Going to a Halloween party with my wife's approval
So I've had butterflies in my stomach all week. My wife says she's totally ok with me going to a party dressed up in a female costume. After over two decades of DADT I asked my wife if it would be ok if I went as a "pretty witch" to a Halloween party at the museum---and I was shocked that she said she was fine with it.
Just after we were married, we had The Talk. It didn't go well. She tried but just couldn't deal with it. A few years later we started a family, and I felt that risking blowing up my marriage was the worst thing I could possibly do, so I have kept it to myself all that time. And with the job and covid I haven't even dressed fully in five or six years. But we have changed as people over all that time, and I have been planning---and planning---to bring this up again with her.
After a lot of thought on how to approach this, last weekend I found out about a costume party at the museum on the Saturday night before Halloween, and for a long time the museum has been something I've wanted to go to as Daphne. I felt that there wasn't going to be a better opportunity, and I knew she had to work all day, so I was pretty sure she wouldn't want to go. So on Tuesday, I told her I wanted to go to this event, and I wanted to dress up as a witch. But not an ugly witch---I told her I wanted to go all out and be a pretty one.
I had tried to anticipate every possible reaction---anger, crying, passive rage, shock, etc. I felt the best response I could possibly expect would be some sort of begrudging approval, but instead, the answer I got was "yeah, sure, no problem, have fun!". I had planned to segue into a discussion about what it would mean to me to have some space in my life to dress up occasionally, but she immediately started talking about another unrelated but important family issue that she suddenly remembered, and I didn't bring the subject up again that night.
I spent a couple days thinking over what this meant. Maybe she wasn't making the connection. I became quite anxious and considered not going through with it. I've kept it inside for so long and I could think of a million things that could go wrong. Plus the logistics seemed overwhelming---finding time for hair removal, shopping (I have gained some weight during covid), planning.... Any pink fog I had after the first conversation was replaced by a big grey stress cloud.
So I asked her again the night before last, "I should decide on this ticket soon. Are you really ok with me going to this? And are you sure you're fine with me dressing up as a witch? I'm going to put some effort into being a pretty witch, not an ugly one. You are ok with that?" She said "yes, no problem, go have fun!" So I said "Would you like to come?" "I would have loved to but I will be dead tired after working all day."
I decided that the situation was good, and anything more I could say would just risk screwing it up. So I talked a little more about the event then we spent the evening hanging out together watching TV.
I'm going for more of a pretty, Samantha/Bewitched witch-next-door effect than an over-the-top Elvira thing. I made an appointment to get a makeover, because I want to get this right---if my wife ends up seeing me dressed, I want her to have the best first impression I can manage. Coincidentally, she will be a witch at work, so I'm going to leave it open that maybe we can go out for a drink as two witches in between her coming home and me going out. She didn't seem at all averse to seeing me dressed up, so maybe it's a possibility.
I'm not going to push too hard or fast. but it feels like a good opportunity to move the discussion forward. I'll be pragmatic and see how things go as we talk about this together this week, but I feel optimistic.
-Daphne
