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Yes, and ...
Almost all of us here on crossdressers.com are in some form of relationship or another with a significant other (SO). Almost without exception, we will at some time or another need to have a discussion about the role and function of our crossdressing in our relationship.
It seems to me that there are four possible outcomes:
1. No, and ... which is where your significant other will not countenance any level of crossdressing in your relationship and expresses this in no uncertain terms. This tends to end in the break-up of a relationship.
2. No, but ... which is your typical DADT relationship, where the SO knows you dress in secret, but refuses to acknowledge it or have any part of it. Such relationships can, and do, survive.
3. Yes, but ... which is where discussion leads to the laying down of mutually agreed boundaries, usually involving crossdressing only at home, or away from home, on one?s own. One?s SO says, yes, but only under certain circumstances. There is a level of participation involved. Such members on the forum are usually envied for having accepting partners.
4. Yes, and ... which is where one?s SO is fully accepting of one?s crossdressing and is prepared to fully embrace it. This may include going out together, or even eventually agreeing to a full transition, without separating. There are many instances of this on the forum, and I hold such couples in high esteem!
My failed marriage fell into the first category; my present relationship probably falls into category 3.
Where does your relationship fit? Why? For what reason? How did it come about?
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Gale, I have some disagreement with the categories, especially your definition of DADT. My relationship is actually a blend of number 2 and 3. She knows. We have boundaries. I wear panties openly with her and she knows that I dress, just doesn?t want to be around me when I fully dress, or discuss it. I think there is a wide variety of relationships, more of a continuum from fully open and supportive to fully closed and rejecting. I would hesitate to oversimplify by breaking it down into only four categories. Nancy
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So yours is a mixture of 2 and 3, Nancy, and you have explained the reasons for this. I'm happy with that.
This is not a market research survey, so I am not going to press you to choose either 2 or 3!
:love:
How did it come about?
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My wife and I are a strong Yes,but...My CDing is fully accepted by my wife. She does participate with me up to a point,helping and teaching me the dark art of makeup, helping me select wardrobe, offering assistance with my overall presentation, both in photos and in person, and perhaps best of all discussing all matters CD with me without hesitation or a sense of discomfort. There is but one condition on all this, and that is that I do not crossdress publicly. I consider this a more than equitable trade considering all I get in return, and I'm hoping one day she will warm to this is as well, and then we will be yes,and... It could happen, especially since I am not interested in transition.
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Ok.twice failed, so I do not know if I should even play?but let me apply the 4 categories to two marriages that encompassed 40 years of relationships (god, that sounds like a long time). I would probably give both marriages a 2 out of 4, but mostly because I did not express myself ?hell did not even understand myself?sufficiently to ask for their support. My first wife?I honestly think would be a 4, as long as she felt included. Second wife, I?m not quite so sure?she wanted to be a 3 or 4, but well, again, I was not very good at communicating?and maybe not so good at understanding myself.
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Former relationship was definitely a solid 4.
Current marriage is probably somewhere between 3 and 4. In saying that I am not overly wanting to dress as we children in the house and I am not ready to explain this part of my life to them. As I don't have any of my own clothes around sometimes I will slip on my wife's instead.
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I'm totally in the Yes, but column. Having said that, it has been over 25 years of the wife knowing about my dressing habits. Through this period of time the limitations have gotten lesser and lesser. I'm now probably the one know places any limitations on myself now. I would never go out dressed to the nines, I would never pass for anything other than an old guy in a dress. I do underdress all of the time, sometimes she tells me that I have lace showing, and that I need to button up one more button when we are out.
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Toyally a YES AND relationship. Why? Because I told my partner 3 weeks into the relationship. It makes no sense it this day and age that someone starts a relationship without this being totally in the open.
She totally loves and supports me just as I love and support her.
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We are at #4, but have been at all the other steps getting there.
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Between 3 and 4 (married 47 years)
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You have left out the outcome where the spouse doesn't know, and having met two CDs in real life for which that is the case, and having been on this board for regularly for over five years, a fairly significant portion of this forum (probably greater than 10%) have never disclosed to their spouse/significant other.
And the question of the survival of the marriage is likely in many cases unrelated to the items you list, as 45% of marriages end in divorce. There are a ton of reasons why people divorce, and multiple categories of how crossdressers and spouses interrelate. They just don't fit neatly into small different boxes.
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Would that scenario not fall into the DADT category 2, Hidden? The person concerned has not asked, and will not tell. The SO cannot ask, cos they haven'y been told.
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I would say almost a 4. I told my wife on our second date. She accepts my crossdressing and a number of years ago actually went to a few parties with me. She has since decided that is not her thing. She has no issue with me being dressed and going out. She just asks that I be careful and not do anything foolish. Not a bad situation.
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I have been at 1 but since slipped into 2.
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Gale, my wife and I are in the third category. She is accepting and boundaries have been set. While the dressing is a total turn off for her and she doesn't want to see me (which suits me fine), she is supportive, since she bought me some makeup, gave me clothes, let me borrow a necklace. The very late coming out causes a lot of damage, trust was broken and needs mending. She doesn't always know if I'm telling the truth and not keeping information from her. However she is not overly suspicious, it's just that she can't believe me a 100% anymore. She's a loving wife, who does her best given the circumstances and what I did to her.
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We are a 3. Her major rule is not to see me dressed. Other than that, she is pretty much ok with my dressing.
Sara
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I am a Yes but. She has spent a few evenings with me dressed. I am no longer asked if I am gay. I am asked not to leave the house. ( I still go out shopping). I am lousy at taking directions.
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Prior to 10 years ago, my wife, by her own admission, never knew a thing about that side of me. Not unusual. SO's (either way) often only see what fits their image of how their partner is without any recognition of other aspects. When I came out 10 years ago my wife was shocked and very hurt, as expected. It was rough for awhile but after 43 years of marriage (at that point - now 53) we have always worked things out by compromise and agreements and a good deal of empathy and compassion on both sides. So we would fit into your category 3. I do wear a lot of feminine colored shirts, a pair of flats around the house, and sometimes panties. So that fits as well.
I really think you need to modify your category 2 to allow for those situations where the SO does not know OR create a new category where that is the case and it is all a secret. Secret keeping is very common in most relationships, but most of the time it involves minor things. When it involves major things like crossdressing, having affairs, being dishonest about your sexual orientation and a pile of other things the relationship is at serious risk of failing if the secret is found out.
Admitting to a secret, if done correctly (not being bull headed and demanding or dictatorial) can often end well. I have seen here people whose marriage have ended badly and they are perplexed as to why the SO reacted to so badly. Crossdressing is often an expression of female-like emotions and behaviors that make the person who engages in the activity comfortable, but when forced on another that is a characteristic of traditional and stereotypical male-like behavior and thinking which is a total contradiction to the gender expression. That is not likely to end well at all. But full dressing is rare and that is OK because we operate on the basis of compromise agreements which respect the more esoteric existence of a loving relationship between two people that are not identical.
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#3 for me.
Nighties and panties are ok. In recent years, I've been able to add to the "nightwear" category in the form of a bathrobe and slippers.
Nothing else is OK. Even though she knows I have more stuff hanging in the closet. She doesn't want to see me in any of it.
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low to mid 3's. no plan on ever transitioning so no 4. no way in hell i could be passable and i don't want to be a miad in public. most of my dressing is under and inside though i venture outside with some feminine clothes and lipstick
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I would say we are somewhere between 2 & 3. It sort of depends on her mood.
She is certainly aware and not a NO and also certainly not a YES or participatory. She has established that she doesn’t want to see me because she says she will never be able to unsee me that way and is afraid it will therefore alter our relationship. After 30+ years together, neither of us want to jeopardize that. She has been helpful at times and on occasion is willing to talk about it, but despite knowing very early on in our relationship, she has never been forced to come to terms with it until recently because I really was only on the fringe of actions until recently. In other words I kept it completely closeted and it was reasonably rare, plus no real enhancements.
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I would say number 2, "No but ..."
To me, number 2 equates to "Tolerate" but not accept. I call it, "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."
We do have boundaries that allow me to go out occasionally, but she will not participate in any form. As someone said above, she doesn't want to see me, even in pictures, because then she'll never be able to un-see me.
My equivalent categories are:
1. Hates
2. Tolerates
3. Accepts
4. Participates
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I'd say Yes, but...
My wife of 25 years has know about Jennifer since before we got married. I felt she needed to know about that part of me. She often attributes some of my kinder traits to the Jenn side.
So, why the but? Because even with her acceptance the days that Jenn appears are a bit uncomfortable. When Jenn is not around, we regularly touch, hug and kiss through out the day. Very frequently. Its just the way we are. But when Jenn is around there is none of that. We still carry on normal conversations but the dynamic is different.
Oh, and Jenn only appears in the house. She doesn't got out.
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I have to go with two.
Why? Because my wife refuses to have any conversation concerning my cross dressing...since the mid 1980's. I call it "The Ostrich" effect; stick head in ground.
For What Reason? "If I wanted to be married to a woman, I would have married a woman," she declared. When my wife first meet me, we were in the army. I had just gotten discharged from a military hospital from being wounded in Nam. I was a my military height (6'2") and weight (175) with a full head of blond hair. She was attracted to me as a physical specimen and my personality. Nothing, other than straight sex, came into play until we had been married for a while. Years before I had dabbled in my mother's lingerie draw. When I outgrew my mother's clothes my youthful interests ebbed. After we were married I had bought her a white peignoir set. One night my love of nylon was rekindled and I tried it on. She discovered me wearing it in the kitchen while I was getting a drink of water. A conversation ensued. I told her I like the feel of the nylon material. We ended up incorporated some (two) nightgowns into the bedroom scene as a little "kink," for a lack of a better word. She bought me several pairs of stockings and a garter belt. Fast forward a decade and my interests expanded. One day our three year old daughter pulled a red Vanity Fair bra from my little collection in a box in the bottom draw of my armoire. "The Talk" ensued, and, that was it, "If I wanted to be married to a woman, I would have married a woman!"
Where are we now? It's that deep "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." On occasion she has found an article of clothing I failed to secure; bra or panty. All she did was fold them and place them out of sight and told me. No screaming or yelling. She found I failed to close the screen on this sight once. She told me to be more careful in case a visitor were to see it. No screaming or yelling. Several years ago, when she was clearing out all the lovely nightgowns from the back of her side of the walk-in closet, she had them all piled on the bed. She told me to take anything I wanted. That made my jaw drop. I did secure that original purchase; white peignoir set. Not knowing how to gauge women's sizes when I had purchased it, the nightgown swam on her. It was a medium. As we sleep apart for medical reason, I sleep in a nightgown and panty, and, I frequently wear it. It complements the pink peignoir we had bought together for me before "It" blew up.
How did it come out? Since my wife does not want to engage in any form of discussion I have amassed way to much feminine garments. I think the proper term would be "retail therapy." I have nobody to share my inner feelings. I have nobody to rein in my excessive buying; 162+ dresses, hundred of slip and panties, etc. With both of us now fully retired my only outlet with Covid is sleeping in a nightgown. Because she is a late riser I get to wear my night time attire under a floor length fluffy bathrobe.
That's life in a nutshell.
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I am solidly in the third category but it has taken some time to get there.
I didn't tell my wife up front (a huge regret) and she found out in a difficult way. At first i thought this might put us on the divorce path but between therapy and a lot of talking over time we have moved quite far along.
My wife would rather not see me dressed (though she has) and we are still negotiating some things but I have quite a bit of latitude in general. For instance, we mostly work from home and she knows that if I'm in my office I am likely dressed, my wardrobe is not hidden at all, I underdress daily and I go out in public dressed (a somewhat recent development).
There have even been hints of category four so who knows where it will end up.
Yes, I am one of the lucky ones (in my opinion).