TRUST. 20 years down the drain, in the blink...

[Wildaboutheels]

of an eye? Oh really? Sorry but I just ain't buying it.

OR, do you put CDing in a complete class all on it's own? I CERTAINLY hope not. I can think of numerous "other" things that might have been of "extreme importance" to one party at some point in their life, that they did not need or want to disclose to their SO for WHATEVER reason.

Or are people really silly enough to summarily chuck perhaps 10 or 15 or 20 years of perhaps an incredible partnership down the drain because you DISCOVER something about your SO that you never knew or suspected and are hurt because they never bothered to tell you? WHY would they not want to share it with you. The trust is BROKEN? And they don't want to talk about. Or can't. Or won't.

"What else might they be lying about"? Oh please.

20 YEARS down the drain?

This is simply a question and is not directed at anyone or in reference to any other posts.

Food for thought and nothing more.

[Brianna612]

It may seem foolish to throw those years away for something as innocent as CDing, however some people have no tolerance for others that are different from them. When my X found out about my CDing that was the end of our relationship. Sure we went to therapists and tried for four more years to hold it together, the worst four years of my life. Divorce was what she wanted. She could not live with me. Even though that seemed to me to be the end of life, it ended up being the beginning of me truly understanding myself and for the first time being able to live without hiding. I am grateful for her letting me go so I could live my life with true freedom.

[Jodi]

In my case, it was 33 years. She finally hit the bricks. We are both happier today.

Jodi

[Kate Simmons]

I tend to agree Hon but it did happen to me although not right away. I told my wife after two years of marriage and it lasted some 30 years before it(the marriage) finally DID "go south". Although it wasn't the only reason, it was usually at the crux of things.I finally got a handle on things but it's too late to recapture what we had. All I can do at this point is continue to move forward in a positive direction and accept it as a lesson learned.:)

[StephineUK]

i have allways told past girlfriends about my CDing and never had and bad reactions.. guess i have been lucky.

i would never hold back as i dont think thats the right thing to do... be honest from the start if she will not accept that , then im out of it!!

i could not be commited to a woman without telling who i am ....as that just does not seem right.. sorry , but HOW can you not tell her???

[Lorileah]

I can see you have not been in that situation. I will assume you are referring to my posts since that is what I have said many times.

Welcome to the real world, where love is a tenuous thing, often a balancing act more of being comfortable rather than being totally enamored. So many relationships are built around a fantasy of what people believe is happening over what is really happening. Let's make this broad and simple to start. A & B have been married for 25 years. One day A meets C and they have a passionate affair. trust is broken when B finds out. What happens? Usually a divorce. Sometimes a mending. This could be a one time thing but still B is no longer trusting of A. But it is always there. B will always wonder what A is doing when A is 10 minutes late. This stress leads to divorce. How do you think that finding out your partner of 25 years who has been hiding and sneaking abound to dress would be any different? Even if it was innocent dressing, you know what the common conceptions of cross dressing are 1) you are gay and 2) you want to transition. These will always be in the back of the mind of the SO and with time it may get less but it is always there. It does not seem major to you. Maybe you are open to relationships and maybe your spouse hiding something like this doesn't bother you but it does bother most women. They wonder what else they don't know (and to be fair here in other matters men will too like if you find out your wife was a hooker or stripper on as in my case you find out she was married twice and had two children...who she hid even after direct questioning).

Admit it, dressing is not like sneaking a little porn. But even sneaking a little porn breaks the illusion the spouse had. Mending may be easier but it will be the gorilla in the room. Dressing isn't like be a closet alcoholic, or drug user, or bank robber. WE know that but you must realize that the majority of the world only knows us as freaks, perverts, clowns or murders. You may not see dressing as a major issue but the wife sees it as an assault on her. You know what goes through a woman's mind when she finds out her spouse of 10-20-30 years likes dresses? She wonders which guy he has been with (even though it usually is not true), did he bring her a disease, has she been living with a man who really a woman and does that make her a lesbian?

Trust is a huge thing in a marriage. It is almost a huge as love. You have given your spouse the key to everything in your life. You rely on them for everything you relied on from your parents. They are the one yo can tell your secrets to, they are the one who comforts you when you need it, they are the one you know is there at three AM. You think they treat you the way you treat them. Then you find out this secret. It hurts. It hurts deeply and many people cannot continue with the relationship. At the very least the relationship dynamics have changed. It is like starting over. Everything you thought you knew is now gone. At least it seems that way. It was all a lie. It wasn't what you thought it was.

Maybe you were military. You put all your trust in those guys in your company. You put all your faith and trust in those guys. If for some reason one day one of them gave you a reason to question their loyalty, and tomorrow you are in a fire fight, isn't the broken trust a concern? Even if they are fighting just as hard as you are, you now have that in your mind.

Trust is huge. Trust takes time and break easily. And yes it can be shattered by even the most innocuous thing you can think of. And when it is it takes a long time to rebuild. It would be wonderful to say that love would triumph. And I truly believe it should. It has taken me over a year to just get comfortable again. I loved her, I still love her but now I have a million and one questions. One thing I realized was if I had been told, even though I believe it would not have changed my feelings, it would have changed the dynamics. Many people cannot handle that change. Especially if you have years of "equity" in the relationship. The more equity the deeper the hurt.

[StephineUK]

thats a very good post and i wish i could type something near as good as that.. and its down to TRUST just as you say!!!

here is my bit ... put it this way and i hope this post will help other CDers who keep it away ......if it was the other way round and my wife of 20years or so kept something from me i would be devastated... so how do you expect her to react if you tell after so much time has gone..?? do the math.

you have to tell her how you feel ... Simple as!!!

[Wildaboutheels]

13 people lurking right now. Feel free to jump in!

[Eryn]

Trust is huge, but so is forgiveness. The only people who go though life completely unblemished are saints. Not many of those around and they probably wouldn't be fun as spouses anyway!

The phrase in the wedding vows is "for better or for worse." It isn't "for better or until something happens that I don't like."

My opinion is that if someone isn't willing to live with the vow then they are better off just shacking up until things go sour or someone better comes along.

The 50+% divorce rate tells me that my opinion is hopelessly old-fashioned, but I still hold onto it. Luckily, my wife does as well.

She probably would rather that I had not been a CDer, but she stood by me, we made it work, and improved both our lives in the process.

[carhill2mn]

It may be foolosh but it happens all too often.

[RADER]

Yes, Trust is very important. However, if you truly love a person, and the other person has not cheated
on you, but likes to wear dresses, some times love can concur through the upsetting times.
My wife and I where introduced on a blind date. I was divorced for 15 years, She had been recently
widowed. On our 3 RD date I mention that I would have liked to try on a dress we saw in an add.
Two weeks later, at a BBQ in my back yard, chased in by rain, she asked me if I had any dresses.
No just skirts and tops; Go and put some on, I want to see She said, So I did, She did not freak out,
And we where married a few months later. That was 18+ years ago.
No I stay in the closet, I just would not look like any type of a Female if I went out side dressed.
A Bearded lady just does not fly, no matter how much makeup you use.
My wife saids she loves me, no matter what I am wearing, She says she married me not my clothes.
O" Do I love this Girl.
Rader

[docrobbysherry]

Sorry, I'm not buying that! 20 years of a GOOD marriage dissolving because of CDing alone? Nonsense! It wouldn't!

20 years of a poor, weak, or bad marriage dissolving because of CDing? Nonsense! That was simply the straw that broke the camel's back!

Trust is very important in most relationships, but not all. In most "good" marriages it's simply one ingredient in the cake mix! U need flour, butter, yeast, sugar and a lot of other things to make your cake rise and taste good. Same with a good relationship!

Those of u in good, healthy relationships may understand what I mean. Most married folks I know would read this and just scratch their heads!

[Karren H]

We'll I'm sure as hell buying it.... I bought it.... It was 30 years of trust lost..... boom.... and I've been working my ass off trying to regain just a fraction of it.... for the last 5 or 6 years..... and I know I will never get it all back.... and it has absolutly nothing to do with crossdressing.... It could have been anything I kept from her all those years....... if you don't understand that... you have never been through it!!

[Wildaboutheels]

Thanks for the responses folks. I was beginning to have doubts at this Forum. Sticking one's head in the sand won't change any FACTS.

[Cynthia Anne]

It's really kinda funny! We are are alike but completely different! Every case is different! What works for you could be the worse for me!Damn if you do and damn if you don't!!!!!!!!!

[Lorileah]

It could have been anything I kept from her all those years....... if you don't understand that... you have never been through it!!

:yt: The question was trust. Crossdressing is just the subject of the forum but anything you hide and gets revealed 20-30 years later crashes trust. So many here don't get that. When you trust someone it isn't noticeable until you break that trust.

[Karren H]

:yt: The question was trust. Crossdressing is just the subject of the forum but anything you hide and gets revealed 20-30 years later crashes trust. So many here don't get that. When you trust someone it isn't noticeable until you break that trust.

We probably wouldn't be together today if it were something as bad as being a closet Broncos fan!!

[Lorileah]

We probably wouldn't be together today if it were something as bad as being a closet Broncos fan!!

you don't have to be in the closet, being an "out" Broncos fan is a bed enough. BTW who won that game last week?

OK back on topic

[Babeba]

I think relationships where one partner hides te fact he likes to wear ladies' panties sometimes (for kicks, nothing else) for years is a bit different than someone who is very much transgendered and has as much feminine as masculine in their selves once they acknowledge it. Hiding things which are part of your core identity are not good and yeah, if after 30 years I felt like I didn't know that person all of a sudden? I would be pissed. And freaked. And disillusioned.

On the other hand, I know full well someone who does not disclose part of their identity is damn well not going to believe it was such a big deal and what the hell? Why are you acting like this? I know that from first hand experience, though not from cross dressing in my current relationship. One of my past boyfriends was a young earth creationist (believed the Earth is 6000 years old) and hid it for months. I found out about it right before I went on an archaeological field expedition for several weeks - and every time I dug a carbon sample up - every time our scientific method was soundly based on the fact that this Earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old, and the amount of carbon trapped from the atmosphere not only is in a steady, plottable ratio but also contains radioactive isotopes which decay in a logarithmically constant rate - it made the part of me that wanted to keep that relationship going wither a little inside. I'm not saying I would have stayed with him if he had told me up front, but that finding out about it ages (when you're 21, 5 months is ages) after we started going out really hurt.

[Barbara Ella]

I have to agree with Karren..ewwww, Broncos fans..

Seriously, it is trust. If you kept a secret, use whatever euphemism you want to sugar coat it, for many years of your marriage, you have removed the trust that was built up, and expected, regardless of what you were hiding. The level of trust lost may vary, but it is no less hard to restore than a lot of trust. It might not break up the marriage, but the comfortable trusting relationship isn't there. If you reveal whatever secret at the outset, there is no trust to be lost, just adjustment to whatever the secret involves, not the same as with holding.

Married 41 years and had never cross dressed. Realized I am a cross dresser last September, told wife in December. Devastated her, but did not change her feelings toward me, confused the hell out of her, and scared her mentally 4 ways from sunday, sure, why wouldn't it. But trust was not broken as I had not withheld this. trust was cracked because she had come to trust a certain image of who I was, and i was no longer that person, I was two persons in one, and she knew nothing about that other person who just also happens to be female and needed to be expressed. A lot to deal with, but with trust still in place it is a much easier situation to deal with.

Trust cannot be overestimated, or overlooked, and is the essential element to reconstruct.

Barbara

[Beverley Sims]

Trust is like an old Ming vase.
Wonderful while you have it, but you drop it.........

[sometimes_miss]

13 people lurking right now. Feel free to jump in!

O.K., but remember, you did ask!

It's about more than trust, although that's certainly a part of it, because lots of women will see you guilty of 'lying by omission', and not telling them something that they feel is very important (again, they want us to read their minds, very old story they think if we really loved them, we'd automatically know everything they want us to).
First there is the shock; they feel that they were fooled by you into believing you were something you were not; they'd probably be just as pissed off if you pretended to be rich, and turned out to be just another poor redneck and (most important, here) she didn't find out until after you got married. Then, you have to deal with becoming, in the virtual blink of an eye, a guy who she'd NEVER have considered dating, much less having sex with in her life, and now she feels like she's stuck with you; as most women derive a certain amount of their self image (as well as how she 'stacks up' to other wives) from the 'catch' they manage to acquire as a husband, you've ruined that for her as well, she can't very well brag to her peers about how great you look in your make up and your ballerina outfit now, can she, because when she tells her friends about you, that's an image they're probably going to have in their heads!
So now she's pissed off at you, has lost any sexual desire for you, and who do you think she's going to blame? Herself? NOPE! It's YOU, kiddo! She sees it as all your fault, and it's not going to get any better any time soon!

How do I know? Been there, done that.

[Amanda_P]

My first wife knew about me dressing. At first I didn't tell her. We was young and I never dressed in front of her. Then out of no where she wants me to wear her clothes. She had this really pretty dress that I always liked and she's asking me to wear it. Well of course I did. She fixed my long hair. It was the 70s so all guys had long hair. Did my makeup and we went to town for a soda. This is about the 3rd time I dressed for her. Like I said we was young. Anyway we wound up getting married and I dressed off and on the whole time we was together. But then one night she through a fit cause I put on my nighty to go to bed. Anyway after 5 years being married and 4 kids later she doesn't like it. So anyway some people are willing to throw away years of marriage. We are still great friends and hang out when in town but never dressed. And she says now she knows what I went through and understands. And accepting of it again. So who knows what GGs really want.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Trust is only a part of the whole issue, a life together for 35 out of 37 years,& nothing at all to do with dressing or being trans, as im nether.

Being intersex did, yes we have three adults with 9 grandkids, so it does mean something, of cause you have to go back 65 years, in our day you said nothing or be carted off to the nuthouse. in the white van & we know what barbarack things they did then, No i did not hide what i was i did not know , what do you say, what can you say. to save your self from a fate worse than death,

Of cause when i was able to say something it was to late then 48 years later, i never hidwhat i was just most people did not see in me what i really was so i thought , i was wrong some people did as i found out later 4 years ago,

To say i was closed down is the best way to explain i was i could not express myself had a very hard time just being myself , so a loner for much of mylife was the best way to work through till 18 years ago as one would say i had to face my skeliton in my cubboard, thing is it knocked the door down with so much force i could not replace that door,

Being intesex has its own issues i mean what really was i a male ....no a female , no.... yet a mix of both to the point of there was / is no difference . i dont define my self as male or female , i let others do that.

Yet that being the case has shown me any way my new friends did, in accepting im just another female / woman who comes as different.

Yes i know i can say how i think is as female & that really has allways been the case, with just a touch of some where lurking a little bit of male yet to tell the truth that male has been the makeing of who i am as a woman.
With out that part of who i am. i dought i would have pulled through plus one very pressous really close grandkid who from birth was there to keep me vocused on liveing so there you have it,

Oh yes trust. well Jos & i are very much more closer now than when we were married, yes i placed my trust in her & yes it has been broken & no blame accorded to Jos, just part of my change or how i was percived, Jos understands what i am who i am or the real person so we are still close ,

well after 37 years what can i say we still ....LOVE...each other & see in each other something that has lasted this long & i dought it'll change, we just have so much together & family, for now we live apart. though thats not an issue.


...noeleena...

[kimdl93]

I suspect that in most failing relationships, there's a long trail of issues. I know from my own first marriage, the weaknesses in the relationship may have been apparent to an objective observer fairly early on. We just didn't recognize the problems. Over time, the problems, compounded by poor communications, grew overwhelming. In retrospect, I can see many things that could have averted the outcome.