This is a tangent to Julie Marie1's earler post http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...bout-your-wife

As that post was specifically addressed to CDs with wives, I felt my comments, from a genetic woman in a committed but not married relationship with a MTF TG, needed a separate thread. We see many posts in the MTF CD, Loved Ones and TS forums asking how to get more positive involvement from SOs or lamenting loss of SOs due to gender expression and identity. And several responses to Julie's thread included both an assessment of how the wife feels and regrets that the feelings weren't more positive. This thread is my response to those posts.

From my point of view, I see three primary drivers to how your SO feels about your behavior:

1. Religious Conservatism - if your SO receives her life direction from a conservative religious entity, you are not in a good place.

The chances are nearly zero that she will ever see your behavior, or expressed desire to cross gender lines, as acceptable. Your only recourse is to accept that there may never be a positive involvement and there will quite likely be a very negative response to your desired or enacted behavior. And this applies across the full spectrum of transgenderism - from fetish dressing to dual gender expression to transsexuality. Why you do this, or want to do this, won't matter. You need to acknowledge this to yourself, internalize it, make a conscious decision about what YOU are going to do about it, accept that decision as being YOUR choice and implement it. Either give it up, get in the closet and enjoy yourself there, or get out of the relationship and live the life you need to live. You only make your distress over your situation worse every time you start obsessing about lack of acceptance, participation, and support. Just accept your reality - give it up, get in the closet or get out of the relationship - and free yourself to focus on the good points of what you receive from your behavior or your relationship. Complaining about it won't change it and only keeps you tied to the negativity of it. Give yourself some love and try to be happy with the limited life time you have.

2. Sexual Openness - studies and surveys report that an average of 70% of MTF crossdressers are fetish dressers. If your SO is not already sexually adventurous, comfortable with pornography or into other fetishes of her own, she is not going to be interested in having girl-on-girl sex with you. Your continued requests and botched attempts to do so will eventually drive a wedge between the two of you. So you, just as with TG #1 above, need to accept this. You need to decide if solitary cross-dressing is adequate for you or if you need a partner. If solitary is fine by you, be grateful for DADT, thank her for it, and leave her out of your fetish. If she can't cope with knowing that your secret behavior even exists, then you need to commit to giving the behavior up or giving the relationship up. If you need a partner, then you also need to get out of this relationship and get into one which will meet your needs. I'm sure you are in a relationship with a wonderful person, but if your most primal needs are not being met, you need to go ahead and get off the tracks before that train wreck causes too much collateral damage. It's not easy to be alone, but its easier than being miserable.

3. Romantic Orientation - I view "romantic" orientation as being a blend of sexual orientation, gender attraction and sexual imprinting. And I feel like this is the greatest barrier that most of you face to experiencing more positive involvement from your SOs.

Like other orientations, it does not change. It is intrinsic to each individual and remains constant over their lifetime. Your significant other was originally attracted you on the basis of her romantic orientation. If your transgender behavior and expression does not meet her romantic orientation, she is not going to feel the same level of attraction to you - regardless of sexual orientation. She may even feel repelled. Many of you claim that you are the same person under the wig, makeup and dress, and that may be so, but it doesn't mean that your actions and presentation match the primary characteristics of her romantic orientation. And those primary characteristics must be met in order for her to embrace your femme persona.

She may be oriented to dark-haired (her 1st four boyfriends were all Mediterranean ancestry), square-shaped (Daddy played linebacker), bookish (Mom taught AP Lit), introverted technology geeks (who knows why!?!).

When you present as a blond wigged, waist shaped, breast and butt padded hourglass figure who wants to spend the weekend dancing and singing karaoke - you are not matching her romantic orientation.

It isn't "I'm not a lesbian", as much as its "You're not my type". And she may not be aware of this, she may, in fact, be saying, "I'm not a lesbian". But unless you are post-Op, she can't be a lesbian, and what she most likely feels is, "You're not my type."

So your first action needs be that of understanding her romantic orientation. And this can be difficult because she may never have examined it herself. This will take time and talking - revisit her initial attraction to you. Discuss similarities between you and her previous romantic interests. Find the connection. Fit your femme persona into the appropriate template.

What is more important to you - presenting obvious primary gender characteristics to reduce being clocked in public or being romantically attractive to your SO? Change the hair color, give up the waistline, settle for smaller forms, stay out of the gay bars and participate in a nearby book club together.