Getting increasingly frustrated with DADT...
As many of you know from my previous posts, my wife's reaction to my crossdressing over the course of our lengthy marriage has pretty much paralleled the classic "5 Stages of Grief" that people typically go through when faced with a life-altering change, and this has now defaulted into "DADT" mode. This is still a work in progress and we have our good days and our bad, but overall, she has pretty much resigned herself now to the fact that that I am transgendered, and that this will never change.
What has made this realization exceedingly hard for her is that she is of a generation (the MAD MEN era) where men were men and women were women, men were the head of the household, and the gold standard for masculinity was embodied by the likes of Sean Connery's version of James Bond. Well, I can tick off all three of those boxes when in male mode without any great difficulty; trouble is, there is a bit more to me than that, and "Leslie" will not be denied.
So for us, DADT means that I get to shave off all of my body hair year-round now, I have a substantial wardrobe of women's clothes that she knows about but neither wants to see me in (or even see altogether), and my going out in public on a semi-regular basis without incident in "Leslie" mode for over 5 years now. My part of the deal is that I do this discreetly and take no unnecessary risks that would "out" me to family, friends, or others who would have the power to negatively impact our lives through their disapproval. As far as the rest of the world and the "normal" part of our lives are concerned, for all intents and purposes, "Leslie" doesn't even exist. I also do other things to enhance the quality of our marriage to make up for what my wife may be missing out on by now having "Leslie" to contend with.
But as we all know, women can be fickle, and what is fine one day can inexplicably become an issue the next. And whatever concessions I have been able to negotiate with my wife have been hard-fought over the years, and the emotional cost has been high. Others in our situation might have been inclined to call it quits after all these years because of this, but the truth of the matter is that we have a fundamentally solid marriage otherwise and share many values. The reasons for staying in it for the long haul far outweigh the reasons for potentially throwing in the towel at this point.
And yet - sometimes I feel so frustrated by this total rejection of such an important part of who I am. This has been compounded by the fact that over the last several years during which I have been actively going out as "Leslie", I have met a number of women who are no only totally fine with "her" but are also intrigued by "her" and appear to feel privileged to have made "her" acquaintance. And when I say this, I am not talking about extra-marital affairs or any other type of fooling around behind my wife's back. I am talking strictly about platonic relationships with ladies such as my makeup artist, nail techs, consignment store owners, feature story writers, photographers and the like, some of which have since blossomed into actual friendships.
Just as an example, last month while getting a makeover - and after complimenting me yet again on the particular outfit that I was wearing that day - my makeup artist mused aloud that she really needs to bring me along the next time she goes clothes shopping. Whether or not this ever comes to fruition remains to be seen, but the spontaneous way in which she blurted it out really caught me off-guard - but in a decidedly good way. I think that I would spot a pig flying over a frozen H*ll before a similar comment would ever be made by my wife.
Yes, I "get" the fact that for most women, finding out that the man whom she has a romantic/sexual relationship with is a crossdresser is far harder to accept than if he were just a friend, an acquaintance, or even another family member. Still, it hurts when the person whom you have dedicated your life to and who should be in your corner unconditionally cannot fulfill an emotional need that someone who only knows you in a more superficial manner can...
Sorry for venting in this way, but this has become a major frustration for me. My wife and I are both extremely strong-willed when it comes to such matters, and marriage counseling has been only marginally successful in this regard. For those ladies on this forum who are in a similar situation, any advice that you might have in overcoming this impasse (short of divorce) would be most welcome. Input from the GG's here would be especially valuable...
need new ways to discuss this topic
Leslie, like Rader, I'm neither a GG nor a do have this particular problem but I am always puzzled by what happened to "for better or worse" (and 'til death do us part) in the marriage vows and the fact that "trust" always seems to be an issue afterwards. Women don't ask up front if their men are CDs or if there is anything that they cannot' trust " them with. Better means you won the billion dollar jackpot, and worse means your a CD? The wives might get something "better" in a more compatible mate and could certainly do "worse" with someone else. What if she had discovered--after marriage--that you had 6 toes or undescended testicles. Would that have made you less of a man in her eyes. It shouldn't have. The problem is that men let women believe the Hollywood nonsense about "men" like Bond and any number of "heroes" and likewise women let men believe that Marilyn Monroe is the epitome of femininity. If you look at some of the old Bond movies, and other movies with leading men where skin is shown, you will see a lot of hairless chests, arms etc.. The examples are there and women didn't complain. If they could swoon over them--hairless and phoney hereos, why not their own husbands? Are women the "second sex" and so low in their own opinion, that a man dressing as one is one more step removed?
for those that say they have lost trust, was there any agreement up front that mentioned trust? If you have robbed your employer, it would be difficult to imagine that they would repeat their trust (in at least some circumstances) , but what has a wife lost? Just because a guy doesn't say he's a CD doesn't make him any the less trustworthy. With-holding information is not the same as lying about something .He hasn't actually stolen anything, physical or mental, from anyone, because the issue was never there in the first place. If one had retired then confided that their job at the foreign office was one of being a spy, would a spouse cry loss of trust? Not likely. So what is it about a person's mental makeup that women can't seem to get to grips with when it comes to being a little or lot feminine? We are still the same MEN. Are we all consigned to being knuckle-draggers just to please the opposite sex? And, when a woman accepts her spouse as a Cd, just exactly how does she rationalize that acceptance?
sorry this doesn't answer your question, but perhaps provides a road to alternate thinking about ways to approach her on the subject.
