Amazing what a difference talking honestly and openly and being willing to compromise can make!! Indeed, of not for the context, I would say it should go in the Out And About section!


Yesterday (Saturday), it was a bright warm day, and my wife and I had some errands to run. I brought her my hanger with several denim skirts on it, and said approximately, "Speaking as a matter of preference, and that is preference, on a nice day like this I would prefer to wear a skirt." And she thought about it for a short moment and said "Okay". So I showed her the various skirts and suggested that she choose one of them. She indicated that I should just pick one, but I asked her to pick the one she would be most comfortable with my wearing. She looked at them a few seconds, and replied, "My preference is that you hold off and wear the skirt tomorrow {Sunday} instead." A brief discussion then established that indeed there would be an opportunity for us to go out -- i.e., that it wasn't her saying indirectly "Well, you could wear it inside tomorrow but please don't wear it out in public." I expressed my preference, not a demand, she considered it and countered with something that something that was acceptable.

Today, when it was time for us to go out (for a walk), I put on a shorter denim skirt, intending to show her it and a longer skirt and again express my preference that I go in a skirt, and ask her to pick one of the two if she was agreeable. She saw the skirt and chuckled and pointed out that my socks were not a suitable colour match for the skirt. So after a sock change, we were off (with me already in the skirt), and we drove to a nice park (not what you would call packed, but with a non-trivial number of people around), and we walked around on the trail with me in my (new) shirt with an embroidered flower and in my knee-length denim skirt, And she didn't appear to be uncomfortable with the situation at all, just a leisurely walk together, holding hands when we felt like it, as if it was just natural. Afterwards we stopped off at an (active) coffee shop, and we went in together and lined up in full view of everyone (not a long line); no attempt was made to hide the skirt. It was just what I was wearing, no fuss.

Not that we completely ignored the skirt -- for example, I went down a tall plastic slide, and afterwards commented to her about how it had been kind of strange, because the interaction of the denim and the plastic of the slide generated static electricity, so every few feet, I got shocked in my fanny

When we arrived home, even though there was a possibility that her mother and the caregiver were there, my wife did not mention or hint that I should change before going in. She suggested that we should water the flowers, which is something I had been thinking of just a few seconds before, so I proceeded to engage in some yard-work in the skirt. Perhaps 15 minutes later, the care-giver returned, and I was still out in the yard doing some weeding and so on; the fact that I was wearing a skirt was not mentioned; we talked briefly about the yard-work. I left the skirt on while I went out to the front yard to pick up twigs and pull out thistles -- something I have done for short periods from time to time when my wife wasn't home, but this time I didn't worry about just being out for a few minutes or about the chance I was taking that my neighbours might see "catch" me.

After my weeding, I returned to the house and mostly headed upstairs while my wife and the caregiver and my wife's mother talked downstairs; I did bring up some pop, which took me in to sight of the caregiver again; it wasn't a problem.

And now here I sit, at the computer, with my skirt still on, hours after we went out, and my wife knows I'm wearing the skirt and it's been cool. A second ago she asked me to help with a DVD problem, and I went in and solved the problem, still in my skirt, and the assistance was appreciated and the skirt... was just a fact, no different than if I'd been wearing shorts.

What has been going on in my wife's mind through this day, I can't say, but hopefully with the openness we've had lately, she would have let me know if she was uncomfortable.


This is, by the way, the first time my (elderly) mother-in-law has seen me in a skirt -- though she has seen me wearing my "lounge-wear" which is essentially a long soft cotton dress (t-shirt like material) to be worn in casual settings around the house for warmth or modesty. Several of the home-care workers (and even some of the construction workers that were building my fence) have seen me clearly in that lounge-wear: it hasn't been an issue and my wife hasn't expressed any discomfort about my wearing it or about other people seeing me in it.


It will be interesting to see what develops from here -- perhaps now we have broken the barrier of her mother having seen me in a skirt, that casual femme clothing at home will be less and less an issue. Especially now that we have a tall privacy fence.