Coming out to a gf or wife - what you said and how it worked out

[MarciManseau]

After seeing several posts here about wives or gfs having trouble with accepting a cder/transgender person, I'd love to see more discussion about how we all did it and, more importantly, what we've learned from all of it.

Personally, I went through 3 serious relationships with not telling and then being discovered, with tragic results. I was outed, callled names and immediately dropped.

After hurting myself and three others I really cared about, I finally had learned my lesson.

When I met a woman I cared about, I waited a few weeks to make sure it wasn't just a casual relationship, and then one night when we were alone, I finally told her how all my life I'd felt that I should have been a woman, and that I often dressed to make my outer appearance match my inner one.

Her reaction was to hold me while we both had a good cry. An hour or so later, I took her on a tour of my other dresser and closet so she could see all the lovely things I owned. I also told her the reason that I supposedly wore no underwear was because all I owned was panties, and I wasn't sure how she'd react to seeing me in them. Right then, she said that's fine with her.

I gradully added a few more feminine items to the things I wore over the next few weeks and she was quite comfortable with it. She even borrowed a few of my things to wear as we're the same size in everything other than bras and shoes.

Then I was out shopping one day, en femme as usual, and I saw an adorable short pink nightie I knew she'd look wonderful in. Valentine's day was near, so I bought it for her, and also resisted the temptation to buy myself the same one.

After I gave it to her, I told her I'd almost bought the same one for myself. She smiled at me mischeviously and said, "You should have. It would be cute on you."

So naturally I ran out the next day and got it. I wore it for her with panties and we were both happy.

A few months after she'd moved in with me, and I almost always was wearing a women's top along with jeans or cute pants (also a bra, panties and phose or stockings) I asked her if she'd mind if I wore a skirt once in a while. She smiled, kissed me, and said she was wondering when I'd ask.

She and I are still together now, and I'm full time as a woman. We go out as two girl friends now and we're so much closer than we've ever been with others.

So, for me, honestly (finally!) worked out to be the best thing ever.

Now take a minute and let us know your experiences. I'm sure we'll all benefit. Thanks

Marci:hugs:

[MJ]

Marci Thank you

well i got caught out . my wife came home from work it was a Sunday i knew she had something on her mind like someone had died it was June and we did not need air-condition in the house that evening . she open with we need to talk i said whats on your mind well she started to cry and told me she found out i dress and wanted to become a woman , i never told her anything about my secret life my dressing , i did love her very much and my 3 wonderful children i hope this would just go away but it never did ..
i denied everything but she knew !! . i did not know about this site back then so again i tried to cover over and play down the situation we did not talk for a few days nor sleep in the same bed and she would make comments like those shorts look like a skirt .. i had to get rid of my pride and i talked with her but it was too late she wanted nothing to do with me , and went to her family and outed me .. i went and told my family that same day i felt it was better coming from me .. as it turns out it was not.. a few days later she ask me to pack up and leave . i did not think it would be our marriage that died , and after 21 wonderful years it was all over .. to day i have one of my family member who is in contact with me i had another sister and brother who disowned me , i have not seen my children 3 of mine we adopted one dez and she is the only one who see me from time to time my oldest daughter had a son last February i have never seen ...

we all get caught it's a matter of time

boy did i learn my lesson ... be truthful from day one and this heartache would never happen .if i ever find that special someone it's total truth between us
the moral of my story is be honest or you could lose everything
sorry my story was not a happy one
hugs mj

[JenniferMBlack]

Well my story is a bit strange I am sure. Some how we got on the subject of clothes and such and cross dressing came up. Well I said I don't understand the big deal about a guy wearing girls clothes because girls wear guys clothes and it is not a big deal. She then said it wasn't to her just that it was strange and different. Then some more back and forth about this and that and she said would you wear a dress and make love to me, her idea (I swear I am not making this up) so I agree but didn't let the cat all the way out of the bag. Of course afterwards I did tell her I am a cross dresser since she was so turned on by it all. And I was positive she was alright with it.

[TxKimberly]

MJ, if I could reach you I'd give you a great big hug. Just reading your story brought tears to my eyes. I too have been married over 20 years and just can not imagine the pain and hurt you must have gone (and probably still are going) through.
I agree, honesty early on is the best course. It's the only thing that is fair to both, you and her. If she cant or doesn't want to deal with it, it's better for all of you to know BEFORE you are married or have children
What should those that have been married for years and not told their wives do - I dunno.

[tommi]

Mine found out after the birth of our first child and at first was very accepting.
Over a short period of time she grew to hate it ,I think I pushed to hard.I have no doubt she would have accepted me as a friend but we probably would have never married if I had been open about it early on.
But I had my own denile issues to deal with at that time thinking dating and getting married would get rid of these feelings.
We are still together 11 rocky years later I keep in the back of my closet and that alllows for a better family life.

[MJ]

MJ, if I could reach you I'd give you a great big hug. Just reading your story brought tears to my eyes. I too have been married over 20 years and just can not imagine the pain and hurt you must have gone (and probably still are going) through.
I agree, honesty early on is the best course. It's the only thing that is fair to both, you and her. If she cant or doesn't want to deal with it, it's better for all of you to know BEFORE you are married or have children
What should those that have been married for years and not told their wives do - I dunno.

thank you Kimberly

it was one week before my birthday and trying to find an apartment , trying to figure out what do i do now .. i don't celebrate my b-day in June anymore and Christmas sucks .. but i celebrate on important meaningful days like April 10 is my b-day celebration ...thats the day i got my letter for grs .. and my legal name change in July ... and try not to think about the past it's history yes it does hurt i am not dead but you have to move on .. i do wish my family well and hope they are OK over time they may come around..

when i read about other members wanting to tell there wife's my heart sinks because you just don't know .. and when it turns out OK i do get envious lucky them .. but what about there S.O how do they take it ?? they may say there OK but inside ... i have to wonder ..

[Dawn D.]

You know, it's always going to come down to two basic ideals. Always number one will be honesty which creates trust. Second, is communication which allows for understanding. Without either one of these components, you relationship on any issue will not be successful.

Within my own relationship, my Wife has known of me wearing panties since before we were married (twenty seven years ago). At that time in my life, I did not even know the term transgender or crossdresser. She asked me why I liked to do this and my only explanation at the time is "it makes me feel good". She accepted it without to much hesitation. I never hid it from her.

Like so many others, life and family matters take precidence. Raising our kids and earning our life forced me to keep other urges undercover. I knew they were there. My wife knew a little about them being there, still, neither of us had any understanding of what it meant. After our kids were raised and off on their own it was not long before i felt a change inside me. Something was brewing and it manifested itself as me wanting to more frequently wear my wifes clothing and her nightgowns. The clothing was for the most part done in stealth. The nightgowns I did ask her for and she reluctantly abliged. Only with the advent of the internet did my awakening and understanding come. Though it was not just that easy still.

I began looking at any images of women and the way that they were dressed, sometimes I would end up on the free tour side of sex sites (never did any subscriptions). I soon realized that looking at purely naked images of women was somehow not attractive. My satisfaction came from viewing women dressed, still it wasn't the woman so much as it was the clothes that I savored. My Wife though, was beginning to worry that maybe I had some kind of sex addiction. I did my best to assure her that it was not the case. Then I found ebay. I had found a way to purchase femme clothes without going out to the store! The only thing that slowed me down was my bank account! But at last I had my own clothes!!!

It was painfully obvious that my Wife was less than enamoured with her husband buying female clothing. Especially in sizes that were not her own. Her love for me is what I live for. The last thing on Earth that I wanted was to cause any knid of hurt to her. I knew that I had somehow become damaged. I worried that I was somehow a pervert. I did all I could to stop. I committed the well known crossdresser sin of 'Purging'. It...just....kept....coming...back! So being one who does not give up easily, I started using the internet for it's real value.....................Research! Eventually I found this site as well as several others with a plethora of information that flooded my pea brain with a realization that I was NOT SICK, that I was real and that I was not alone!

Now the task of helping my Wife to understand. With all that I had learned, I was able to form a two page letter to her. I left it on the bathroom counter in an envelope that said on the outside "From me to you , the love of my life". In it I explained my feelings that I now understood, but only after a lifetime of denial, anger, fear, digust and shame. I did my best to explain how feeling the feminine side of my personality only led me closer to understanding her as a woman and my Wife. Well, my feeble attempts must have had some impact. I could never have dreamed that I would recieve that reaction that I did. She came to me, laid with me and cried with me. It was truely the most beautiful feeling there could be.

I would be remiss if I left you thinking that from there all went great. It did not! There were many many many days of tears, of misreading intents, of selfishness, of reawakening, of restarting all over again. My Wife and I trust each other, we believe in each other, we now truely know each other and we totally are IN Love with each other. To this point, the rest (as the say) is history!


Remamber, Honesty=Trust and Communication=Understanding. The two together equals a Partnership in Love.




Dawn

[Karren H]

This is my adventure, not what I would recommend.... http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15376

Karren

[Dawn D.]

TxKimberley:
What should those that have been married for years and not told their wives do - I dunno.

Go very very very slowly! Easy to say, so hard to do! Yet that is the way.



Dawn

[lisa_e_love]

I have only been in one serious relationship since I have been regularly dressing. Ironically, the first time I ever met her I was en femme - I was out watching a movie and I was getting kind of bored and wanted to hang out with someone. Obviously, I didn't want to out myself but I really wanted to see a familiar face - her roommate was a friend of mine, I called her and made up some story about how I lost a bet and went over to visit and that's when I met my now ex-gf.

She was amused initially and, after we got in a relationship she seemed to forget about it. Then, in a trailer before a movie we saw a picture of a man in drag and she said, "Oh! That reminds me of you. Hey do you have pictures from that day?" So later that night I got online with her and sent her a picture from the day we met. I told her that I had some more and sent her a couple more from different days with different outfits. She said, "Wait...these are different outfits." And I said, "I do this for fun sometimes. When you met me, I made up that story about that bet. That was actually about the 9th time I had been out of the house like that." She laughed and laughed and laughed. I thought she was taking it well. It was better than disgust.

However, as time went on it was very clear that she was uncomfortable with it and wanted me to be a more traditional man's man for her to cling to. I would have gone into it before the relationship if my femme side and my dressing had been developed as they are now, but at the time I was still a fledgling crossdresser. Her discomfort with my dressing was one of the issues that put some distance between us, but not the real reason we broke up.

I would just add that there's really no good way to break it to a girl in the middle of a relationship - the next relationship I get in I fully intend on letting them know that I dress before things get very far at all. I don't want to end up in a situation like I had where my heart was gradually broken by seeing my gf go from amused and light-hearted to cold and disapproving.

[Deborah Jane]

I came out to my wife after we had been been together for 23 years [I thought she had found my "stash"....She hadn,t]. We tried to stay together for the sake of the children for the next 4 years [i purged and stopped crossdressing], but our relationship never recovered and we seperated last year after 27 years together. I now dress whenever i feel it, but i would give it in an instant to get her back!! It,ll never happen...She told me:(. I now need to move on with my life and hopefully one day i will meet an understanding woman, but who knows??

[Mitch23]

I've told my story before on this site. I've been married 13 years to a wonderful woman and was married 20 years to my first wife. My undie fetish was my 'dirty little secret' which i kept from everyone. in my marriage it didnt seem that important but i have not been able to offer my 'complete self' to my partner. Due to a combination of circumstances I realised that i was a tranny and a large part of my personality was female. from then on it did matter, and i had no choice but to tell in full expectation that it would end my marriage. i just knew how she would react and it would be bad. several months on, too my surprise we are still married, i think our relationship is better, she is still unsupportive but coming to terms with life with a tranny. So Marci and MJ, i guess you represent the extremes of outcome and i am somewhere in the middle. there is no going back for me, i adore being a girl and cannot stop and WILL NOT go back in the closet but have no idea where it leads ...

Mitch

[Abby Lauren]

I've also told this story before but I think this issue is so important, it bears repetition.
I first came out to my wife after ten years of marriage and, at the time, 2 kids. We were in a secluded motel on the outskirts of Yosemite national Park. I figured that we were alone and she had nowhere to go so this was a good enough time to tell her. I told her everything about me- ie. I was a lifelong crossdresser and had a very strong feminine part of me. There was a lot of crying and lots of feelings shared. My wife's unltimate reaction was: complete denial of the whole conversation. This lasted for years. Finally, Abby was dying to come out and I told her again but i also said that I couldn't allow her to make believe that Abby didn't exist because I couldn't bear to slink about in the dark anymore. The ultimate result is that my wife tolerates Abby but doesn't want to see her and doesn't want to talk about what I do. She still loves me and we do all sorts of things together as husband and wife but that's it. I have subsequently come out to my sister (only sibling), a female colleague and my masseuse and her sister all of whom have been amazingly supporive. i go out with my sister to TG events and she's been really great. My wife has never asked my sister about anything having to do with Abby. I long for more but realize that i could have had so much less.
I, too, felt so much sadness and pain reading about MJ's experience and also woud love to hug her and reach out to her. Ours isn't an easy life. I long to be Abby as often as I can but realize that I need to accept what is.

[Alice B]

My post yesterday (Going down in flames) pretty well describes where I am now and since then things are fine and I'm back to where things originaly were. To start I was totally honest with my wife about wanting to dress and I'm sure she already suspected, since I was already wearing womans panties and thigh highs. The key was the honesty, talking about it and giving her the research I had done on the internet. So now I'm back to being able to dress when she is not around (work or away for club events). The events of two days ago were the only dramatic parts of my dressing and will not be repeated. So, I'm very lucky and am slowing learning that it is not something that I can push, even though I would like more freedom to dress and to be able to go out. For me my wife has to come first. I truly love her and the life we have carved out. Your experience is truly wonderful and as I'm beginning to learn-very rare.:hugs:

[Joanna-Louise]

Ok my tale will take ages to type so will basically start into it....

First my ex:

Id just moved back from York, and was living back at home (my parents knew and i was told to be discrete in my dressing - a fair rule as i was 23 years old being alowed to move back home).

Over the months i was spending my wages each week on the usual bills (rent petrol etc etc etc) and saving some for clothes. After a while i had a fair sized wardrbe, accessories and makeup etc etc.

I then met my ex whilst at work, and as much as i tried to stop myself i fell in love with her, we then decided it was time that i moved out of my parental home and got a flat so we could spend more intimate time with one another (omg alarm bells started to ring..... :eek:)

anyway i left Joanna's clothes at my mums and movedinto my flat. I then began a couple of weeks later to find it hard to become intimate, kept making excuses for her not to come over or do anything if she did. After a very tense and heated discussion over weather or not i still liked/loved her i broke down and told her everything. She told me she'd have to see me dressed to know if shed understand. (She did).

However that relationship didn't wrk out.

New years eve was when i met kim (eve of 2007) and again much as I tried i fell in love at first site with her, id spoken to kim over the net for months and knew her inside anyway, the meeting i guess was meant to happen for which im v glad it did.

Because of the distance it was always going to be that one of us had to move... again :eek: shed have to know... or does she..... mmmmmmmmm

well, i threw everything away thinking i could now stop etc and all was ok untill a couple of weeks after the move took place in july, again lack of intamacy led for a 1/2 heated discussion to where i once again put my heart on the line and told her. (she thought i was going to tell her i was gay, not a cd).

Again i was told shed have to see me dressed to see if t would affect the realtionship... only ruling she has stipulated is that i don't do wigs or makeup as then shed loose the image of me. to her Joanna's the "softer side of steve" and couldn't cope if "Steve" wasn't there in the time i was dressed (tbh i see her point and again don't personally want to go back down the roads of make up and wigs, unless of course i decided to go on a weekend away (hotel meet thingy through a forum etc) where id be going alone for the above reason.

I found honesty to be the best way, although i think most SO's will agree, given the choice before they got invloved they'd probably have run a mile, and who can blame them, i can also see this is a reason many in our position choose not too untill the pressure gets to much.

Im glad i told kim as she has know aquired a new shopping partner and a best friend to share lazy days with while watching all the films Steve can't usually stand.

anyway Sorry to ramble on guys gals..... hope the above helps



Joanna
xxxx

[charllote34]

Gosh , having read all your posts i feel like i have come to know how much we can lose ,honestly you have to be a real man to go through what some of us have ben through xx

[Kieroney]

Well after halloween this year, and going out as a sexy girl, I liked it to much to bury it, so I finally fessed up and told my wife, we are still having issues with it, she wants it buried, and the more she does this the more I'm coming out.

[Billijo49504]

I was a widower, and I hired her as a baby sitter / housekepper. So when she did the laundry, and wondered who's panties the large size ones weree, I told her they were mine. So from the start, we were very open. Now I have more fem clothes than male clothes....BJ

[Cynthia_0101]

I decided to tell her 3 months into dating. I figured it was better to get let down now that years later. To my surprise she was totally cool with the whole thing.

That was 13 years ago.

[Sarah Rabbit]

I found that the urge, (which I never acted upon until I told my wife) became stronger as I got older, especially the few months prior to telling her. Although I knew, I was different, and I had heard about Crossdressing, I never thought I would do any such thing. I had heard Transgenderism, but it meant nothing to me until I came here. I got my 'Dutch' courage when I nuked myself one night. We. laid in bed, she knew something was up, and she kept asking. I blurted out, "I crossdress" (Not technically true) we sat up talking that night for a while. The next morning on the way to work, she seemed fine with it. It was not until that night, when all the questions came. (Are you gay? Am I not satisfying you?. Do you want to go full time?) to which I answered truthfully to the best of my ability, with what limited knowledge I had. Funny thing about it, I did not find CD.com, until some months later, where I read of experiences of wives asking the same questions that my wife asked.

Sarah R. :bunny:

[jarts55]

Was before last Thanksgiving. I told her that I had a dream that I was at in-laws for Thanksgiving, was wear a black dress and all the trimmings. She thought I was joking at first. We have talked about it a couple of times. She says she finds it disgusting and doesn't want to talk about it any more. I have had a couple of bouts of bad depression, wanting to end it all. Have some good gg friends that have gotten me thru it. I feel that it is a part of me that is not going to go away no matter how much we may want it too. If you don't accept it then you don't accept me be caues it is a big part of who I am.