Secrets

[Sarah Doepner]

Patti,
What do you see as your future as a crossdresser? If you believe you will be the kind of CD who dresses once in a while when your wife is out of town or you are on a business trip and that will be the extent of it, then this is a secret that can stay in place. But if you are the kind of crossdresser who seems to want to build a nice collection of clothing, wigs, shaping gear and accessories, all that keep the experience fresh, you may want to consider sharing. It appears that many of us here fall into the second group and one of the other characteristics is sometimes getting a little cranky if denied the opportunity. One way or another it seems crossdressing will impact a marriage. It's difficult to tell if that impact will be positive, negative or some kind of mix. I don't know any of us who can see the future, but you are going to have to be the one to examine where you are now and guess where you will be in six months, a year or five years. Based on that you will make the best choice.
I wish you good luck and clear sight into that crystal ball.

[CherylFlint]

You know her better than any of us do, but what you have on your side is a little bit of history.
Tell her the truth that you'd like to dress again and see how it goes.
When I feel the urge I ask my wife to put together an outfit that she'd like to see me in. We have an extra bedroom and that's my closet. She'll go in there and lay-out on the bed what she wants me to wear. I'm happy with that arrangement and so is she. Sometimes we go to the mall together which is always a blast.
Make it fun.
This I will tell you: if you keep it hidden you're not doing yourself, her, or your relationship any good. It'll eat you up in the end. Enjoy life.
Good luck.

[cassandra54]

If the marriage is perfect and she knows that you have dressed in the past.
Then in my opinion, I would have a discussion with her.

personal experience, secrets are never good,
I have kept secrets from my wife in the past, and it almost always ended bad.
now I am totally open with her, sure there are things she does not like.
but in the end our relationship has grown for the better.

just my thoughts and opinion, I am not a therapist, marriage counselor, doctor, and
I don't sleep at Holiday Inn Express.

you are so very right. honesty is always best. you see so many people on here have problems because they hide things. personally, i don't really understand how couples can hide things like this and so many other things from each other. but then again, that's just me.

[Erica2Sweet]

I suspect you're not getting a lot of responses that are encouraging because, in essence, you're asking for others to help you cope with lying to your spouse. I don't feel that happy healthy people should be able to properly cope with lying to a loved one.

A therapist encouraging dishonesty via secret-keeping would essentially be enabling... Bad therapist!

Claiming that "in a perfect world we wouldn't have to keep secrets" is blaming the world for our unwillingness to own up to our unhealthy behavior. I can only speak for myself when I say I'm not OK with giving the outside world that much power over me and the decisions I make. I don't feel making up a false reality is any kind of solution.

I know without a doubt that my wife would never give me a pass on blaming the world for anything I do or say... nor should she.

[sometimes_miss]

It's hard to say what's the best path. Her response that it's ok because you don't do it anymore is a clue. But it doesn't address the possibility of what to do if you should do it again, how she'd feel about it. It also depends on why you crossdress. Is it a sexual turn on for you? Or is it something you do because something is making you feel like you're supposed to be a woman? Or both? Are you attracted to men when you're dressed? Or even when you're not? Do you feel you want to be in the female role sexually much of the time? Would you prefer to be the wife in the relationship? See, there are all kinds of things that you need to be clear on before telling her THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO CROSSDRESS AGAIN. Do not tell her that you already have returned to it. Tell her that you feel like you want to, but are afraid of what she'd think. That way you haven't yet crossed the line, but at least she knows that you haven't 'gotten it out of your system'. Oh, and if you have any hope of her coming around, you're going to have to 1. delete your pic here, change your username, and create a whole new identitiy here if you have any hope of her coming here for help, because once she has access here, she'll know everything that you've been up to so far, and that might be nails in your coffin.
My experience so far, with the 'I used to be a crossdresser' ploy? No success at all. Women just don't like it. So you're a step ahead of me. But that's not saying much. Also, I found that one of the things that helped me stop crossdressing during the periods that I was able to, was to keep close to my wife physically, so that I didn't feel the need to crossdress (my crossdressing is a knee jerk reaction to loneliness, when I'm starved of physical touch, affection, the desire to crossdress overwhelms me. Note, it's physical affection, not sex. Touch, hugs, cuddling, etc. Everything BUT sex). Hope this helps.

[ShannonIL]

I think you need to tell her.. I know that's not really what you were asking, but it can't be said enough: you're igniting a fuse by dressing again. It's completely up to you to decide how/when the bomb goes off. It's going to be better for every single party involved if you just tell her. Someone in a previous post mentioned that crossdressing wasn't an "okay" secret to keep.. I agree. We're not talking about you sneaking a cookie from the jar, or leaving work an hour early to go have a beer with co-workers and not telling her. You're more or less saying "I'm not going to tell my wife who I am", and that's never going to work in your favor. She married the person she knows, and if you're planning to change that, you owe it to her to explain why and allow her to process it. Would you like it if she kept a secret like this from you? If you discovered her secret, would you be comfortable living with the knowledge that she's lying to about who she is?

[Badwolf]

Without going too far into what I believe in more general terms, so far I've read that she thinks it's ok because it's in the past, and a few other small hints that it may not go perfectly. This means you may not end up with the ideal (she loves it and encourages it) type relationship. Do not raise your expectations too high. Your already pretty far in the relationship for you two to just be feeling eachother out, there will be some of her assumptions she'll need to re-evaluate to even start on the route to getting there.

Now to bring in my bias, I am fully in the openness is better camp. In light of that I do believe you INCREASE your chances of having a good out come if you don't try to maintain secrets, especially those that are perpetual.

The advice of therapists that secrets are ok is obvious. You have to maintain the secret of a gift etc, but especially secrets that are hurtful can fester, and cause many issues. I have known people that can maintain them, but they are few and far between so be careful of this route. It's generally not healthy for your mental health or the relationship.

On that note I also am one of the people who likes to dream that we can all be with spouses who will accept us for who we are, and enjoy it as much as we do. This is NOWHERE near reality in many cases. It may be more common as time goes on, but we have to deal with the present at all times. Still my increased chances argument fits in here really well. If you want them to enjoy it, the only way to give them the chance is to let them experience it somehow. If they don't seem to be too open, it might as well progress on their terms together, and give you time alone.

The advice that is best, is don't try to shock an SO (especially one you've been with for years and are married to), since she'll have a lot of changes to work through on her end as well. Take it slow, and be ready for a DADT relationship that is one of the easier status-quous to generate. In other words, your already pretty deep into a relationship and so is she, if your about to rock the boat so to speak, don't rock it so hard that her surprise tips you over.