I told my wife while we were still dating, an opportunity presented itself, we were talking about kinks and fetishes and such and since crossdressing wasn't the weirdest thing mentioned in those conversations I put it out there. I never really felt the pressure of hiding from a spouse, now I hid and still hide from parents/brother/inLaws and will forever and sometimes that can be its own form of torture.
But to me I think a lot of folks over look a very big key factor. Telling your wife/gf/SO is not as much about is she accepting/unaccepting as we tend to think it is. I think it has to do with the communication you have as a couple. It just seems to me that the accepting spouses tend to be from couples that talk openly about things (and not just whats for dinner or how was work) but really get into who each other is, their dreams (not goals) their desires. And what I mean is I have a goal to have my own office in a few years, thats something everyone knows. But I have a dream that I can lose enough weight, get in good enough shape that I can go out dressed on a special occasion and not feel embarrassed in my own mind. Obviously I'm not telling that one to many people.
When I give advice to others on how to tell their wife, its always more about talking to her, not telling her. No one wants to hear that old phrase "we need to talk." You have to ease into these things. Start talking about things, asking her what she likes, letting her know what you like things like that.
And JoAnn makes a very valid point. When you've been down this road a long time, its harder than ever to come out. Times have changed, but that also depends on where you are too. I was just talking to a girl that works here in our office a couple days a week about how open the gay students are here in the high schools. Now I live in a metro area, it doesn't seem to matter as much who is gay, who's dating interracially or anything like that. I'm from a small country town, and still to this day, theres no openly gay folks in town, no one dates another race, people start to talk if you date someone more than a couple years of your age. I really think that if I had married a girl from back home, I'd probably still be hiding myself. I know I would if we lived there. Might be different say if we lived here.
My long drawn out rambling point is that there is more to coming out than just telling her so you don't have to hide. If you've never told her nothing more in depth than I like Pot Roast, its probably not going to go well. If your scared yourself of everyone else finding out, especially in a small town, then telling her might bring more stress cause its one more person that can leak your "terrible" secret either on purpose or accident. And I've seen a lot of threads talking about how someone thinks they are going to save a rocky relationship by all of a sudden telling the truth. It seems to me that has just led to more ammo for the divorce lawyer.
This was a great thread, a good topic to get folks talking. And it sounds to me like Tammy Marie is one of those special ladies that listens and tries to understand us, and its great to see her here with a thread that makes us think about our own situations.