Leslie Langford
12-21-2012, 12:18 PM
As most of you who have been reading my posts know, I have been in a difficult DADT relationship with my wife since I first came out to her not long after we got married, and going on 40 years now (we were married young - in our early 20's).
And when I say "DADT", I mean that it was rather one-sided. I tried to honor my side of the bargain and keep "Leslie" out of her face, yet she often attempted to use guilt and manipulation to get me to stop crosssdressing - or at to least scale back. And given that I did not reveal this side of me to her before we got married (different times, different place in our lives, I thought that marriage would "cure" me - NOT!), my wife also often held this against me as a way of keeping me on the defensive. But because I do own "a pair" despite my feminine inclinations and since she can be equally headstrong, we often butted heads over this, and it became a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.
Without going into details, we've gone through some significant changes in our lives in recent years (some for the better, some for the worse) and they have made us appreciate each other more than we maybe ever did in the past. My wife also finally understood that my crossdressing was a part of me that would never go away, while at the same time also recognizing what I had been saying all along - namely that despite my "Leslie" side, I am still the man she married underneath it all, and have no interest in transitioning. What also helped here was the explosion in information available through the media regarding transgenderism over the last several years - most of it positive, supportive, and stripping away a good number of the myths, stereotypes, and negative associations that have dogged members of our community for far too long.
Whatever it was - it worked, and our relationship is 200% better now. I am now at a point where I can openly discuss upcoming plans for my occasional excursions in public as "Leslie", she no longer freaks out over this, and we are able to communicate openly and supportively about it. In fact, the last time I went out (earlier this week), she actually gave me a big hug after an initial somewhat cool response to my announcement, and followed that up by giving me a loving kiss before going off to work on the actual morning of my planned "Leslie day" as we have come to call it. Not just that, but she also wished me well, along with the iconic "Hill Street Blues" police sergeant's warning of (following the daily briefings): "...and remember - be careful out there!...).
To say that you could have knocked me over with a feather when this happened would be an understatement. But my wife simply explained it away by saying that she was exhausted by the years of fighting and that she appreciated all of the efforts that I had made lately to work on our relationship, including how I had gone out of my way to make her feel special. She also acknowledged that life is short, we both deserve some happiness, and if that's what it takes to make me a more contented, less frustrated, and less testy husband, then so be it.
As I said in the title to this post, this has got to be the best Christmas present ever for the both of us, and it has drawn us closer together than I would ever have imagined possible given our past behaviors. Total honesty now, total transparency, and we both feel that a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders.
For my part, I now love my wife more than ever for doing this for me, and have made it my mission to be far more attentive to her needs than I might have been inclined to be before - even if this means a major departure from the way I have often unwittingly conducted myself in the past. Granted, this breakthrough was a long time in coming (almost 40 years), but some things are truly worth waiting for, and we are both in a far better place now with our marriage than we have been for years.
Sorry for the long post, but maybe it can provide some inspiration for other members of this forum who are in similar DADT relationships, but haven't achieved the same breakthrough yet. There is light at the end of the tunnel - I just hope it doesn't take you as long to reach it as I did. ;)
And when I say "DADT", I mean that it was rather one-sided. I tried to honor my side of the bargain and keep "Leslie" out of her face, yet she often attempted to use guilt and manipulation to get me to stop crosssdressing - or at to least scale back. And given that I did not reveal this side of me to her before we got married (different times, different place in our lives, I thought that marriage would "cure" me - NOT!), my wife also often held this against me as a way of keeping me on the defensive. But because I do own "a pair" despite my feminine inclinations and since she can be equally headstrong, we often butted heads over this, and it became a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.
Without going into details, we've gone through some significant changes in our lives in recent years (some for the better, some for the worse) and they have made us appreciate each other more than we maybe ever did in the past. My wife also finally understood that my crossdressing was a part of me that would never go away, while at the same time also recognizing what I had been saying all along - namely that despite my "Leslie" side, I am still the man she married underneath it all, and have no interest in transitioning. What also helped here was the explosion in information available through the media regarding transgenderism over the last several years - most of it positive, supportive, and stripping away a good number of the myths, stereotypes, and negative associations that have dogged members of our community for far too long.
Whatever it was - it worked, and our relationship is 200% better now. I am now at a point where I can openly discuss upcoming plans for my occasional excursions in public as "Leslie", she no longer freaks out over this, and we are able to communicate openly and supportively about it. In fact, the last time I went out (earlier this week), she actually gave me a big hug after an initial somewhat cool response to my announcement, and followed that up by giving me a loving kiss before going off to work on the actual morning of my planned "Leslie day" as we have come to call it. Not just that, but she also wished me well, along with the iconic "Hill Street Blues" police sergeant's warning of (following the daily briefings): "...and remember - be careful out there!...).
To say that you could have knocked me over with a feather when this happened would be an understatement. But my wife simply explained it away by saying that she was exhausted by the years of fighting and that she appreciated all of the efforts that I had made lately to work on our relationship, including how I had gone out of my way to make her feel special. She also acknowledged that life is short, we both deserve some happiness, and if that's what it takes to make me a more contented, less frustrated, and less testy husband, then so be it.
As I said in the title to this post, this has got to be the best Christmas present ever for the both of us, and it has drawn us closer together than I would ever have imagined possible given our past behaviors. Total honesty now, total transparency, and we both feel that a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders.
For my part, I now love my wife more than ever for doing this for me, and have made it my mission to be far more attentive to her needs than I might have been inclined to be before - even if this means a major departure from the way I have often unwittingly conducted myself in the past. Granted, this breakthrough was a long time in coming (almost 40 years), but some things are truly worth waiting for, and we are both in a far better place now with our marriage than we have been for years.
Sorry for the long post, but maybe it can provide some inspiration for other members of this forum who are in similar DADT relationships, but haven't achieved the same breakthrough yet. There is light at the end of the tunnel - I just hope it doesn't take you as long to reach it as I did. ;)