Will the urge to dress come back?

Four months ago after I told my wife that I've been dressing since I was five, she told me I ruined her life.

I haven't dressed in the last five months.
Well now the wife and I seem to be back to normal.
But today after watching Little Britain, where half the skits involve crossing I could see it bothered her.

The Pink-Fog is very low right now and I haven't had the desire to dress but, I still am checking out what ever women is wearing.

If the Pink-Fog comes back at some point I'm afraid all hell will break loose if I bring it up or get caught.

I love being part of this group being able to say how I feel, Thirty years of being in the closet is a bummer.

I have tried it but it does come back.

It did for me ... lucky I was not married but it has ruined a few relationships for me.

I saw a therapist and that has helped.

PM me if u want

Judy there is no easy answer for any of this, to suppress these things as you are trying to do will likely explode someday
and you just won't be able to hold it back, maybe not but you and your wife need to find a way to make this work.

Judy, I super sympathize. I think a lot of us in long marriages really do not want to hurt our partners and so we do a lot of closet dressing and various forms of SHL [ Sneak Hide Lie ] to keep it from hurting. I'm off the 'never give up' type, idealistic about marriage and still think one day my wife will relent. My only hope is that she is kind, and to the degree she can see that it is a product of emotional injury for me, she is sympathetic, and that moderates her anger, though not her fear and revulsion. Additionally, she realizes she is not an angel either, and that it is hard just trying to be a consistently good person, so quirky behavior is in some way part of the things you have to deal with. That moderates the self-righteous part [you are wrong, not me].

My overall strategy is to move crossdressing [in her eyes] out of the scary sex pervert universe and into the understandable response to trauma universe, or the biological development risk universe, so that she can feel her softening as a virtue, and defend herself in her own mind if anyone wanted to know how she could put up with it and not stamp it out!

Women enforce norms on each other and on men, to keep the system going. There is a huge amount of fear about what would happen if men and women didn't keep to predictable norms, and a tacit agreement that the two cages are roughly equal, with each team [men and women] having some really nice and some really bad things as their lot in life.

Crossdressers are a problem for people because they aren't following the rules, AND that it is a deeply motivated and emotional need, and as such is not easily quashed, much less even talked about, unless you just declare that anyone can feel and exercise any gender expression. The current transgender boom is going to help at some point, IMHO, as long as the basic golden rule comes back into favor in UUS politics and culture.

Back to our lives, many of us have partners who are really fearful about crossing gender lines. As a result of that blind fear,they may very well say things like "I would divorce you in a second if I catch you crossdressing." That will cure the pink fog for a few minutes, or months, as you found when out of love and concern you stopped SHOUTING [metaphorically] at her that you were not on board with the plan.

No matter what our SO's say when they are confessed to, we have to see it not as a final answer, but a first aid strike motivated by deep fear. We know that it is unfounded, for the most part. A hard part of it is that we have to ignore the subtext- that we are only desirable as their partner if we fulfill a certain predictable role. That is objectification by them of us, and that doesn't feel good. But most of us have objectified women at some point, so we can forgive it and get attention back on the non-objectified connection, which is what the long marriage eventually is supposed to give us! The action item is to say 'Were you uncomfortable when we watched Little Britain? I know it was hard for you to hear I started crossdressing long before puberty, and it is some kind of quirk of development. That doesn't make it any easier for you, I know. But it is not uncommon, which is why it shows up in popular culture. From my own experience, I felt it was accurate in ... and kind of fell into stereotypes with the ...... Then change the subject. This is you standing up for yourself, for the child who saw and felt things that couldn't be said, but could be assuaged by putting on women's clothes. By not asking anything of her, but not trying to do the impossible and not be who you are, we can make a progressively larger closet.

Judy;

I've followed you posts for some time, In a previous post you stated

"My SO says she's excepts the LGBT community but, she feels it's messed up if a male uses makeup or dresses fem at all.
We were watching TV last night and a lesbian news woman came on dressed in a mans suite, typical man's hairstyle, and no makeup.
She said it's good to see how far women have come.
Then later on the (Bill Mather show) Eddie Izzard was on as a guest wearing a woman's suite and makeup and my SO ranted on about how messed up it was."

The issue is not the Pink Fog or DADT, the issue is your spouses misunderstanding of the LGBT community and surprise ! gasp !, that she has a mate that is part of it.

Her world view includes;
. She accepts the LGBT as long as it doesn't include Transgender people especially her spouse
. It's empowering for women to blur gender lines, but it's repulsive for men to do so.

From you posts you both are taking a passive/aggressive approach to the issue.

Maybe sitting down and talking about instead of bristling when a tv show comes on will improve things.

Judy ,
I'm going to agree with Kelly things aren't going to get any better, you've abstained for months now but she still can't let it go , but I'm afraid the talking isn't going to make much difference , she is getting it all her own way . You can bet she is just waiting to catch you out, I'm beginning to think she likes confrontation , a battle of wills that she intends to win.

If you want to dress you are going to have to find ways outside the house because it's getting too difficult in it. Next time you do you will be a bag of nerves, that is not good for any ones mental state .

I've said it before but you best option is finding a friendly social group who offer changing facilities , you may not thinks it's you until you try it . Finding true friends in that situation will do far more good than harm. The point is then is if your wife finds out you can argue that as she doesn't want to know or see it, you were being fair to her by finding a safe outlet away from her .

Great points and thoughts by all. There is a chance the desire will not come back; just not a very good one. In fact, pretty low. Like you, I began very young. Denied for 55 years and then had to face the music. My wife is understanding and supportive of trans people, but she has a bit of a double standard when it comes to me. She knows that I sometimes dress when she is gone, but insists it not happen when she is here. No real rationale; it is just the way it is.

Philli's comments on not wanting to hurt our mate when the marriage is ancient (48 years here) is right on the money. The love is stronger than the desire, but that doesn't make it any easier when the fog rolls in. So, even though I have desired to be more open I have had to compromise to maintain peace in the marriage. Far, far from ideal, but the alternative of living in a life of stress between us or ending the marriage over this one issue is pretty difficult to envision. Some say I should just do it and let the chips fall where they may. Problem is, I view that as a pretty masculine action based on control and domination. That is contrary to my feminine identity who is much more compromising and always feels the comfortable medium is best even though not ideal. But isn't she controlling me? In this regard yes, but not with regard to anything else. So, under the circumstances, we make our choices and we have to live with them. If the fog comes back for you then you will need to make your own choice as to what to do. If the rest of your marriage is solid then perhaps compliance with the wife's standards are what is best for now. But if she open to discussing trans issues in a non-personal sense then that might be a way to relax some of her hardened views. But if your wife is like mine then it might be best to not get your hopes up too much for you personally. Enjoy what you have in the rest of your marriage.

Gretchen,
I believe Judy's wife is like mine she wants to control far more than the dressing situation, I also think there is a little more going on than the CDing problem and it gives an ideal excuse to totally dominate the household. This is something Judy mentioned in a previous thread saying how the children were also treated in a similar way.

All that is bad enough to contend with but when you get the cutting hurtful comments on top married life eventually becomes something you want to escape from. That is where I am now and I wouldn't call it showing my dominating male side it's more wanting to live happily dressed as a female without feeling it's something wrong and shameful.

The so called compromises have become more and more one sided which is exactly what is happening to Judy she has abstained for 4-5 months but it's not making any difference to the comments, she states married life is getting back to normal but totally on the wife's terms, Judy's needs do not exist .If Judy is caught out now all that suffering abstention while be worth nothing .

I can see Judy being stripped of her pension when she retires and kicked out the door almost penniless . Sorry Judy I hope you prove me wrong but I've heard too many members of my social group say exactly these words . You really aren't going to turn the clock back no matter how much you abstain from dressing, she has it fixed in her mind and nothing is going to change it now.

You mostly have to see what makes you happy. I just don't understand why a women can't except a man doing something he enjoys and is willing to do it in privacy without the wife having any part of it. The problem sometimes on the site is that we don't know the whole story.
When I told my wife I told her that I don't want to change into a women and I'm not gay and I would be very happy in the closet and didn't care if she wanted nothing to do with it as long as I get some time to exercise these feelings. She did agree with it but if she didn't I was prepared to tell her that I couldn't stop and I was going to do it secretly and to do what ever she felt she had to with the relationship.
It's very hard to comment because I don't know you or your wife and don't know how strong your relationship is. I'm afraid I couldn't do what you are doing, I don't have that control and would have broke many times. You do what you feel is right and sometimes we have to ask ourselves what we are willing to go to war for, and understanding going to war may not result in a win, but maybe a compermise.
Relationships are hard enough and then we get handed these feeling that doesn't make it easier, keep us in the loop and as long as your here your looking for advice and hope u got something here.

No one can say, really, if or when the desire may come back. We can speculate, based on our individual experiences, but that's all any of us can offer....speculation.

That being said, one this is fairly likely. When "all hell broke loose" a few months ago, it got your attention. Now you're obviously alert - maybe even hypersensitive to anything that could trigger an adverse response from your wife. My guess is that she remains hypersensitive as well, if something as innocuous as a gender-related comedy skit can elicit a noticeable reaction.

So, what to do? I've tried written explanations, talking and I've tried avoiding the subject. I've tried to slyly integrate a few feminine items into my appearance. In my case, nothing worked and in the end, all hell really broke loose. But looking back the least damaging, or least ineffective approach seems to still be communication.

Another thought, and its probably a bit controversial, is to see if you can identify anything that might trigger your desire to dress. Right now, fear might be keeping it at a minimum. Its an opportune time to observe your own thoughts and responses. What catches your eye and conjures even a fleeting moment of desire? When does the desire seem most powerful? Do mood altering substances or sexual arrousal precipitate such thoughts?

If you can identify any such triggers, and at those moments manage to redirect your thoughts, your inner narrative, you may be able to make this period of abstinence more tolerable. Notice that I use the words might, may, probably....in other words, I am far from certain. I do know that its possible to step back from one's thoughts, view them from what might be considered a disinterested perspective, and in doing so challenge the emotions that these thoughts elicit.

Other than that, my only is that acceptance is the exception.

Will the urge come back? Here in the forum the word is that "it always comes back." But if it ever did go away for someone, chances are they wouldn't be hanging around here so I don't know that you can find a definitive answer by asking people for whom it is an active (even if suppressed) desire.

I think a better question would be "does the urge ever go away?" Right now you're suppressing the urge but that's not the same as it having gone away. You can probably successfully suppress it until tension builds up in other parts of your life and something has to give. In those situations, we often read people saying they "gave in to" the urge to dress and achieved stress relief. Their jobs didn't get better; their family lives didn't improve; they have no additional money; whatever other stressors they had in their lives are still there, but they achieved stress relief by dressing -- to me that argues that not dressing had been raising their level of stress all that time. It sounds like it's raising the level of stress for you now. Of course, only you know if that's true. But your signature line ("This is ME" I am not CRAZY, I'm just a GUY who likes dresses!) seems to imply that's true.

I hope you can eventually make peace with yourself and then make peace with your wife. Good luck.

In the OP's situation it really comes down to which is more important to her: Dressing, or Marriage?

From the sounds of things, the wife is not going to embrace CD-ing anytime this century. I could be mistaken, but the odds are not favorable.

Will the urge to dress come back?

I think you can bottled up Judy and put her on a shelf for just so long. Eventually the oppression will do one of two things. Either you'll dress or you'll go into a funk and take it out on your wife. Perhaps, if there is sufficient motivation to NOT dress, you won't. From your postings it seems you and your wife are avoiding the pink elephant in the room. Not talking does not stop her from having a wandering mind. Not talking seems to not stop you from other things fem, such as commenting about women on this site.

These past two weeks I finally had the opportunity to be en femme for the better part of five days while my wife went to visit our daughter. I had Stephanie time for the first time since March 2016. I even went for drives and strolls in the evening. It felt refreshing to be able to express myself. During that long hiatus which was imposed because my wife had medical issues and was not working, I was not 'climbing the walls' because my male presence was required as a supportive husband. Maybe my male DNA arose to be the supportive protective male and suppressed Stephanie. Or Stephanie thought she would just ease back into herself for awhile. I'm sure there is potential angst in the future when my male self is no longer required at the heightened need of the present.

If I were you with your total frustration I'd force a discussion. Not a ranting and raving hostile discussion, but, a soft tone discussion. Even if it is only you doing the talking at least you can let your wife know exacting who you are as a person. Tell her your level of frustration is rising to the point you may disappoint her and feel the need to be en femme. I wouldn't want to enter my retirement years knowing I'll be banging my head against a wall all the time waiting for the high heel to drop.

Will it come back--absolutely. It will return with a vengeance when you least expect it. So, be prepared.

I can't count the number of times I promised to quit and purged only to have it return stronger than ever. I also can not count the number of times my ex-wife accused me of lying to her and all the horribly rotten things she said to me over a 33 year period.

The last time was 17 years ago. When she began a tirade calling me everything but-- and again threatened divorce, I opened the door and told her to get out.

I've never looked back. Yes, the divorce was stressful, but I not only survived, but I have thrived. My life is significantly better today. I realized very quickly that I did not need her.

I can shop, dress and do what ever I want at any time.

jodi








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I got caught at a very bad time, in the hopsital and the creepiest guy on the site at the time is suddenly sending me creepy pictures of him dressed and undressed. I am very open to seeing every human being as a sexual object but this guy was like satan.

My clocking was awful. Using this as a starting point, I now quote from an esteemed gal pal in San Francisco:

"....My overall strategy is to move crossdressing [in her eyes] out of the scary sex pervert universe and into the understandable response to trauma universe, or the biological development risk universe, so that she can feel her softening as a virtue, and defend herself in her own mind if anyone wanted to know how she could put up with it and not stamp it out!"

My wife was devistated but her only daughter was coming out as, the daughter calls it, "queer." And truly queer she is. The apple of her step daddy's eye. Consequently, in our small family, the wife is in the minority but she has gay feelings too, I project. We are always talking about trans rights and donate money to those causes.

When the dust cleasred, my wife and I agreed that I would put all the clothes in one place and not touch them during for a month. We were then going to discuss it again after the month. That never happened. My wife has a very busy work life.

Also, we agreed to alcohol twelve step meetings. I knew the program and that was easy. That was four years ago. Been back dressing plenty but not as focused on the need to be dressed in public to just desire to be free of boys clothes. I love everything with a satin feel.

Does it ever go away? I doubt it. The only thing that has to change in a situation like that is coping skills. To my way of thinking.

Hugs to all. :kiss: How do make a kiss emoticon?... or heart? xxr

Yes. Next question.

What Heidi said! Hugs Lana Mae

Well said, good post phili!

I am not 100% about the Pink Fog reference but I'm assuming it relates to the overwhelming compulsion to the point of single-minded distraction that manifests when one of us feels the need to dress. As for whether the urge to dress will come back, in my experience it always has. For 30 years I found various ways to fight it and even suppress it but in the end the struggle just caused me to feel incomplete and as a result I cut off a lot of my emotions which was a huge mistake. I still ended up dressing anyway when the urge got so great that I thought I would go nuts if I didn't, then afterwards I lied to myself and pretended it was all happening to someone else but I became far too good at compartmentalising. That was no way for me to live and my solutions just felt like half measures and caused me far more misery in the long run so I don't recommend that.

Once I accepted the fact I was always going to dress at some point I think I somehow found a better sense of balance with it and while I would love to dress every day if I could I don't always need to even though part of my brain still might want me to. I guess what I am saying is I can handle it better now and I notice the signs of this Pink Fog when it manifests so I can either choose to breathe it in or take several steps back and hold it at bay for a bit. Of course I've always done this on my own since balancing everything around a partner is something else entirely and I sadly can't offer any useful advice there.

Will the urge to dress come back? Can the Pope swim, are fish catholic? 95% chance YES!
The real issue is that your wife wants to be in control, and that means you also. Personally I find that most controlling people have something in there back ground that is causing them to be that way. Like abuse, whether it be sexual, physical, or emotional, it is something that says when others are in control, bad things happen to them, so they must be in control to make sure that nothing bad happens to them. So, Judy, you either have to stop dressing, or stand up for yourself, and get a say in your life. Will this come at a cost, yes, but anything worth having is worth fighting for. It doesn't matter if it is your clothing habits, your marriage, or what you want for supper tonight, anything wanted badly enough is worth fighting for.
I have used this expression, "I might like Smokey the Bear, but I don't want my daughter to marry him". People may show sympathy towards LGBT people, but not in their own family, that's different. Some one can laugh at Uncle Milty in a dress, but not their husband, oh the shame of it! Of course it is a double standard, what do you expect from a controlling person? The longer you delay this situation, the worse it will get, and the more the pink fog tension will grow.

Shock aversion therapy might work. I don't think anyone has tried it for CD cessation yet. :eek:

Judy any of us who have lost the desires for any length of time will tell you that she always come back. In many cases she comes back stronger than before. One of your problems seems to be that even though you have not dressed in 5 months you wife has not moved on and is still bothered. Maybe now after not dressing for a longish time is a good time to talk to her about things?

Absolutely, postivly, yes....

I know when I look in the mirror as Judy in full makeup and wig I love it!
If I look in the mirror in a dress no wig or makeup I want to purge.
Makeup is so cool, can make average women look so sexy! of course when not over done,

If you are anything like me and many here then YES, the urge will return.
For many if not most this is not a "hobby" like woodworking or photography. It's simply not something we put aside when other things must be done and then go "you know I should get out my camera and take some family pictures". This is part of us and for me I have gone thru purges (too many over the decades) always to return to express what's inside of me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heidi Stevens

Yes. Next question.

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Exactly. I will come back