Jumping in late here...
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but do you think your wife allows/encourages your crossdressing so you are less likely to want sex? If CD'ing relaxes you and makes you feel good, maybe you won't feel so much pressure for sex?
For some people their definition of intimacy doesn't require the sexual act. Simply the touch of skin against skin, petting and caressing, is enough to satisfy them. Of course when this is included in the sexual act it makes it that much more intense and pleasurable. Men sometimes forget that and approach the whole thing like a grand slam home run hit in the fourth quarter of a baseball game. Forget about everything except "sliding into home base" to win the game. It is all the little plays and errors that make up a good game for everyone involved. I love a good nail bitter!Originally Posted by alwayshave
CANCER IS A BITCH SO YOU HAVE TO BE MORE OF A BITCH TO BEAT IT.
Gloria,
Go with the flow, maybe she finds female company more pleasurable now.
Just proceed slowly and acceptance will appear natural.
Is she slowing down mind wise?
Work on your elegance,
and beauty will follow.
I think you are dealing with two separate issues. The CDing is one and the bedroom is another. Your wife is not telling you something... to me is sounds like she just isn't interested in it....or she thinks you will feel better thinking she is not...
For me it was actually the opposite. My wife always talked like it was the man who always wants sex even when she didn't...well, I went through the mid life thing and turns out, it was her desire that caused a lot of stress...when you just can't perform like you are 20...and she's the one demanding it.... generally woman won't admit it, they have needs. I wouldn't link the two, the intimacy thing is bigger...she probably needs to feel wanted.
Chickie
If she's just hitting menopause, expect some crazy? Really? I didn't check dates, so maybe this is an old thread, but seriously, what if it is just a stage? What if she was feeling really hormonal and emotional and later regrets saying that?
I'm not willing to jump to the "she's seeing someone else" conclusion, even though that's what I thought at first. Maybe she's just suffering and taking it out on you, which is a woman's right in our society for some stupid reason.
Holy Cow! That is a problem. Damn. You have more than one issue here going on and so there is no one answer. For her to tell you that she does not want intimacy ever again shows me a dead end. I would never stay in a relationship absent intimacy! Sorry! Her "willingness" to accept you is ok but if she loved you she would accept your crossdressing or at least be willing to explore it and work on it but cutting the intimacy tie is indicative that the love between you two is gone. I doubt that the crossdressing is the cause. You may need to look deep into your relationship nd go back years but I believe it didn't just happen over night and certainly isn't directly related to crossdressing. You need to correct the issue or move on and find a loving partner. Sorry. But that is just the plain hard facts! Hugs to you and I will be praying for you during your struggle with this problem.
I see two possibilities that you may wish to consider.
The first has been mentioned already, that it is something going on with her. Possibly menopause. She may be not feeling it right now and be ashamed or not want to deal with that so be telling you and herself that she is happy if there is no sex. I agree with Lorileah that it's important that she check in with a doctor.
The other possibility that comes to mind is that maybe she is afraid that you don't want her, which is an extremely scary and painful thing for some people. Many people react to that kind of vulnerability and fear by doing a preemptive rejection. To say it more simply its possible she fears you don't want her and to save face she rejected you first. In this case if you just leave it be and do not go to her and say that you do not want to lose that part of your relationship she may feel that she was right and you did not want her. This could cause her further pain and she may withdraw more.
Of course no one here can know for sure why she is behaving as she is. It's possible she doesn't know. But I hope that you will talk to her about it. If you both truly feel ok with no sexual intimacy than you'll be more at ease about it if you've spelled it out. If that is not the case then the sooner you find out what is the easier it will be to deal with.
Good luck!
Erin
I wear the sassypants in the family.
“The greatest obstacle to connecting
with our joy is resentment.”
~ Pema Chödrön ~
A Guide to Overcoming Envy
Sex is one thing and Dawn Marie made a very good point; I think that the loss of any form of affection is an even more major concern. If she has ceased to love you or is withholding affection for some real or imagined cause, you need to examine the root causes together, and it's difficult to do without an impartial referee.
ALWAYS plan for the worst, then you can be pleasantly surprised if something else happens!
"The important thing about the bear is not how well she dances, but that she dances at all." - Old Russian Proverb (with a gender change)
Holy Smokes, is someone spying on me????? This is my situation as well.
Molly
"To thine own self be true"
It sounds as if she lost her sexual desire for you not just because of your age/ED problem, but also because once a woman sees her male mate as a feminine person, the lust usually dies as well. At this point in your relationship, perhaps she now sees you as more friend, very close friend, but no longer as a potential sexual mate. This is what most of us go through; women simply aren't usually sexually turned on by feminine males; rather, it's strongly the opposite, a sexual turn off, and once that feeling's in place, it's almost impossible to change it. Consider; how many men are attracted to masculine appearing and behaving females? Very few. It's the same for women when they discover our desire to dress, behave, and appear as females. No more sexual desire for us. What should you do? It's up to you; you can remain with your new 'best friend', knowing that you'll probably never have sex with her again, but still have a wonderful companion, or split up, while also knowing that you're very, very unlikely to EVER find a woman who's interested sexually in a crossdresser. Good luck with your decision.
Some causes of crossdressing you've probably never even considered: My TG biography at:http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...=1#post1490560
There's an addendum at post # 82 on that thread, too. It's about a ten minute read.
Why don't we understand our desire to dress, behave and feel like a girl? Because from childhood, boys are told that the worst possible thing we can be, is a sissy. This feeling is so ingrained into our psyche, that we will suppress any thoughts that connect us to being or wanting to be feminine, even to the point of creating separate personalities to assign those female feelings into.
[QUOTE=What should you do? It's up to you; you can remain with your new 'best friend', knowing that you'll probably never have sex with her again, but still have a wonderful companion, or split up, while also knowing that you're very, very unlikely to EVER find a woman who's interested sexually in a crossdresser. Good luck with your decision.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for all the comments. I took the advice of sitting down and speaking with her, in fact the converstations took place over a number of evenings. She agrees that a relationship without intimacy (not sex) is dead in the water. (I think she may just regret the 'intimacy' comment now). But she is still adamant about sex, not with me nor anyone else - like some have mentioned she has just grown out of it. We've both agreed that being married for 42 years means we have a load in common and we're trying to get back on course again. She wants me to continue to dress and be Gloria even though I offered to put Gloria to rest (God knows that would have been hard - would have made giving up smoking a breeze!) I really do appreciate all that was said here as I was truly in a void but the comments posed here really helped put matters into perspective and I think there is a solution that we will both be happy with.
Gratefully yours
Gloria M
Gloriamontrose: I hope things work out for you. But I worry that you all are simply "settling" out of fear of actually digging in to what's been going on for the past 16 (?) years. Have you all gone to a (professional) marriage counselor? A good one? (Not just your parish priest or whatever.) Men and women in our society are trained from birth not to talk to one another about what's really important to them, so I think you all could use all the help you can get.
More generally, when I read the comments in this thread, and when I read other threads like this, I go away shaking my head. I get the impression that most of the guys in this forum don't think of women, especially their own wives and SOs, as human beings like themselves, but rather as sort of like magic voodoo dolls that will grant a wish if you perform the right inscrutable ritual. Most only want to ask their fellow dudebros "what's up with my woman," but not the woman (or women) in their lives. Even when guys here post questions "for the GGs", and the GFs here try to answer, guys mostly ignore or contradict what they say. I noticed exactly one post in this thread by an identifiable GF, and I didn't get the impression anyone paid her any attention.
When I read "it's impossible to understand women" comments, all I can think of is: have you put one tenth of the effort into really understanding your SO/wife that you put into, say, learning to throw a football? Do you actually listen (with your mouth closed!) to what women say to you and to each other (and not argue with them)? Do you suppress your own convictions of "how things are" and try to imagine what each woman you know is going through -- that is, put yourself in her place -- when she talks about things? Do you listen for clues to what the world must look like to her, based on assuming that she is a reasonable person not fundamentally all that different from you? You all sound like my students back when I was teaching remedial math. They'd throw out the first answer that popped into their heads and if that didn't work, they'd just say "I can't do math" and throw in the towel.
I try to imagine what it's like to be married to someone who is mainly interested in what he is getting out of the marriage rather than in his spouse as a person, interspersed with actions that are supposed to be loving but are more about him satisfying himself that he's done what's necessary to count as a proper, "loving" husband -- which is what I suspect a lot of the SOs here (like a lot of women in society at large) go through. Actually, I don't have to imagine -- I realized after writing this that I was describing my own marriage, the one I had to leave after 15 years because it was killing me. One thing I noticed after a while in the marriage was that I lost all interest in sex, and since I'm male, it was hard to hide it.
Menopause is a very difficult time and her hormones are crazy. It sounds to me she needs medical evaluation especially as related to her libido. The idea of no physical closeness in a marriage is frightening and surely not healthy. Sleeping in separate beds will not help.
Best wishes.
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