@JessM. - fair enough I can agree with that. It's a pretty sizable handicap though, seems to me.
Oddly enough, it wouldn't bother me to date a CD. I think it could be fun. I don't know if I'll ever have that opportunity, though.
@JessM. - fair enough I can agree with that. It's a pretty sizable handicap though, seems to me.
Oddly enough, it wouldn't bother me to date a CD. I think it could be fun. I don't know if I'll ever have that opportunity, though.
I started dating my ex boyfriend knowing he was a CDer, I didn't have a problem with it, I just didn't want to go out on the town with him dressed as a woman. He was upfront with me about the CDing and I was upfront with him about my boundaries. He, like a lot of CDers, had very mixed emotions about the CDing. On the one hand he was compelled to do it, on the other he was ashamed and just wanted it to go away. This ceaseless battle reared it's ugly head in other aspects of his life. Even though I knew about the CDing and was generally ok with it he still lied about it and tried to hide it. Even that was tolerable as I figured he was just struggling with shame. I'd bring up the topic on occasion and try to reassure him, I'd ask if he wanted to dress, if he wanted to go out (he had another CD friend he could have gone out with), if he wanted to wear girly things to bed. He would get all embarrassed and change the subject or just refuse to talk about it. He basically refused to deal with it. I suggested therapy, nope. I suggested a support group, nope. I'm sticking to the CDing specifically but this type of undealt with issue weaves it's way into every aspect of a persons life and it showed in his. It just got tiring. It wasn't CDing really that drove me away it was how it affected him and his unwillingness to deal with it.
Last edited by Aprilrain; 07-09-2014 at 05:23 AM.
See April and all the GG's commenting:
While you are completely right to view this from the outside, that we sometimes start not talking about certain emotions. If you were to put yourselves in our shoes there is a very different set of mismatched signals that makes it hard to really feel comfortable. These signals send out opposing messages that make it hard to really resolve.
To be honest one of the root emotions is the fear of losing someone we've probably already grown to love, or at least care about. They are also telling us they really care about us as well. Then comes the biggest problem which is a lack of real empathy when a person who says they will share their life with you, won't be seen with you in a situation you're already stressed about. It feels like a lack of support. If the situation were to be presented to the world at large may not actually help, because the average public still has the gut reaction of "oh you dress as a woman, so you like men". So they will focus on solving the cross dressing as the problem and not the relationship itself. The times where I've felt this I honestly feel like we BOTH need to resolve issues in order to have a long term supporting relationship, and while the SO is so ready to jump on me going to find counseling, she sits on a high horse of "normality", and only puts in the effort to placate me without showing an appreciation for the COMPLETE version of myself.
Personally I have patience waiting to see if we can start working it out before I know it's over, but sometimes it just won't work. That is because it isn't really only our shame that is showing, it is also a mirror of the shame our SO's have in not wanting to really love parts of us. It means that when we buy something new, in the back of our minds we're worried if our SO is going to say we're spending too much money on something that is for our respective pleasure only, or even worse that our SO may think we're suddenly "going too far" and break it off. Sometimes waiting for that, is easier than you going first and then dealing with the angry EX with unresolved issues about our private life.
Just a quick anecdote to cap this rant off. With my SO I once asked her if I could wear a pair of heels to a concert while presenting fully male. She said ok. In the end she worried so much about being "found out" that she didn't enjoy it, and now I feel bad to ask her if I can do ANYTHING similar. This was all in contrast to how many people were surprised, but generally gave positive comments throughout the night. She now asks me why I don't tell her about certain things, or why I don't just simply get dressed, when I have the urge as if it's me who's frustrating myself. She is taking steps forward in accepting the whole me, and we are defining our lines so I still feel like applying my patience to the overall problem, but by no means will I ever accept that I don't dress just because I'm ashamed. I do it to make sure we have room to work on our lines, while we figure out if this can be a permanent thing.
Yours is one of the few that doesn't even fit with my rant; so I just wanted to say I agree completely. It's a handicap, but we can also be handicapable by being that much more awesome.Originally Posted by JessM.
Last edited by Sandra; 07-09-2014 at 10:25 AM. Reason: merged consecutive post, you could have edited your previous post and added to that
Perhaps, just perhaps, LOVE isn’t all it’s cracked-up to be?
Case in point. Every young person I meet I tell them to NOT get married. Stay an individual, I say. Don't tell them that at school, BTW...My wife told me she probably would have divorced me when she realized I was a cross dresser, except for the fact she had disclosed to me her life prior to she and I meeting. It was not pretty.
PS - At times like this I always revert to the OP...
I think we all need to understand that we cannot generalize from our own experiences. Each person on this site has their own true story: some (very few) wives actually like the crossdressing, some tolerate it, and some can't get past it. It's also true that some CDers are very kind and respectful of their spouses, others are narcissistic A-holes, and many of us fall somewhere inbetween.
I don't think the OP meant to imply that all "wives will kick us to the curb," but it seems clear that at least some will. If you doubt that, take a look at the forum on the "crossdressers' wives" site (*). Many of these women refer to crossdressing as an abomination, as an addiction, that thinking about it makes them suicidal, that CDs are "repellent, damaged people", etc. the negativity makes me want to puke. These are not the words of wives who are likely to tolerate any CDing at all. Instead, either the marriage is over or the CD goes underground and pretends that they have "kicked the habit," spiraling into depression.
I am one of the lucky ones. My wife is very supportive these days, but when I first told her (a year after we married) there was a dark period of a few months where there was a good chance that we would separate. Even though my wife was basically a tolerant person (she had two close gay friends), she had trouble dealing with a husband who was a CD. She even said, "If you were just a friend, I could deal with this, but not in my husband." Fortunately, we kept talking and I eventually regained her love and trust.
* To clarify, I am not talking about the SO forum here, which of course I am not privy to. We are fortunate on this forum to have SOs who are at least trying, and of course many of them are some of our biggest allies.
Last edited by JamieG; 07-09-2014 at 09:54 PM. Reason: added a clarification
Thank you Jamie. Even in my original post I annotated as Frederique highlighted (#79) that my wife did not "kick me to the curb." It was a lure to get some responses, which it has.
Posting Permissions
