How understanding/accepting would we be if the shoe was on the other foot?

[lisa_vin]

Hi everybody! I was just lamenting this fact with another sister here that our SO's are just "grudgingly tolerant" as long as there are no visible signs of our cd'ing and it is not talked about. The simple fact is there are many, many more SO's out there that are unhappy with our "gift" than there are that accept, embrace or encourage it! Which brings to mind a perfectly sensible question that some of you may have already asked or been asked. Many of us do this in secret and break our necks TO keep it a secret! Truth is, many SO's find out accidentally or by mistake and are horrified, disgusted, scared and dumbstruck! Sometimes it's the SECRET, sometimes it's the actual act of. If the shoe were on the other foot......if WE were the ones that "discovered" our SO's had a secret desire to crossdress, go out crossdressed, present as the sex they are dressed as and make love to us crossdressed, how would we react.......especially if we had no previous inclination of these desires?????????????? Think about this from a perspective of what society in general says that "conservative" and "normal" is and not from where you now stand! We ask and beg for understanding and acceptance from our SO's and don't or can't understand why they just can't "make us happy" and go along with it. We now have the opportunity to confront and discuss this from an SO's perspective!

WHAT.......WOULD.......YOU.......DO.......AND..... ..HOW.......WOULD.......YOU.......FEEL.......AND.. .....BE.......HONEST.......WITH.......YOURSELF?

I'll give my answer a little later on to keep this post shorter!

Love & hugs,
Lisa

[Kate Lynn]

actually for years women wearing mens clothes has always been accepted,so for years it has been on the other foot,but all hell breaks loose when a man wears womens clothes.
Those who yell the loudest about tolerance,are the most intollerant.

[angelfire]

Quite honestly, if it were my SO I would like to think I'd accept it, including making love to them while dressed. If that is who they are, and I love them, there is some room to overlook certain things. I'd be willing to make love to them if they were willing to accept and partake in some of my fantasies.

If it were a friend, I probably wouldn't care. I would probably react the same way my friends I have told have reacted. "Cool, but I don't really want to see it." is probably what my attitude would be.

[TGMarla]

I'd hate it.

I'd understand it, I guess, to some extent. Or maybe some reverse extent. As a transgendered man, who finds the thought of being a woman very desirable, I have less understanding of why one would opt to be a man, given the choice. But that's just me.

So, wearing pretty clothes, and hair, and makeup, and jewelry, and high heels, and pantyhose.....all that is very appealing to me. Having breasts is very appealing to me. So whereas I'd accept it, and let her run with it, I'd still hate it.

My wife likely hates the fact that I crossdress. We don't discuss it, and we still manage to have a pretty darn good relationship. I don't blame her for feeling that way. From her perspective, it's probably a little ookie. And I wouldn't like it if she went around emulating a man and wanting to have intimacy that way. Maybe if we were both dressed, but I think she'd be as uncomfortable with it as I would.

[Marjory]

My wife is soooo feminine I couldn't even begin to picture her as a guy or wanting to be one. I think this is the way she pictures me too macho to be dressed in women's clothes. I guess we'd both be very surprised.

Marjory

[Nadia-Maria]

I often wondered in the past and I'm now convinced I could see no problem, would my SO want or need to wear a beard or a mustache and so on.

She is a pretty woman, however I'm convinced it would be fun for the case she wanted that I took her outside as a man. I feel wholly at ease with my femme thoughts and I'm sure I would feel completely at ease with her homme thoughts.

The good news are she probably would be much more accepting of my feminine self, than she is at the moment.
As for me I can see HER whatever the clothes and the appearence. I just would want she would be able to do the reverse herself.

[bridget thronton]

I fell in love with a person and would not dream of dictating o her how she should dress or how she should live her life (I believe I would be accepting)

[AliciaWeb]

Love should be about tolerance, understanding and support. I have always tried to support my SO in everything she does, she has one secret she doesn't know I know about and which would destroy many relationships so I think I would be supportive. Un fortunately she is not so tolerant and has made her oppinion on CDs clear so I am firmly, I hope, in the closet - my big secret.

[yms]

actually for years women wearing mens clothes has always been accepted,so for years it has been on the other foot,but all hell breaks loose when a man wears womens clothes.
Those who yell the loudest about tolerance,are the most intollerant.

I totally disagree with this.

Women who are just following the current fashion trend are nothing like M2F crossdressers. These women are not trying to pass themselves off as men and their fashion choices do not affect or reflect their sense of self.

What if your wife cut her hair short and styled it like a man's, wore a fake mustache and wore men's fruit of the loom white briefs, binded her chest so as not appear to have breasts, change the way she walked so she looked like she was lumbering, put wadded up socks in her crotch so she looked...like a guy, slouched in her chair, spread her knees apart and stuck her feet out into the middle of the room. And wanted to be called Mike.

Crossdressing as we here know it is not simply a fashion statement.

I have to agree with the original post by Lisa. Most of us who have wives or SOs would freak out if she started acting and looking like a guy.

By the way, has anyone ever read Ernest Hemmingway's novel "Garden of Eden?" It was published after his death. It is about just such a thing. Great book, if you like Hemmingway.

Yvonne

[marieanne]

I would most definitely accept without any reservations at all what she would want to do. after all she has been good with me and my situation.
I guess I will get a taste of it come halloween, you see I will be a she and she a he. and according to her. I will be the best she that can be.

her words not mine.

Oh I just can't wait till Oct 31st...

[StacyCD]

While some crossdressing males do not attempt to pass as females, I think that most do (or would like to). So it's not just about wearing women's clothes, it's about emulating/impersonating someone female. If my SO wears jeans, a suit, or whatever, she still presents as a female. However, if she were trying to present as a male, I would probably exhibit my own personal 'double standard.' I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I would probably not be happy with it (hence, the double standard).

Please recognize that there are as many reasons to crossdress as there are crossdressers! So, anyone who dresses MTF just because of the clothes is simply a different TYPE of crossdresser than someone who wants to pass as one.

As a result, your reaction may depend on the type of crossdresser you are.

[Sarah...]

Goooood question!!

Had you asked me a few years ago when I was denying who I was I would have been the archetype of intolerance. I can categorically admit I would not have accepted. But only because I didn't accept myself. In fact I hated the very notion of myself.

But we live and learn. And that is the best bit about being human.

How could I expect my SO to understand and accept me now if I couldn't do the same? So I would accept and then seek to understand her needs. Anyway, who I am and how my SO has reacted has already begun, on occasion, to blur the boundaries of gender in our relationship. I think this is a good thing. We need fewer boundaries if we are to move forward.

Though she still expects me to despatch the spiders.:heehee:

Sarah...

[Nicole Erin]

I don't dress em femme when me and the ol lady are having our fun. Not cause of some morale issue or whatever but I am paying attention to her and not caring what I wear.

As if she wanted to CD as a man, I don't think I would really be bothered by it. We are years beyond worrying about what the other looks like

[Joanne f]

Wow a bit more complicated than i thought to answer, if i am Tg then i have a mixed way of thinking, i love the fem things for my self yet i also love to see them on others ( male or female) a male dressed manly doe`s nothing for me but i can find a woman dressed manly very attractive so i would not mind some times but i would not like it all the time , ( think i have shot myself in the foot as for as the GG go`s ):D





joanne :fairy2:

[Jocelyn Renee]

I would have no problem with my wife desiring to present as male at times, but would definitely have a problem with her wanting to transition to full-time. I would always love her deeply as the person she is, but our relationship would fundamentally change and move closer to the friendship end of the spectrum. I married a female because I am attracted to females and that has nothing to do with the clothes they wear. I'm simply not emotionally attracted to males.

It works for us the same way now. Neither of us have a desire to make love as "two women". To be sure Jocelyn and Tonya are best friends, but Charlie and Tonya are so much more. I'm sure our relationship would survive, but if either of us were to transition there would be a profound sense of loss that would forever hang over our lives.

[suchacutie]

As we all know, it's one thing to present a physical appearance of the other gender, but quite a deeper commitment to change voice, speech patterns, word patterns, thought structures, approaches to problem-solving, etc.

The former is to take on the physical appearance, and for that I agree we have a double standard of who can acceptably wear pants and who can acceptably wear skirts.

The rest is a change of personality. From my perspective, I think it would be unfair to ask a fully heterosexual wife to be intimate with my female personality. That's not what she signed on for when we got married, even though I had no idea that Tina would suddenly be "found" by us 30 years later! Likewise, if my wife wished to have a male personality, I could easily see being friends with him, but intimacy...no way!

Ok...it's true that this is what our outlooks are on life and what works for us. I have read many voicing similar opinions on this forum, so my general response is that how we are viewed, and how we would view our SOs has to be personal, and likely very close to the lines that we draw in our intimate relationships. :2c:

tina

[Lisa Golightly]

Always been honest with my girls, always took the revulsion on the chin... If she wanted to be a guy, well... that'd be just fine ;)

[suzy cool]

I'd be intrigued. It depends where it stopped that would worry me. Play acting would actually be no problem.

[Toni_Lynn]

Well, I for one would embrace it 100% and be totally accepting. That really comes from own personal experience in life a CDer myself.

For one thing I am definitely not of the mindset that goes: anything boy=evil or bad, anything girl = wonderful and good. Its all good IMHO. And while girl stuff is what I prefer it doesn’t mean that boy stuff isn’t right for someone else of either genetic sex.

I further do not totally buy into the oft repeated argument that women can wear men’s clothes and get away with it. This is only partially true. Granted, yes, my sister got jeans from the boy’s department at K-Mart (hey - -K Ranch jeans – how chic!), yet I couldn’t get a pair of lo-rise girl’s jeans, let alone a skirt. But, I can guarantee you that any woman who showed up with a man’s suit and tie, or wore a jockstrap or men’s briefs eschewing a bra and panties would come under every bit as much suspicion as MtoF CDers do!

That said, I’d like to take a minute to explain a bit of my frame of reference. By the time I had, for want of a better term, sexually matured or developed my own tastes as it were, I have been fascinated, oh heck, turned-on, by gender. I began to see it as something that one could adopt and do almost cafeteria like selections on. After all, here I was a guy, dressing up as a girl. So, it seemed reasonable to me that girls could also dress and act as boys. Wow! Was I shocked to find out that in practice crossdressing only seemed to flow in direction, that being M -> F. Understand that this was the 1970s.

Gradually things changed and matured and one day in 1986 I found a photoset in a naughty magazine that showed exactly what I liked. There it was, a girl wearing men’s briefs. And, OMG, on the next page, a girl wearing a jockstrap! I was over the moon. Then, on a visit the sadly missed Lee Brewster’s in 1990, I found a, ahem, x-rated video! Wow!

By the time the internet came along, I began writing CD fiction that expressed this fantasy. While some of my stuff served for the purposes of titillation, a bit of it was quite romantic. The romantic stuff was written as wish, a prayer cast upon the winds that I would find a girl who would not only be okay with my crossdressing, but would also indulge my fantasies and wear guy’s stuff, including undies for me.

I won’t go into details, as that would be indiscreet, but suffice to say, all my dreams came true when I met my wife. And it is totally great!

Huggles

Toni-Lynn

[Josephine 1941]

Hi Lisa Vin , after reading all of the other replys to your post it is as veried as any question that is posted on here. I now refer to the female cloths that I have as my cloths. My GG has going out as a male once an said she now realized that she loves her role as a women. That was because she took on all of the man type roles she did not like it. We all that dress must realized that we love also to the fact of being a women. I strive to look as much as a women as I can. I come very close in looks and mannerism that is who we are. I do not want to become a women down there as I love that part of me as a man. I must confess that i do love breasts I have a 32 A an wished they were bigger, I get great pleasure in wearing my 36 C. the debate shall continue. :brolleyes: :devil: :tongueout :eek: :daydreaming: :doh: :love:

[Alice B]

I would have no problem with it. My marriage is very sound and my wife is a very strong person. If she decided to try the other shoe I would support her completely.

[jennylogan]

My wife wasn't upset so much with the dressing, it was hiding it from her through twenty years of marriage. I too would have been extremely upset had she come out after 20 years. Now that she knows about my cding she accepts and supports it but it was not an easy journey to get to this point. I have no doubt that if she wanted to try being a guy I would support her in the same manner she supports me when I am en femme. Still she is far too secure in her femininity and womanhood/motherhood to ever entertain this as a possibilty unless it was a Halloween costume type situation.

[lisa_vin]

Wow, lots of good, thoughtful and honest responses.....exactly what I was shooting for. (BTW.....I noticed there is a thread in the "Loved Ones" forum called "Sticky: Not telling/lies and hiding things from a GG's POV" which can serve as an excellent companion to this thread. There is a repetitve theme that is expressed by the vast majority of GG's there: "Don't lie or hide it from your SO, if you do and she finds out it will makes things a lot worse. Ok I'm not saying on the first date but certainly before things get really serious and defiantly before anything sexual happens.

Imagine how you would feel, been married for a few years then all of a sudden your wife comes out with something, how would you feel? well an SO feels betrayed, lied to and feels that her partner can't trust her.")

I said I would give my POV after this ran a little while so here is my response.
I have always had a great capacity for acceptance, tolerance, understanding, compassion and compromise. I was born with it.....it's part of who I am. I have both conservative and liberal viewpoints on many things.....people say I'm the easiest person in the world to get along with. You can talk honestly and openly to me about anything, anytime......nothing is taboo. With that as my backdrop and with that other forum of the GG's POV as a guide, I must say I would feel just as terrible as the GG's/SO's feel because of lying, betrayal and secrets by my SO. I'm only human but I do possess the gifts of flexibility, bendable boundaries and compromise, compromise, compromise! I would NEVER deny another person their happiness, comfort, relaxation or desires because of what society or others think is wrong or deviant! Rules and boundaries can be set for anything and they are always negotiable if nothing else. Once the shock factor subsides, I can be very mellow and agreeable. I have my limits as well as everybody else but am willing to stretch those limits within my reasoning. If my SO decided that she NEEDED to express the male side of her, or whatever, then I am more than willing to discuss rules, boundaries and compromises. Especially because I KNOW that denying or forcing a person to suppress such a deep-seated need/desire as this will only lead to unhappiness and discord.

In roughly the same vein that I have broken her trust and betrayed her with my own lies and secrets about my cd'ing, she has also broken my trust and betrayed me with 3 attempted affairs in our 30 years of marriage. I don't know how far they went or want to know but, after the hurt and anger faded, I forgave her each time. However, our relationship is forever strained. Trust will never be fully restored and suspicions will always arise at the slightest provocation. She is nowhere near as open-minded and flexible as I am and certain subjects cannot ever be discussed. My cd'ing caused her to think all sorts of unsavory things about me because of the secrecy, lies and her mind-visuals and I don't think I can ever fully erase those. Her affair attempts have caused doubts and suspicions in me as well that may never fully subside. We are constantly in a state of uncertainty about where our marriage and relationship goes from here but get along as well as can be expected.

To close this out, I can truthfully and honestly state that if my marriage fails, any future relationships for me involving a possible future SO will be covered with a full, UP-FRONT disclosure of my feminine side and my cd'ing desires. I wish to avoid the feeling that I may have wasted many years of my SO's life in a relationship that was based on secrets and lies and I will expect no less honesty from the SO as well.

One more thing on the subject of cd'ing.......I have to agree with Yvonne's earlier statement concerning this:

"I totally disagree with this.

Women who are just following the current fashion trend are nothing like M2F crossdressers. These women are not trying to pass themselves off as men and their fashion choices do not affect or reflect their sense of self.

What if your wife cut her hair short and styled it like a man's, wore a fake mustache and wore men's fruit of the loom white briefs, binded her chest so as not appear to have breasts, change the way she walked so she looked like she was lumbering, put wadded up socks in her crotch so she looked...like a guy, slouched in her chair, spread her knees apart and stuck her feet out into the middle of the room. And wanted to be called Mike."

Well said Yvonne!

Love & hugs,
Lisa

[RylieCD]

If it were me and I wasnt a CD (TG) and I found out that my wife was we would probably be in the same place that we are now. I try thinking of my wifes feelings, That is half the reason why i tried hiding it from her but yet I wanted to be open and honest, yes the latter is better but still a struggle. I think if the roles were reveresed that we would still do what ever it took to save the relationship since we are in love with the person but neither one of us are gay, so the relationship would most likely end past the point of CDing.

[Janet Bern]

I think if I found out that my SO like CDing, it would surprise me but most woman have already changed over to mens clothes. I probably would be fine with it and go along with her wants and then share closets.
Janet

[Jamie001]

But what if she wanted to wear a "paste-on mustache and paste-on beard" as part of her appearance? I believe that is the real question.


I think if I found out that my SO like CDing, it would surprise me but most woman have already changed over to mens clothes. I probably would be fine with it and go along with her wants and then share closets.
Janet

[Sheila]

most woman have already changed over to mens clothes.
Janet

Does this mean we will be seeing more F2M CDR's in mens clothes from now on :heehee:

[Karren H]

Honestly I would be so upset I would want a divorce!!! And that's exactly why I understand her feelings about my hobby... And I don't blame her one bit if she chucked it all and left....

[bimini1]

I'd love it. I think we could go as her being he and me being she. We could support one another. I think I said this in an earlier post I once had a girlfriend who I suspected was TG. Anytime she was presented with having to be a 'girl' she did not like it at all.
Everything from monthly cycles to having to fit in the social boundaires of femaleness. I think she was scared to expound upon it though and at the time I was carrying around alot of self hate.
As I think back oh the possibilites, had I had a little more self acceptance I would have encouraged her to explore it.

[kittypw GG]

I think if I found out that my SO like CDing, it would surprise me but most woman have already changed over to mens clothes. I probably would be fine with it and go along with her wants and then share closets.
Janet

I did not realise that I have "changed over to mens clothes". I guess that there really is no need for the gg section. Maybe this site should just combine the ftm section since we all have switched????

Wow, I"m a ftm crossdresser, I had no idea. Thanks for enlightening me.

Kitty

[Suzie S.]

Anyone that thinks gg's putting on men's clothes is crossdressing is missing the boat here. Kitty is correct. We're talking about completely presenting as male...short hair, bulge in pants, moustache etc. This is a different animal.

As a crossdresser, I can understand the need/desire to dress, act, and look the opposite gender. If I wasn't, and I discovered that my wife was....well, I think I would be quite upset and unnerved. I would probably feel a bit betrayed that she didn't tell me from the get go.

Although not proud of the fact that I would likely react this way, it also makes me clearly understand how my wife probably feels about me being a cder. It is also one of the reasons I feel so ashamed and guilty of what I do.

My wife is a strong and wonderful woman to accept ( or at least tolerate) my cding. I know it's a large weight on her shoulders, and I try the best I can to not make it too heavy.

I love my wife more than anything in this world, she is my best friend. I would hope I could step to the plate and work on understanding her being a cder and somehow make it all work within the marriage. I know this is a hypothetical question, but hope I would respond in the same fashion I would do with anything else that life has thrown at the two of us.

[Kate Simmons]

Seems like kind of a rhetorical question. The reason I say that is because as men, especially men like us who are trying to make sense of it all and also trying to fulfill our "assigned" role in society tend to be confused with the feelings and for the most part don't know how to express them. Ergo, we choose a rather demonstrative way to do it and sometimes go over the top. We also tend to be self centered but that is mostly genetics.

Women on the other hand have a better handle on who they are as people and go with the flow with the feelings without question because they have the ability to be natural care givers which is also genetic. In any case, it's been proven countless times that most people(both men and women) are capable of fulfilling both or either role sometimes due to circumstances.

What I'm getting at is that most women don't see the need or really want to be anyone other than who they are. We seem to idealize womanhood by doing what we do but honestly, it merely scratches the surface of what being a woman is all about. We tend to glorify the "glitter" part rather than what it's really all about and since we idealize the femininity, we tend to be appalled that our SO would even consider looking like and acting like a man. I think what scares us the most is that by doing that they would follow through and lose their caring ability especially for us and our family. The proverbial shoe is on the other foot if you understand what I'm saying.

In all fairness, it's a double edged sword that most men would not be willing to take up. We cannot have it both ways without the "worm" turning. Something to seriously think about for sure.:)

[darla_g]

wow the amazing thing about this question is i was talking to a really close GG friend of mine yesterday and she posed this very same question to me. I don't think i adequately answered so i will now.

while i am not personally into guys, I think I am open minded enough to be accepting and willing to accept it. Especially knowing it was my spouse! So for me it would be acceptance first and maybe my kinky side kicking in too.

My wife has been fairly accepting of me so for me to not be capable of reciprocating would be really inconsistent on my part.

[Sandra]

I think if I found out that my SO like CDing, it would surprise me but most woman have already changed over to mens clothes. I probably would be fine with it and go along with her wants and then share closets.
Janet


Hmmm changed over to mens clothes have we? well the last time I shopped for clothes was in the ladies dept, didn't see any male clothes there. :confused: Clothes that I wear are designed for the female body shape, and if I should choose to wear any male clothes, it would be becasue I wanted to and not because I was cding, if I was cding then I would cut my hair, create a bulge, and bind my chest, that is cding not just wearing the clothes, just as you do when you don your wig, forms and makeup.


I do just wonder if you all were not cders, what you reactions would be then if your wife came out with this. Maybe some of the answers here are a little bias because of you own situations

[debbeelee1]

I love my SO dearly! She supports and encourages my CD'ing and I encourage and support her activities too!

[secretlypsycho]

...most woman have already changed over to mens clothes...

Rubbish. The clothes I wear are designed specifically for women, for a female body shape. Because it might happen to be a pair of pants rather than a dress or skirt doesn't make it men's clothing.

If we are to believe that crossdressing is about more than "just the clothes", then what a woman wears doesn't make them a crossdresser, their intentions do. And if they are binding their breasts, wearing a prosthetic penis and fake facial hair, then I guess you could probably assume their intentions were to crossdress. If a woman is simply wearing a pair of pants, whether they are deemed "mens" or "womens" then I don't think the same assumption can be made.

I do think it would be interesting to see whether people's reactions would in fact be the same as they have claimed to be here... I think it can be quite easy to be idealistic about how we would respond when we're not actually IN a given situation, but that the reality can be quite different - and that applies to all areas of our lives, not just crossdressing!