Have I 'normalized' what I do?

[DiannaRose]

My wife is having a hard, hard time with my crossdressing...even though she never has and never will see it. She almost can never look at me any more without thinking about "what I do" (her words). Today during the football game with family and friends she said she couldn't even look at me at all without thinking about it, and realizing that we're were the most "non-normal" couple there.

Now, that may be the case, but how do we know what the other people there are like in their secret minds? Okay, so compared to most of the population, I am not normal. I'm a writer...there's nothing normal about that, either. I'm a forty-four-year-old guy who still collects Star Wars toys. Normal? Not really. How many people truly are "normal"?

I see some 14,000 people around me here--a couple hundred of which are on-line even now, likely--around whom I am more normal than she'd like to think. So I guess "normal" is a relative term. Why is her idea of "normal" the only right one?

Unfortunately, relative to her life and experience, I am not normal. She grew up in a fairly abusive household...to me, that's not normal. She's pretty tough on our kids when it comes to schoolwork...C's are not an option...again, not "normal" in my experience. She sees no point in hobbies that don't result in some concrete value...and it has to be something that she values..."doing it just to do it" is not a viable reason to do it, for her. That, to me, is nowhere near normal. A hobby doesn't need a point, doesn't need to make money or fame or anything.

No real point I'm trying to make here...just trying to reconcile her problems with me. I get that she just can't accept this about me, just feeling a little blue about it, because I've never had any problem accepting things about others, including her.

[Cathytg]

Not normal??? What on earth does that mean? Why say that you are not average? The average man does not dress. Who knows what an abnormal man might do?

But try to keep a perspective. After all, the average man does not play a concert piano but that doesn't make him a bad guy or even a troubled guy.

Another note: you might try to reach a point where youor wife actually does see you dressed. That way she will not let her imagination take her to really strange places where you would never go. Perhaps your truth is far simpler than her fantasy.

[Cherry Lynn]

Like I tell my sister, I am the only normal person I know, everybody else is abnormal.

[melissacd]

Is there a normal, probably not, just like there is no perfect. Everything is relative to our own personal world and personal set of experiences so normal is measured through each person's eyes, truths, set of filters. What is normal to me may be very odd to the next person. It does not make it right or wrong, it just makes it different from what they know.

My ex had the same problem, she thought all of this was just too way off the center of what her set of filters allowed for and hence the reason she is now my ex.

[jasmine57]

I agree that being normal is all relative. I would never call crossdressing a normal hobby or what ever it is to each of us. But thay doesn't make it wrong. We all have our own ideals. She just doesn't agree with this one, but as you said she has ideals that you don't agree with either. It's just the fact that she's putting it in your face that is concerning. I hope you two work through this for both of your sakes.

[Lorileah]

First off, Thank god for writers who are not normal. The imagination is the greatest gift one can ever have. Can you imagine the world without E A Poe? Heinlein? Even Stephen King? How about if the minds of such people didn't bring us Phillip Marlow or Sherlock Holmes and a bone to 1/4 the people on this forum, James T Kirk? How would it be if every book written either told you how to hook up a DVD (oh wait that is fiction too) or simply read "I woke up this morning, I cleaned up and I went to work doing the same dang thing I ever do. I ate the cheese sandwich at lunch. I went home and read the DVD manual." What a boring world that would be. Writers thrive by being a little off center. No one wants to read about what happens everyday. They want to read about what could happen.

But even our idea of "normal" comes from the imagination of some writer somewhere. No one grew up in a family that was like the Cleavers or the Taylors. Ever notice that the Ponderosa cowboys rarely worked? And they never showed them holding a scrub bush while having bodily functions in the woods. How did the Petries have a child when they never were in the same bed (wait wait...I don't want to know about what they did on the kitchen table). M.A.S.H. Lasted 5 times longer than the war it was about.

So what is normal. In medicine we have "normals" but they even encompass a wide disparity and even when the values fall just outside that "normal" it is normal. Politicians would like us to believe they are "normal" people and in effect they are. They drink, do drugs, have affairs, go broke, lie steal cheat. Somehow I don't think your wife thinks of that as normal.

The guy who digs ditches is normal. He does everything that normal people do...except what you don't see. The pilot of your airliner is normal...well except when he was in Taiwan a few weeks ago. Evangelists want you to think they are normal. They are not even in the middle of the bell curve usually.

In areas of the world a matriarchal society is normal (I heard that from one of the greatest feminist movement movies ever made...Adam's Rib...another great epic that depicts just how normal society is...two lawyers living together and not ever fighting until they take the same case ) The normal she wants isn't reality. It is true fiction. No less than space aliens or independently wealthy detectives who are super intelligent. Normal by all definitions is actually not the norm. Your friends come to your house and their wives go home and ask the husbands "Why can't we be normal like they are?" Then he cracks open a beer, strips off his clothes to his boxers with the gaping fly and turns on "cops" She goes off to the bathroom, slathers on a ton of face cream and trundles to bed to read....what else? Someone else's flight of imagination.

That ain't normal

[Kathi Lake]

Dianna,

Although I am usually a bit more verbose (as you may know), what I have to say is something I have said to my wife that did help the situation a bit: I told her not to automatically assume that "what I did" was "what I am."

Kathi

[NathalieX66]

I'm a forty-four-year-old guy who still collects Star Wars toys.

Dianna, This quote alone says it all.
I have read your entire post and I can already get the sense that there is a difference between your life mission, and that of your wife's. If you look at life from her perspective, she is trying to find normalcy in a world where she has never had it, particularly in an abusive household. You, like myself, are a creative person with offbeat interests, and that I would probably guess help that those interestes maintain your creative mind and hold your wits together. She may see that as idle nonsense because it does not solve life problems. What you see as recreation, she sees as childishness, and pointless activity. To me, collecting Star Wars toys seem pretty tame, and prehaps pretty average considering the most creative people I know have some offbeat hobby or another, myself included. I can only say that, if you both spend more time in a world amongst more eclectic people like yourself, try to see if she feels comfortable around them. I am in a relationship with a beatiful woman myself now, and she is far more outlandish in her personal interests than I am. Both our life missions are pretty spelled out, mainly because that's the way we are programmed.....and we like it that way. but at the same time we make an effort to surround ourselves with interesting people. We both admire Frank Lloyd Wright, and we both know that he was enigmatic, but his enigmatic-ness was what pushed him to great success and accomplishment.

[sherri52]

Should the subject of cd'ing ever come up again try to get her on this site. She will be welcomed and may learn something if she is not too closed minded.

[Karren H]

Yeah!! Normal within how many standard deviations? I just bought a Barbie doll!! How normal is that? Thinkin of changing my name to Aby normal... As the Mythbusters say.. "I reject your reality and substitute my own". Words to live by..

[DiannaRose]

Should the subject of cd'ing ever come up again try to get her on this site. She will be welcomed and may learn something if she is not too closed minded.

Heh...I strongly suspect that's never going to happen. Our marriage counselor tried to point her to a site she thought would be very helpful for my wife, and she is absolutely frightened to go there. At our last session, our counselor had a book on the table, with the word "transgender" in the title...my wife had to ask her to turn it cover-down, because it made her too anxious. So no...not for a while, if at all. Nice try, though.

You know, I love you guys!

One of the things I'm having trouble combating is her self-centered-ness. Not that she's selfish...that's not what I mean by that. It's more a sort of "I see the world this way and that's the only way I want to see it and that's the only reality there is". There are reasons she does this, which she and her counselor and our counselor are trying to work out. And it all boils down to the fact that I've changed--in her eyes. Every major change in her life has been for the worse, so this one must follow that pattern as well.

Our coulselors say she needs to be patient with herself, and that I need to be patient with her. God bless her but I'm trying...she makes it so hard, though, when she comes out with "I don't think I can ever look at you again without seeing...that." And of course the "that"is accompanied by a look of disgust, nine times out of ten. I'm a pretty strong person, faith-wise, but that one's beating even me down.

...which is why I love you guys so much. You give me strength to carry on that one more day, that extra mile. Knowing that you accept me (and every girl and guy on this forum), lets me feel "normal", even if my wife just can't see it that way.

So yes, I have "normalized" what I do, I guess. I am just who I am--dresses, fiction, Star Wars and all.

[lingerieLiz]

The standard deviation is the unit of measurement of the z-score. It allows comparison of observations from different normal distributions ... My psych prof didn't like my observation that we were all normal or abnormal depending on where we set the bar.

What your wife is experiencing is a challenge to her preconceived views of what people should be. Unfortunately it does not matter if you are normal or not. I'm not sure if I would expose her to this forum as she may not be open enough to learn about diverse populations. I know people who understand homosexuality and accept it, but do not understand CDing.

[Miranda09]

If everyone lived a so-called "normal" life, there would be no dreamers, no artists, no scientists, no writers....no Star Wars or Star Trek....no musicians...and the list goes on. Normalcy is a box that a few would force the rest of us into so they can be comfortable with their boring, hum-drum lives. ANother word for it is...conformity!!!! Be yourself..you only live once (unless you're 007, in which case you only live twice!)

[lavistaa62]

Does she find you interesting and intriguing? If so is that a quality or a foible? Do you value her seeming steadfastness and clear view of the world? My first wife was strong willed and had equally strong feelings about me- that I was not "man enough" for her. In the end it was our perceptions of each other rather than the absolute differences that led to separation, divorce and bitterness. The differences were always there but before they were an irritant they were an attraction. Good riddance as it happens but she never, ever changed one iota in anything she felt or did. I guess neither did I. We just stopped being able to live with the situation.

[marny]

I think that this is a suitable allegory. I have always guffawed at the term 'normal family.' I have yet to meet one! I think you can extend that to most people.

[Satrana]

Normal is one of those abused terms along with selfish which are used to demean and control others. It injects prejudices into the conversation and demonstrates a closed minded attitude and lack of empathy and understanding. When you hear these words being used then you know you are going to be on the end of a lashing so just close the hatches and weather the storm.

Ideas about normality are based on familiar surroundings which are used to buttress the feelings. It might be a good idea to take her on a foreign holiday to a very different environment where she can directly experience a different set of norms. That might open up a chink of light through her blinkers.

[Billie1]

IMHO, crossdressing isn't the only issue here, but it is a substantial one.
And, I'm almost positive that you were not the most non-normal couple there.
The point I'm trying to make here is not to be unduly harsh on yourself, and place all of the responsibility of her actions on your CDing.
You are who you are, and she is whom she is. What is needed is a workable understanding of each other's needs.
Patience, understanding and compromise are all required tools for a relationship to work.
If you believe it will work out. the answer is there, just needs a little time searching for it.
Just my two cents.

[VanessaVW]

Diana,

I think all of us wish we had the magical solution to your problem.
My questions would be:
1. Is your wife only upset about the desire to CD, or is more involved?
2. How have things changed in your relationship and friendship since you met and dated? Does she still view you as a good friend?
3. CDing is obviously not against the law. Does she feel as if you've robbed a bank or committed some crime?

Nobody is perfect and hopefully she'll see the good in the relationship and not dwell on what she perceives as bad. (Obviously, we don't think it's bad.)

[jandebs]

during the football game with family and friends she said she couldn't even look at me at all without thinking about it, and realizing that we're were the most "non-normal" couple there.

Ah yes, aren't all the other couples so normal. Right. In my experience you only have to go the slightest bit under the surface to discover all kinds of weird stuff going on. Maybe one of those couples is going home to a bit of light spanking; maybe one's having an affair with his secretary involving tacky underwear and the copious amounts of whipped cream; maybe one guy beats off thinking about another guy. You get my drift.

What surprises me is the astonishing tendency for the sexual urge to attach itself to anything. I know a woman who gets off on sliding up and down the edges of doors, and a chap who's entire fantasy world revolves around plastic panties. Both professional, responsible, and quite charming people. On the exterior. As we all know, there's a speciality website for every conceivable 'deviation from the norm'. I appreciate that our gender puzzle is something much more than the sexual context but that's probably what your wife's seeing it as.

[Barbara918]

After answering all the usual questions for a GG friend many years ago, and fulfilling her request to see me dressed, she said I was the "most normal" person she knew.
Very nice to hear, but it made me wonder who she'd been hanging out with.

[shannonFL]

With a heavy heart, I read your posts. I see some of my wife in yours'.
I doubt my wife would agree to counseling, and I doubt I would even want to go there. We all have a private life, a personal life, and a secret life.
My secret life is considered extreme by my spouse, so her reaction to it is, well, extreme. I wish I could tell you it gets better, in my own case talking just makes things much worse.

I believe GOD places term limits on our physical lives for our own benefit,
playing a part in what he has created, experiencing the joys and the pain,
eventually he will call us to be with him, at that point, all sorrow will be swept away.

Bless you for being a unique human being.

[Sandra]

I bet your wife would be surprised at how many other "not normal" people were at the football.

It is a shame that she won't even look at this site, as I feel that she would benefit from chatting with other GGs in he FAB forum. Maybe next time cding comes up mention the FAB to her.

[AlisonSometimes]

If you tell someone that they are average (which normal means) then they get upset, most people want to show some individuality but when you show a bit too much indivduality then people don't like it.

There seem to be a lot of us out there, there are 3 TG groups within 20 miles of me and plenty of online forums. The issue isn't whether it is normal or not but whether it is socially acceptable.

I have been told that it is society which has the problem, not you but that doesn't make things easier.

I think your wife needs to see you dressed up, without seeing you she will never understand. The group which I am part of has a few members like that, their wives and girlfirends didn't want to know but after seeing them they understood.

[Stephanie Stephens]

I know, I know... Invasion of the body snatchers. Now that's normal and scary too.

[DiannaRose]

And you all continue to amaze me with your ideas and insight! God bless you all!

Yes, ther eare other issues involved...mostly the fact that I lied to her about my crossdressing for 25 years...never mind the fact that she made it almost impossible for me to tell her about it. "Don't tell me about it, I don't want to know" "Don't lie to me about it, that's a deal-breaker" ...how could I come out clean in that situation?

She refuses to entertain the idea that one of the other husbands in that room might even do what I do--she has a lot of anxieties around change, as I mentioned, and these are, to her, "stable" people.

She doesn't want to understand my crossdressing, but feels marginalized because she doesn't understand it.

We are seeing counselors--one together for our marriage, and she's seeing another separately for some other issues. Both recommend she be patient with herself, and that I be patient with her. Some days she copes well--some of you may have read my post last week where she acknowledged that I might be dressing while she was out that day...a very compassionate move on her part--other days she can't deal with even thinking about it.

It's very much a roller-coaster ride sometimes, and I get a little emotionally and mentally nauseous.

I so appreciate all of your advice and thoughts! You are my safety bar on this ride, and I'm holding on tightly!

I think your wife needs to see you dressed up, without seeing you she will never understand. The group which I am part of has a few members like that, their wives and girlfirends didn't want to know but after seeing them they understood.

Alison, that's not going to happen. The mere thought of it makes her sick. It's ugly to her (and I don't think I'm very pretty, so that doesn't help me there), and I believe seeing me like that right now would literally send her over the edge. Maybe someday, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.