I have some new pix to post, but first a serious posting.
I got home from work last night and found the wife in a bad mood. Not until we sat down to eat did it all come out. She had used my computer to print something out and stumbled across this blog--apparently. (She never said entirely where her info had come from.) She challenged me on my dressing and my dishonesty about it. I tried to explain that my desire to keep it a secret was a sincere desire to avoid flaunting before her a part of me she found distasteful.
I attempted to explore with her exactly what she disliked about crossdressing and it kept coming back to my dishonesty. I never really got an answer, I think, as to why she cannot countenance my dressing. She's ordinarily a very open person...she has many gay friends, including a former mentor in her career. She supports gay marriage. I know it's not a form of homophobia.
She has asked if I want to be a woman. Those of you who read this blog know that is the last thing I'm interested in. I've tried to convince her of it. She notes that I am happier working from home than anywhere else. Yes, I respond, but that has nothing to do with the dressing...it has to do with my distaste for the corporate way of life.
I talked about my dressing as part of my creative urge, but she didn't seem to buy it. Yet I really feel that is a major part of my desire to dress--to create an image and make it believable. It's why I was able to satisfy the urge for 30 years by writing and drawing about it.
We're at something of an impasse here. I have promised not to lie when she questions my dressing...but neither am I prepared to be completely open to her about it, knowing she doesn't understand it.
Any thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
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15 comments:
I'm sorry to read of your predicament. A few thoughts.
Obviously, you'll need to sit down with her and have a heart to heart. You'll basically need to answer any questions she has, to reassure her. Much of the pain she'll feel is because of perceived deception from you. I know, you're hiding it BECAUSE you don't want to hurt her, but she likely isn't seeing it that way.
I would suggest not answering hypotheticals, as they can only stir the pot some more. Since you don't want SRS and (I think!) don't want relationships with any men, you won't have to deal with any difficulty in answering those questions.
It may be hard for her to understand, but there are things people (men AND women) want as fantasy, but not as reality. Many women want a "rape" fantasy - but not a real rape, but their lover pretending to be a stranger and "taking" them. I think a fair number of men want that scenario as well. Your fantasies are part of the same reasoning, correct?
There may be books you can reference the Nancy Friday or Peggy Rudd books, but I'm guessing you tried that long ago.
Good luck on facing this unwanted situation with your wife and I offer you my best wishes and thoughts.
Jane:
Thanks for the kind words and advice. Yes, the wife and I have been over most of this stuff before. For some reason, she never gets it...the whole idea seems to turn her off. Oddly, it even seems to develop out of her own feminism--she wants men and women to be equals, so my sub nature is a problem (probably particularly since it is acted out in femme garb).
We have, in the past, indulged in purely verbal fantasies where she describes being ravished by another woman but even that doesn't seem to work with her anymore. I wonder if, in part, it is related to menopause and a lack of sexual desire on her part.
Thanks again for being a sounding board.
Just a week or two ago you mentioned a board moderator who censored you. As I said then, left or right, it's the new American way.
I'm really surprised that you think that just because someone's a self-proclaimed liberal, that the person can't harbor prejudice and bigotry. I obviously don't know your wife, and I'm not accusing her of those things, but you can't let her off the hook because she "supports gay marriage" and has a few "gay friends." Liberals are every bit as bad about stereotyping people as anyone else.
Look at what you've written yourself. It's not "homophobia." How'd that come up from X-dressing? Stereotypes. A man dresses as a woman because he's trying to fool other men into thinking he's a woman so he can have sex with them. Right?
I'm sorry, that's not very helpful in solving the issue, but in order for you to reach the root, you've got to be looking in the right ground. It's difficult reasoning with someone who's emotionalizing rather than rationalizing.
An abstract notion of a gay marriage is a very different thing than the fear your husband of many years may leave you for another man. She can't say those words because she's a "liberal." Instead she focuses on "dishonesty." There's no way for you to assuage her fears if she can't be honest with herself.
She doesn't understand your behavior, so she falls back on the stereotype as the only possible explanation. If she'd actually see your blog and compare it with others, it'd be pretty plain that you don't harbor homosexual urges, except as a fantasy lesbian.
However, if you'd like to try appealing to her reason, I'd say the best hope you've got is her feminism. Ask her to imagine the restrictions of being a stereotypical June Cleaver. How constrained she'd feel. How stifled.
Well men have not moved beyond the Ward Cleaver stereotype, but Ward's not all you are. You feel constrained. You feel stifled. Keeping your exploration secret protected her, and her image of having a solid upstanding husband.
Did you blanch at that? A solid upstanding husband, because a man who cross-dresses couldn't be solid or upstanding. Right?
Challenge her feminism. Ask why she DOESN'T embrace your cross-dressing. She should be encouraging your breaking gender stereotypes. She should be campaigning for men's rights to dress as they please, just as she'd never go back to ONLY wearing skirts and dresses.
I know, it's a tough sell, but I think you're kidding yourself that this is an issue of "honesty." The issue is she's literally AFRAID she's married to a sissy fag!
Please forgive my presumptions and my opinion. I intend no offense and will completely understand if you delete this comment. Just offering a very distant, uninformed, ignorant perspective that I hope might click you into a useful insight.
JamieLin:
I'd never delete an honest comment like yours.
You raise some interesting points. My mention of her openness to gays was a way of pointing out that she was in no way a hide-bound right-wing crying "pervert" at every opportunity.
What you say may be right. I'll think on it, though I'm not sure how to approach it right now. I offered her the opportunity to read the entire blog, from the very first "history" postings, last night. She suggested I really didn't want her to do that...maybe it meant she didn't really want to.
You say that she says it is the deception that hurts, not the dressing, but you don't see to be able to accept that. Why?
I am open about my hobby with my wife, who finds it a lot of fun, so we are atypical. We know other couples, ones where the man hid things for decades. Those are the ones that are falling apart.
When something this big has been hidden, she can't help but wonder if there are others. To her, you have shown mistrust. You will need to earn it back.
It won't be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
Anonymous:
I accept that the deception hurts, but the deception only began because she rejected the dressing. She's never explained what she finds distasteful about the dressing...just that she does.
We're at something of an impasse here. I have promised not to lie when she questions my dressing...but neither am I prepared to be completely open to her about it, knowing she doesn't understand it.
Since she has been to your website, you have to be prepared to be completely open to her about it. You've posted new pictures since the discussion.
I think JamieLin's comments are right on the mark. Liberal, (or conservative), as a label means nothing in reality. Tony likes to hold himself up as a bastion of free speech but you were far from the first poster to be banned for no other reason than his own narrow-mindedness. Your wife may hold liberal views in the abstract but its another story in reality.
I think this is a very serious development and unless you stop dressing or she has a complete change of heart, things will begin to spiral.
I'm not sure how she found the blog...it may have been something as simple as discovering it in the browser history.
As far as I can tell, she didn't make a note of the URL. Certainly when I suggested she read it, especially the early postings, she didn't act as though she could do so without my giving her the location.
Generally, we use separate computers.
i feel like this connection and situation you are facing happens frequently.
Ever hear of "She's not There" by Jenny Finney Boyle? Its an auto-biography of the authur, with an afterwords from another famous author that summarized the book into a few words, of how its such a beautiful love story.
i hope when she gets over your dishonesty and forgives you for that, then she will be open and happy for you.
Best wishes!
xo
Dani ... I feel for you sweetie. I've sent an email with some thoughts ... hope some of them are helpful in some way.
Any thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
Well apparently that's not true.
Anonymous:
Not ones that, IMO, inappropriately reveal private information in public comments. You could have made those in an e-mail.
Fair enough. Want me to repost minus the last paragragh?
As long as nothing you post reveals info that should not be public, fine.
Dani,
Regarding your answer above I think it is naive to think your wife can’t find your blog again. If this is as upsetting to her as you’ve said, she certainly noted the URL. You say you asked her to read it but “she suggested I really didn’t want her to do that...” I think this is very telling. She may have already read everything but she doesn’t want you to think there is a path to making her fine with this. Parenthetically, I can’t believe you didn’t erase your browser history. You wrote back in September that she found a tag from some clothing you bought and said she suspected you were dressing, something you revealed she didn’t like back when you first got married. She “made” (your word) you throw away a denim skirt.
I’ve read that heterosexual cross-dressing is much more prevalent and innocent than most people think. A harmless bit of fantasy and tension reliever. But most heterosexual cross-dressers do NOT upload pictures of themselves. Most don’t flaunt it. They don’t write about every outfit and pair of shoes they buy. You’ve written about wearing heels to go to get a paper at a convenience store and hearing the heels clicking on the floor. And all this after 30 years of abstinence? I don’t mean to psychoanalyze, but were you trying to get caught? I think this is what bothers your wife. It’s not a private thing. This may be what, as JamieLin said, makes her afraid she is married to a sissy fag.
Good luck,
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