing , I was living with my parents that were confused as to why I was wearing a leotard / lycra footless tights / leg warmer socks / long windcheater ( pull over ) , typical dancy casual 80's girls fasion.

I believed that the girls clothing thing was no more than a result of not being in a relationship for many years , afterall I was told I looked like a girl by workmates so that resulted in me creating my own girl to compensate for the fact that the world wouldn't supply me a real girl.

My relationship started and I purged the lot , straight away I missed it but I thought that it was a result of spending so much time dressed that I needed time to get used to the fact that I now have a real relationship and dont need the girls clothing anymore.

I got married and went a couple of years before the feeling of something missing took control and I started up again secretly with my secret box of cloths in the shed.

A fancy dress party was organized at the end of 1995 and that gave me the excuse to purchase a few school uniforms and openly try them on , my wife said that if I walked the street I would get away with it .
( uplifting comment )

Party cancelled so I asked my wife if she would mind taking some photos before I got rid of the cloths , she agreed .
( 1st and second photosession Dec 16 1995 and Jan 7 1996 )

went back to secrecy but admitted to my wife in 2001 that there were a lot more photo's than the ones she had taken , this went down Ok .

I had an issue that I wont go into but I purged everything including most of my photos in 2001 and declared the end of crossdressing.

In 2002 the character " Hermione " in Harry Potter inspired me to start up again , she had similar characteristics to myself when I was younger (especially the boof of hair ) , this was a good idea to do some funny photo's .

I dressed in front of my whole family to do these photos , my son laughed and the photo's were crap.
I repeated the exersize and the photos were crap again , I went on to create my own character " teenage witch Merinda " of Greenwich school of magic , the magic worked and the photos came out Ok but my wife was getting sick of it.

By Sept 2003 we were at crisis point where my wife bagged up all my clothes and told me to get rid of them or else , but I put them in a box under the house.

I went out for the first time in 2004 and had to admit that to my wife , I told her everything and that I cant give it up.
Since then it has been up and down , some days she's fine with it and some days shes p***ed off with me.

well thats my slow way of comming out over a number of years to my wife

[Beauty]

Hi there,

Donna I missed this too. It is a great thread.

Merinda wow. Thanks for opening up with us and sharing your most passionate moments. From expressing yourself as a young CD'r at home with mom and dad till now.

You are so strong and good for you for not giving up on yourself. It's a great reason to have this forum. Support. Your posts openness was super refreshing and I know I learned from it. We're all on this road together. I hope that doesn't end any time soon.

Beauty