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Part of my job is doing cost-benefit analyses. To compare equals to equals, it's required to monetize the intangibles.
As an example, what if crossdressing is the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back. The result might be divorce, possibly leading to the loss of half of everything you own, and some large portion of your future earnings. That could be considerable, depending on your financial circumstances.
It's pretty clear to me that two people can't live separately as cheaply as they can together. So, one should include a serious degradation in quality of life. When my brother got separated, prior to his divorce, she kept the house and he moved into a turn of the century house in a "low rent" neighborhood. Because this apartment had no insulation at all, he couldn't afford to keep the inside temperature above 60F in the winter.
Then, there's what I'll call "alienation of affection". My wife hasn't been interested in sexual relations in at least the past 6 years. She moved out or the marital bed 6 years ago on what may have been a pretext (the noise from my CPAP machine). However, she won't move back in because she says that she is no longer physically attracted to me. Most times, we are little more than roommates. Why do I put up with this arrangement? See the paragraph above about divorce. Also, because she "allows" me some girl time out of the house.
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Cathreen is asking about how can sufficient benefits pass to our SOs for whom the cost of us crossdressing is embarrassment or worse.
Embarrassment people can be from mild, as in "well, it is a bit unusual to be seen with a crossdresser, and I wonder if anyone thinks a little less of me" - to a full blown fearful panic.
There apparently are tribes in Africa which basically kill unpopular people by stopping all talking with them. It was presented to me as basically being isolated totally renders a person hopeless, and the many ways we rely on others being impossible, the person goes crazy, wanders off, and dies.
It might be anecdotal, but here is an academic anthropological article on ostracism. http://www.freenation.org/a/f22h2.html
Social shaming is a form of ostracism, and embarrassment is the feeling of being caught, or connected with someone who is about to be punished. So my wife is embarrassed to imagine being caught as a woman with a crossdressing husband. She is also terrified of the ostracism that would result- her current friends no longer feeling like they really want to confide in her or hear her confidences, for example. She is afraid that her social network of support will vanish and she will be left clinging to a husband who is not only the cause of it, but someone who she does not feel loyal to in the sense of defending me, or even finding out if she might want to defend me.
In this scenario, there is no benefit worth the cost, of course. I keep myself going by imagining that if I become such a great person emotionally for her as a result of crossdressing, her fear will subside enough to notice that for the most part society is not going to ostracize her, or punish her, and that the cost is negligible relative to the benefits. Her girlfriends will be jealous that I am such a great husband emotionally, so there might be a slight positive! I don't think she sees benefits from helping break down toxic social norms, etc.
