Possible help for your SO to understand your CDing

[Jenny22]

http://www.gendertree.com/Helping%20Wives%20Of%20Cross%20Dresers.htm

[Genni]

Thank you, Jenny! I've printed it and am strongly considering sharing it with my wife as the basis of a heart-to-heart discussion. She has known of my interest in crossdressing since before we married 40 years ago, but she has been DADT-to-ever-so-slightly-tolerant for most of that time. Our relationship is in a pretty good place, but don't communicate as well as we should. The DADT status is a major roadblock to improvement in my opinion. I would like to think that a supportive article such as you linked will help us to talk through it.

[sometimes_miss]

It's a good write up, but outdated, as it perpetuates the idea that the male roles and female roles in our society must still define us, and that there forever must be a division between what are appropriate male and female behavior, feelings, attire and activities. This is because most people still are uncomfortable with the idea that men can be sensitive, caring and nurturing people, because they still need to believe that the 'real man' inside of him is assertive, able to do things which are necessary and not very nice without hesitation, such as go to war or kill an adversary that might endanger those who he is responsible to protect.

It is the traditional male role that much of society feels the continual need to force on men, in order to keep our own 'tribes' and culture in existence. Our world is still not a nice place to live. Hesitation when faced with aggression can still get us, our mates, our families, our neighbors, killed.

So even in today's world, people aren't ready to accept men as anything less than what we've always been: All masculine, and all the time. And to those people, well, they will continue to want only to admit that we have a 'feminine side', rather than admit that our true self is actually feminine in any way. Until they, and we, can admit to ourselves that all the things we feel are coming from who we really are, instead of trying to distance ourselves from them by referring to it in the third person as if those feminine qualities were belonging to someone else, there will forever be some sort of disconnection about who and what we really are. Hence, though this article might seem an easier way to explain to a mate, a friend, a team mate or a co-worker, or even a stranger who might ask us why we crossdress, what it actually does, is perpetuate the stereotype of what men are, and what they must always be: Never, ever feminine; not us, no, it's not the real us, it's only a temporary 'side' that we show. It's not really us. Because we're not girly, we're not sissies. We just sort of play one once in a while. But it's not really who we are. At least, that's what articles like that imply.