Crossdressing and Marriage

[Kathrynn]

Hello! Girlfriends...
It saddens my heart to hear so many stories about my sisters and their S/O's.
CROSSDRESSING AND MARRIAGE is not a good mix unless you have a very understanding wife. So many of you come to mind when i say understanding wives. But for so many others it is usually doom. I for example, was doom. I was married for 20 years. She knew about it, did not accept it and finally she is gone.
Many wives come round and try but fail, and some come to terms with it and accept us for who we are. Kind and generous and caring. We must hang in there and keep ours heads high. We are just not guys in dresses. For some of us it is our destiny, we are transgendered. It is not our fault we were built with the wrong parts, it is who we are. And for the rest of my sisters out there, they just love to wear womens clothing. And i do agree, there is nothing like the feeling of sheer nylon going onto a freshly shaved leg.
So as for that. Sisters, keep your heads high and don't look down in shame. Go out into the world en-fem and let the world see you as you truly are a human being. Being Transgendered or a Crossdresser, going out into the world en-fem takes a lot of guts and strength from within. Let that woman come out and have fun...
Yours in en-fem
Kathrynn

[Shelly Preston]

Marriages fail for all different of reasons
Crossdressing is not always the cause, there are so many factors that go into a marriage, its not always one thing that causes a failure.
Some marriages prosper due to the fact that it may have been a secret which is now out in the open.(no more secrets)
In fact a lot of women are attracted to us because of the attributes that we have caring sensitive and compassionate.

[Sally24]

My wife is maybe the exception, she is an exceptional woman. She has known about my crossdressing since we started living together in the 70's. In the last couple of years I have become very active in my dressing and she has helped immensly! She has helped me find some of my best outfits, she shops and vacations with me while I am en femme, she critiques me and lets me know when my voice or movement is starting to go toward the male mode. Overall she is the reason today that I am able to go out in public.

She is pretty comfortable with my Sally side and we talk often about all matters of dressing. The only down side is that she has accepted my female side so completely that she sometimes has trouble relating to my male side. She is straight and is not sexually attracted to Sally. That has given us some problems but it is minor to all that I have gained thru her.

The best advice I can give any of the girls is to tell your SO as soon as you feel it is possible. Never marry someone without sharing most of the details of your crossdressing with them. In most cases, they will find out eventually and then you will have more to deal with. The matters of trust and secrecy are biggies and should not be overlooked. If you can't share this with the one you love, you should not commit to anything long term. It's just not fair.

Sally

[suchacutie]

There have been so many posts about partners who have taken the news/idea of the existence of the women in us very badly. There seems to be much less of a discussion of partners who understand just how much we trust them by sharing this part of our lives with them. This is clearly a deeply vulnerable space we step into, so why don't we more expect our partners to be, to some extent, flattered by the fact that we are willing to expose this part of us to them? There seem to be so few of us whose partners recongnize this and cherish our trust in them (granted, those who hide it for years have a trust issue as well).

Are we hiding?

Tina

[Scotty]

My advice, never tell a short term SO.

But then that leads to the dilema of "What if it turns out to be long term?".

It's been thrown in my face before so anyone going through this right now, I feel deeply for them...

[Lila GG]

I don't think that marriage and cd'ing are a bad mix at all, and I hope my husband agrees lol! I think that in many ways the longer you wait to tell your partner, the harder it might be for them/us to wrap our minds around it and accept it as a part of you. For various reasons, the biggest probably (at least to me) being a feeling that you didn't trust them enough with your secret before -- and I understand it's not an "easy" thing, but no one said marriage was easy! In some cases until you get caught. If after years of living with your wife, she came out of left field and told you that she had been participating in some activity secretly, and actively keeping it from you, it might take some time for you to get used to it as well, and even if you didn't object to the activity in and of itself, the fact that she had kept it from you would probably hurt. If, on top of that, the activity were an emotionally "loaded" one... it would probably be even harder.

That said, when my husband told me I felt quite awed that he trusted me enough to tell me (we had only been in a relationship for a couple of weeks at the time), and it brought us together in many ways. Anyway, I think it's a big challenge, but also an opportunity to grow closer.

Lila

p.s. didn't mean to get so carried away, I just wanted to express the good that can come out of being open with your partners :).

[Carroll]

I told my wife the first date we had. We have had up and downs big time over the 8 years we have know each other. I am so lucky to have a wife that accepts me for who I am and what I do. I do feel bad when one my fellow sisters has issues with their SO and wish there was something I could do to help their SO understand and accept our freedom.

[Bernice]

My advice, never tell a short term SO.

But then that leads to the dilema of "What if it turns out to be long term?".

It's been thrown in my face before so anyone going through this right now, I feel deeply for them...

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but my advice to you would be to never agree to having an SO who is not committed to be long term SO, and then do whatever it takes to keep her as your SO, until death do you part... A long term relationship is not something that happens by accident! It takes hard work and compromise and committement, and yes, open and honest communication.

But then, perhaps by your definition, a "date" is an SO. I think the key word is "significant". A fiancee is "significant". A spouse is "significant". In this day and age, a "fling" is not very significant. If a "fling" is going pretty well, offer to promote her to the level of "significant other", on the condition that she learns your secret, and that she will make the effort to learn what she needs to learn to accept this part of you.

I think Lila has just expressed the prerequisites for becoming an outstanding SO, and she has what it takes to enjoy a truly successful and happy marriage. Too bad for you that she is already "taken", but there are others, and you can find one who will accept you as you are because you are totally honest with her. :hugs:

[Kaitlyn Michele]

for me it's doom

i've posted alot about it..so no need for details..but in the end tclosetgirl said an interesting thing about not telling short term girlfriends..add to that problem the fact that i really believed that i had passed thru my crossdressing phase and for 10 years i had...as we all know...the 40's (age) seems to set off a crossdressing time bomb and the more i found out the more i realized i had to share this secret

BAD MOVE!! well it turned out bad...i had to do it

thnx for the thoughtful post kath

michele

[Rachel Morley]

Marriage and crossdressing?....in my and Marla's marriage it's a union made in heaven. We met on a TG forum, my wife adores feminine men, and I want to be as feminine as possible without permanently altering my body. It's a "win win" situation for both of us :happy:

In our marriage crossdressing is not "my" thing it's "our" thing. Marla has told me many times that if I ever stopped wanting to wear's girl's clothes she'd think I didn't love her. I know this isn't the norm and sometimes I just want to cry I'm so happy. And all of this happens within a fabulous relationship where we are so compatible about non cding things it's scary! I'm not particularly religious but I swear sometimes I'm sure there is something going on that is bigger than the both of us!

[tekla west]

Some other things that don’t go with marriage
- careers in Show Biz
- careers in the law, and/or medicine
- two careers
- graduate school
- money problems
- kids
- in-laws
- other BF/GF, regardless of who has what

Matter of fact, few things in the modern world go with marriage. Why should CD be the exception, not the rule?

[pinkshelly]

I divorced the last one for totaly non related reasons. She not knows and has a real problem with it, even though it has nothing to do with her. It's kinda funny. All through the marrage she touted how excepting she is and can't accept her ex dressing.
I got extremly luck with my s.o. now and forever. She has no problem with it and enjoys Shelly almost as much as I do.
Huggs, Shelly.

[Joy Carter]

Not accepting SO here, the worst two weeks of my life recently have been when she told me that " I wish I had known the first month I would have walk away from you ." That was last month and I have tried so hard to get that out of my head. She is my soul mate she is my world I would die if she left me today.

[Kiera]

I told my wife right away. Not more than a couple of weeks after we met. After learning more on the subject and becommnig a member here she told me whe was ok with my dressing and loved me for who I am. She even encouraged me to take it farther, I did not have a wig or makeup and hardly any clothing when we met. We dated for a year and then we married. She left last month telling me I have a problem and outed me to pretty much everyone I know. She hasnt even taken the time to sit down and talk with me about the whole ordeal. You would think that within a 6 week span, you could make time to sit down and talk to your husband about why you ran out without saying anything. She keeps saying that she wants to be friends but I honestly dont believe her.
kiera

[kathy gg]

Hmm...crossdressing and marrige......for Amanda and I....the thing that brought us together....but trust me there are a million reasons why we feel in love. I wont' bore anyone with them, but in our life crossdressing is what I call a "non-issue". We may have disagreements about music or movies or whsoe turn it is to change the cat litter. But crossdressing is not something I believe we have ever had one argument about.

Maybe that is because we had frank open and honest talks about our feelings, our goals, our dreams when we were dating. We pretty much laid out who we were on the table from day one. We asked each other uncomfotable and hard questions from the get go. We felt why waste the others time with lies. He accepts me for all that I am...I accept him for all he is. We both have many dimensions and parts that make us whole.

We both discuss things and talk about stuff and try to compromise and find common ground and maybe that is why we just dont' argue about "crossdressing".

We also were not high school immature kids when we hooked up but adults with some "life" experience and mistakes and lessons learned from previous relationships.

But no matter what...we both have a desire to love and honour and resepct each other. So there is not just one person doing all the work. We do things as a team and I cannot imagine a marraige {now} with-out this level of honesty and sharing.

Commuication/compromise/cuddle.....the three C's I learned long ago.

[GG Vanya]

[QUOTE=Lila GG]
That said, when my husband told me I felt quite awed that he trusted me enough to tell me (we had only been in a relationship for a couple of weeks at the time), and it brought us together in many ways. Anyway, I think it's a big challenge, but also an opportunity to grow closer.

Lila

[QUOTE]

And there you have it ladies! Lila's words could have been mine, verbatim.
Marriage to a CD *is* the ultimate in trust, and forms a bond stronger than forged steel.

I am honored that Trudi trusted me with this part of who she is. I also am humbled by the knowledge that I had the choice to nurture and cherish this wonderful persona, or crush it with rejection and ridicule.

I will forever be grateful that I met my husband after many hard learned life lessons, which made me see the *whole* person standing in front of me, baring his very soul~trusting me not to grind it under my heel.

Unconditional love is perpetual, in that giving it, one receives it in return.

[stlmichelle]

I consider myself very lucky. My wife was a little slow to accept it, but I couln't ask for a more accepting loveing wife. She has told me that she would never make me stop dressing and would never ask me too, the only thing she asks is that I respect certain boundries, very reasonable boundries. She understands me need to dress and is even starting to enjoy it. The only limit she has on me going out is that she gets to go along with me, which to me is the most thrilling to me in the world. She even suggested that we go out a couple weeks ago, but certain logistical problems arose that prevented it from happening, but I was floored to say the least. I know that there are women out there I am definately lucky enough to have one of them.