I had a difficult conversation with my wife tonight. I found myself coming downstairs after she fell asleep to cry a bit and "journal" here. Feel free to read, or not. This is mostly for my own catharsis.
I shared today with my wife that I underdressed for the first time at work. It's been a very stressful few weeks, and very long since I've had any Camille time, so I thought "what the hell" and tried it. I loved it.And as always, I shared another of life's adventure's with her when I got home. At first she laughed about it, which hurt my feelings. But she explained that she only laughed because she thought it was so inventive of me (she'd never heard of underdressing and didn't know it's a "thing"). She's always been supportive of my dressing, and didn't mean to hurt my feelings. So all was good.
But tonight as we were laying in bed she shared that my underdressing caused her great concern because it's outside of the "status quo" of my dressing to date. She's concerned about where all of this is going with me doing something in public (i.e. at work). She was concerned about what might come next. Would I want to wear a camisole to work under my t-shirt? A loose shirt so I could conceal a bra? Nylons and garter belts? What if I had bent over and someone saw the underwear? This set off an alarm for her that things were going in a new direction than just my every 3-4 month dress-up day in a hotel room. I tried to assure her that underwear was it, and that it wasn't even visible because I had boxers over it, and jeans on top with a cinched belt. But none of that was helping.
I also connected with someone else on the forum recently who lives in my area, and we had planned to meet for dinner (in male mode) later this month. My wife OK'd it initially after some discussion, but tonight confessed that she's very worried about that too. Firstly, my need to meet another CD'er concerns her (again about the direction this is taking). "What's next", she said, "maybe you'll want to go to a convention?" And secondly, and more urgently, she is concerned that someone far from accepting might overhear this person and I talking about CD'ing at the restaurant and try to beat me up on the way back to my car or something like that. My wife had a very traumatic childhood, and one result of it is that she is very mistrusting of the world. She defaults to the worst possible outcomes in any situation, assuming only the worst in people. When I responded to the convention piece, asking what would scare her about it, she said some crazy conservative extremist person with a gun or bomb could take the whole place out (as an example).
I love my wife and don't want to put her in a position where she's fearful for my safety. She already experiences enough fear when I do my hotel dress-up days as Camille every few months, thinking someone may peek in the window, see a CD'er, and then try to hurt me. And I read on this forum the stories of so many others in total DADT relationships, or divorced as a result of CD'ing, and it makes me feel so lucky to even have a wife who will let me dress at all, receive packages at the house, etc. So I feel very fortunate to even have what I do. So I told her that I would no longer do any underdressing at work, and that I would not meet this person from the forum, because I don't really "need" to do these things, and don't want her to feel fearful. She appreciated that, though then she felt like I would resent for this. I told her that her feeling of safety meant more to me than the need to underdress or meet a fellow CD'er, which helped.
But this all makes me very sad, as the underdressing brought me real joy today, and I was so looking forward to connecting with another person (in person) who could understand me on a level that none of my friends or family can. I am mourning the loss of these things, because I don't want to do it anyway and just lie about it. And I do want to get out in public a bit. I would love to go to a CD convention and spend the day dressed. I'd always hoped my wife would come around eventually to feeling safer and better about these as possibilities. But I feel quite hopeless about that now. As much as I want those things though, they are not worth my marriage, or worth putting my wife though so much fear of losing me. Despite her concerns being very far fetched in my opinion, they are still real fears for her and cause her real hardship. At the same time, I grew up in a household with an extremely nervous and overprotective mother where everyone in the house restricted themselves to keep her feeling safe and happy. So this is all definitely striking a nerve with me. I didn't want to feel that way in my own home as an adult.
A frustrating factor here too is that my wife isn't interested in joining this forum, talking to a professional, reading any materials (except the few I've asked her to read). So she has very little information on the spectrum of CD'ing. But inline with her inclination towards fearing the worst, she told me tonight that she wonders where this is all going, and if in 25 years I won't want to become a woman. I tried to explain to her that I am "just a crossdresser", and that I don't have that desire nor never have to be actually female. But her only response was that I "am not psychic", and that all my assuring and fact quoting her wasn't helping her. I think at some level she is fearful to learn more, because she might discover facts that will reaffirm her worst fears about my path.
Thanks to anyone who bothered to read all of this. Life will go on and Camille will have her moments here and there in hotel rooms. And the fact that I get to "be" her at all is a wonderful gift, even if it's seldom. Sooner or later I was bound to hit a boundary and discover just how big my fishbowl really is, and I think that now I am.
Camille
Perfection Is a Road Not a Destination
Originally Posted by Camille15
