To much time on my hands

This is a long read. As the subject says I probably have to much time on my hands. I am 74, retired, blessed with an accepting wife, dress when I want (lol, daily) and confined to house mostly because of COVID. So to much thinking time.A little background. The earliest female dressing I can remember for me was between 1952 or 53 and about 1960. For you younger gals, back then we had to find ways to entertain ourselves. When it would rain and we couldnt go outside my 2 year younger sister and I would play house. We would wear my Mamas dresses and high heels. I can still remember the sound of those heels on the hardwood floors. My mother made my sisters clothes so after falling and hurting myself several times on her long dresses on day when it was raining Mama gave me a present she had made for me, a red dress with white daisies and my own 2 1/2 inch black heels and a pair of red panties that matched MY dress. LOL when I out grew them my sister got my hand me downs. Only rule was I had to change back to my boy cloths before Daddy got home from work. This all stopped about about 1959 or 1960 when I found out the real reason boys and girls were made different
Fast forward, married 23 years, 2 children and divorced. Not CD related at all since the desire to dress had not returned. We did have some roll reversal in the bedroom occasionally. About three years after my first marriage i met my second wife now for about 30 years. About 15 years into second marriage my feminine side started to emerge, another story for another time. So had the "TALK" and almost divorced but started individual and marriage counseling and we worked thru it and are still happily married. It wasn't easy but we worked it out. Now what this post is about. My wife was pretty black and white and could not wrap her head around my dressing. We were in a session one day and lots of tears and i told her i had something to say without being interrupted. So i say there have been three women in my life, you being one, that have ALL told me something very similar "Sidney, i have never met another man like you. I can't put my finger on it but you are kind of unique". So i say to her do you maybe think it is my softer femine side you were feeling that made you think subconsciously i like this in a man. I also asked if other than liking and wearing womens cloth had i changed or was i the same person she had married. She was speechless and didnt answer. Almost like a deer in your headlights, her mouth was actually hanging open. Finally the counselor told her it was a very valid question i had presented and she needed to respond. She started and stopped three or four times and finally said, i want to think about this but added he's probably right, he hasn't changed That was the turning point in repairing our marriage and the beginning of her accepting Sidney. Hope this makes sense to yall.

Sidney, about the softer feminine side: many members mentioned this, they sometimes express it as being a better man thanks to the dressing. I don't know. It seems to me that despite wanting to present as women, many members reveal typical traits of man thinking, when they talk about their vision of women (and some of these thinkings do not make a good impression on me, condescending and all) or how the world should revolve around their desires. Personally I think that if you are a better man thanks to the dressing, it probably means that you were one to begin with, and the dressing has nothing to do with it. Now, one could turn the argument around and say that what made you a better man may also have made you want to experience dressing. Which is a way of saying the same thing. But we all have a "feminine side" (good luck to define that by the way). In different dimensions, with varying levels. It doesn't makes us especially better. I think this line of reasoning (the wife sees the feminine side of her husband and falls in love with that) is mostly a projection from us (the crossdressers). Again, just my analysis and your mileage may vary.

About being the same person she married: I came out after 36 years into the relationship. I tried to tell this to my wife because it seemed a valid argument to me. It is not. Maybe you didn't change. But your wife's world did. My wife is replaying the whole movie of her life since, and she was living it with a person she didn't really know, and who lied to her. Her life with me was a lie. You see, it doesn't really matter that I am still the same person, when only I knew who that person was.

Hi Sidney :hugs:, I have a very workable DA/DT My:love:Wife knows about everything,
but just want to see niy or be a part of it, >Orchid**0:daydreaming:0**

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sidney

"Sidney, i have never met another man like you. I can't put my finger on it but you are kind of unique". So i say to her do you maybe think it is my softer femine side you were feeling that made you think subconsciously i like this in a man. I also asked if other than liking and wearing womens cloth had i changed or was i the same person she had married. She was speechless and didnt answer. Almost like a deer in your headlights, her mouth was actually hanging open. Finally the counselor told her it was a very valid question i had presented and she needed to respond. She started and stopped three or four times and finally said, i want to think about this but added he's probably right, he hasn't changed That was the turning point in repairing our marriage and the beginning of her accepting Sidney. Hope this makes sense to yall.

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That was the same thing that changed my wife's attitude, but she got to it all on her own. It helped that we had a pretty solid marriage before she found out, but it got a bit rocky. Divorce was mentioned, but it wasn't an option for either of us. We wanted to make it work. One day my wife told me that I was still the same guy she married, wearing a dress or not and she would deal with it, and she has, very well too. I dress most every day. Some days just woman's skinny jeans, top and heels, but many days a dress, forms and bra, hip pads and heels. It has gotten to the point where she doesn't even blink when I walk in the room, unless I put on some strange outfit. I get the same response wearing some grubby men's jeans as I do wearing a tight little bodycon dress. I like it like that!

What kills me too about all this is all the homophobic people out in the world. I can remember that some of the worst ones out there that I?ve know since high school are some of the worse. I remember like in gym class they the ones that are the worst critics of dressing I remember seeing them standing in front of mirrors after gym while were getting dressed for our next class they?re tucking themselves and standing in the mirror saying what a pretty girl I would have made yet they?ve changed to the other extreme. My second and third wives knew of my dressing and both tried to use it as a blame which was the furthest from the fact but regardless I?d rather be a more feminine man than to end up using and abusing women and being what they consider being macho and all.

I do have so much respect for all of you for working things out with your wife?s. I went to counseling myself to take issue with the dressing at the end he said there?s nothing wrong with what your doing and just live with it and make your best effort to stay straight in one thing to keep track of and not lose myself in the process. I?ve always felt like the old Sears motors. I?m a craftsman kind of guy with the softer side. I had two girlfriends I?ve dated over the years that both accepted me for me an true to this day I?ve known both for over 20 years each. Enough of my ramblings

There's a famous line in the "crossdressing" movie "Tootsie" that I always remember.

"I was a much better man as a woman than I ever was as a man."

Sydney,
I feel Diane makes a good point about feeling the feminine side , the point to consider is we are in a position to make that comparison ,our wives / partners and possibly women in general may not understand that feeling . I do feel sometime being TG with degees of dysphoria does put us in an interesting position of being more aware of those feelings .

The problem is we have to seek conselling at times to come to terms with those feelings ourselves and also to try and explain the situation to others . You describe very well how your wife struggled initially to comprehend your counsellor's assessment of you . To a degree I feel we do change or at least to other people because we are allowed to express part of us hidden from others , some wives may look for changes possibly hoping they don't happen and others may be expecting them , as individuals we react in different ways . I made that mistake when I read other member's threads and assumed what worked for them would work just as well for me , the outcome being I'm divorced and they aren't !!

Perhaps you do have too much time on your hands but then many of us have that problem at the moment with being isolated through the pandemic , the point to consider is you make be thinking more about it and then may wish to talk more about it but other people will have a limit , it's not top of their agenda .

Sydney, that is another wonderful story of one way many of us end up this way. I suspect your mom saw a bit of girlishness in you as a child and lovingly allowed a limited amount of that behavior, rightly thinking that there is no need to reprimand him for that. But she also kept it a secret.

I am only about a year older than you. At about the same time that you were playing house in a pretty dress and wearing your own little heels, I was playing with my mother's makeup and clothes in secret. I got caught and she came down on me hard such that I immediately found a closet to crawl into - for the next 60 years. Just that one difference, the reaction to our expression of needs and desires, made all the difference. So many of us have similar stories each with their own variations but ending up more or less at the same place. It is amazing. It makes perfect sense to me, Sydney.

In breaking the news to my wife, the marriage did not quite fall apart as much as you two did, but it wasn't far from that. You did the right thing seeking professional help to find a compromise and a new understanding between you and your wife. My wife is a bit more accepting now as well, but the therapy was not quite that successful. It was more a matter of her seeing that it is a genuine characteristic of her husband. We just had our 52nd anniversary and things are stable and good again, but I live under much tighter boundaries than you do. It's OK. You can't expect to have it all when there are such vast stresses that go against the traditional couple relationship and expect nothing to change. And sometimes, as in Teresa's life, it just can't be made to work.

Sidney, it probably is fair to say it's not the dressing per se that makes you more appealing to your wife, but the "feminine side" that appeals to her and is also responsible for the dressing. As I mentioned in a post a few days ago, it seems that a number of wives complain that their husbands are not "sensitive enough" to or "understanding enough" of their feeiings, and if this emotional side of you is more in harmony with women, that very likely does appeal to your wife. I'm glad you had a counselor who pressed her to consider this point. (A man or a woman, I wonder? Two thirds of counselors are women.) I'm sure that's true for my own wife also. She always did like "Lori," fortunately.

But that doesn't mean dressing has nothing to do with it, because a number of crossdressers--not all, but many--report that they "feel a different person" when dressed. It is a real phenomenon. In all likelihood, dressing helps you to "bring out" and express that preexisting "feminine side" more fully. No doubt those early dressing experiences that your mother encouraged helped you develop that feminine side.

Lorie, my counselor was female, a lesbian and a gender counselor. Unfortunately she retired about 8 months ago. I loved her. We are now friends. It's kind of weird having a friend who knows EVERY deep dark secret have. LOL