Is it really so hard to believe that the "Big Reveal" can end a relationship ?
Is it really so hard to believe that the "Big Reveal" can end a relationship ?
It's a rhetorical question, but from personal experience, I know that some can and some cannot. And that there are so many different situations.
Would like to hear your thoughts.
I agree with you that some can work it out and others cannot. I also agree that very good marriages with very open communications and let's say two mature people involved have a much better chance of making it work after that big reveal. However, even in that perfect relationship, if the receiver end of the reveal is totally against that activity (CDing, sky diving, hunting big game, fetish activities, or suddenly wanting to join the Detroit Police force where one may be at life and death risk on a regular basis) the quality of the relationship and communication process may have little bearing on the end result, i.e. I think that the receiver may very well be justified as saying they do not accept nor tolerate that activity in their relationship. Hopefully, in these excellent relationship but non-accepting cases they are able to reach a marriage dissolving agreement mutually and without malice toward the other party.
Because every person, situation and relationship is different with their own specific and unique personal issues and considerations no third party can really say that a marriage failed only due to CDing or only because there were other previous unresolved or on going issues, that is to say that stating that a good relationship fails after the reveal is because it already had problems before is over simplified and somewhat naïve.
The other thing to consider is that in the USA about 50% of marriages fail. The remaining 50% is made up of those who are lucky, may have great communication and problem solving skills individually and as a couple, and those that stick together for the kids (only sometimes justifiable to me in certain circumstances), or whatever reason, including just not wanting to deal with the issues, or having a DADT agreement (stated or assumed) where each party does their own thing within reason. To me that says that true good marriages that should be able to make it work are now in the minority.
It happens everyday around this forum.
I did a reveal with a girl I had dated a few times and that pretty much ended our dating.
When my wife found out it was very tough for a while and my marriage could have ended but she eventually learned I was still the same person and we have been able to move on from there.
Mine worked for a while, but in the end she completely soured on the whole thing. Yoda's progress of fear to anger to hate and to suffering definitely applied. She supported it even pushed me further than I had ever gone by myself, and then the rollback started. Eventually she didn't want to be near it, and eventually she hated it and started to say very mean and destructive things. Oh well. The search for the perfect SO/mistress begins again. Also how can you not go for a personal body/house servant?
That is what this condition does. It impacts relationships. It will change all relationships you reveal to and some that you don't reveal to. Some relationships may improve, some will get worse or lost, and some will just change not being better or worse but just different. That is what it does. Also, you will be surprised at how some relationships change. If you are an adventurous person, you may enjoy the ride...
- AF
Look girl, act girl, feel girl ... be girl.
Outing to my wife occurred quite by accident as I had a complete and utter emotional breakdown in front of her. She was afraid I was suffering the effects of post combat PTSD and wanted to call my work to ensure I was cared for. I had not choice but to come clean . . . it wasn't PTSD as I had been cleared some time for operational deployments. So I told her the truth.
She accepted it and is currently helping me create the femme side of Isha. That is now and it has only been a few weeks. I don't push it but can be a bit over zealous as I have been given the opportunity to express a side I have kept supressed for so long. We talk everything out and I want to ensure she is comfortable with everything. For example, last night I spent my first night ever in a nightie. When my wife came to bed it was my first impulse to hug and cuddle but was afraid as I was not 100 percent sure how she would take it so at first I did not. I ruminated in my mind a few minutes, turned on the light and asked her if she would be comfortable with it . . . she smiled and said it's just clothes, you are still the person I love and we had a wonderful evening.
Now I get it . . . this could change in the blink of an eye. That is why I believe communication through every step of the transition is required. I have no doubt boundaries will be reached but those need to be identified, discussed and agreed upon.
Isha
My situation was completely abnormal. Because neither of us knew how to handle the situation, and because it all happened 10 years ago when this site was not yet in existence, it ended badly.
What is difficult to me is filtering out the ones where things were already in trouble before the CDing came to light. This can make it look like the CDing is the issue when it really is just being used as a tool to meet someone's desired end. Other than that, the quality of the relationship will have some bearing, but the spouses perception of what we do is key.
Is it really any wonder that so many crossdressers choose to never risk revealing this to their wives and girlfriends? Some are very lucky, and gain total acceptance. But I think this is really rather rare, despite what is tossed around on these forums. I think most of the time, the reaction ranges from negative to WAY negative, and the relationship suffers or is destroyed. I'm not advocating dishonesty, but disclosure is a personal choice, and much of the time, we as crossdressers are very much between a rock and a hard place.
Any money found in the laundry is MINE!
"This is no social crisis....this is me having fun!"
www.flickr.com/photos/tgmarla/
I got lucky one could say. From the moment she heard I am tg, she accepted it as a part of me, albeit, with some hesitation and smiles along the way. Shortly after discoverfy, she was assisting in making me look more presentable and not so flamboyant. Today, it's just a blending in that I look to achieve. Her first question to me was, and is for many others, " Are you gay?". That was her single most fear. After clearing that up, she was totally accepting and supportive.
It comes as no surprise to me why marriages fail as a direct result of discovery. Women entered into a relationship with men, not men sometimes, and anything to the contrary is perceived to upset their genetic role as child bearers or more accurately, that male does not become as attractive to the female as a strong donor of sperm for child bearing. Instinctively,. a women seeks the best possible mate for child bearing, and a tg person does not fill that picture out very well unfortunately. Then of course, she imagines going out with the children in arm, and the spouse in heels and a cheap wig and well, just keep imagining, using television as a guideline just like she does, or worse yet, crimes posted across the media forum.
What Kim said. So easy to imagine the response being "You're a what???? Ugh, that is so creepy, the visuals make me physically ill. Ain't no way I'm spending my life married to a crossdresser." Hugs, Michelle
I've recently started seeing someone. I wouldn't call her my girlfriend yet but it definitely seems to be heading that way. I'm pretty sure just by some things she has said (most recently her reaction to a guy wearing a Utilikilt who walked by us in the mall, she thought it was a regular skirt from a distance and scrunched up her face and said "is that guy wearing a skirt?", my eyes are better than hers and I informed her it was a kilt and she chilled out a bit) that she won't take kindly to my dressing, but I also don't want to be keeping a secret so I will have to tell her eventually if things progress. I have lots of fun with her so I hope I can reach a point where I feel comfortable telling her, even if the best I can hope for is DADT. But the possibility of her bolting is definitely there.
I wanted to add two important clarifications.
1) I took the OP to mean revealing to a wife or SO of some long standing type. Clearly if a relationship is just starting, the woman has no vested interest in you and can easily bail out. That is not to say she can't handle it but rather it may appear to be too much effort.
2) in my original response I did not imply that a spouse would be "accepting." A strong relationship can still mean that the wife hates the cross dressing. Although my wife is very accepting, I know she would prefer I was not a cross dresser. It is abundantly clear, based on those here, that cross dressing, alone, does not cause a breakup.
Like Nicole and Suzi I could not agree less with that statement. Many cases on this site where that is exactly what happened. Wow.....
Last edited by Sandra; 09-02-2013 at 03:59 AM. Reason: No need to quote the post directly above. Please read the rules on quoting posts
Sometimes what is believed and what is reality are two different things. Here is a link to an interview done at the 2010 Be-All conference with Sara Fenwick then president of Chi Chapter, (formerly of Tri-Ess) Fast Forward to the 6:02 mark. It says it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgRnMJpnDcI
"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think." - The Buddha
People will believe what they want to believe, evidence being irrelevant. Those who think coming out as a CDer can't end a marriage simply haven't been paying attention. They always say there were other factors, but not having a clue to what those other factors were. Marriages that have rolled along fine for decades are suddenly ended by the big reveal.
It strikes me as strange that CDing can't end a relationship but can strengthen one. Many have posted that the intimacy, the honesty, the trust, etc. brought them closer. But drive them apart? No, can't happen, they say, must be something else. Can't have it both ways.
Acceptance is really circumstantial. It depends on how accepting the SO is of other people's differences. There are some people that just don't understand and firmly believe that anything other than what they think is normal is wrong. I have a friend who is that way. He can't understand how someone can be gay, or dress like women. He has no idea that I'm a CD'r. I'm certain that it would end our friendship of 30 years. I've tried to explain to him that its just something that some people desire. I used the example of liking your favorite flavor of ice cream. Then imagine that were considered wrong by society.
The "Big Reveal" can certainly end relationships. But in the end I would think that relationship wasn't meant to be in the first place.
"Oh my God, I realized, it's not that we're screwed up; it's just that we've been trained to thnk so."
~Rick Novic, Alice in Genderland
I do not believe that the "reveal" can end a relationship. There has to be more to it. Any relationship with a solid foundation can survive a "reveal." What ends relationships is all the subtext of hiding, lying, etc. Blaming the end of a relationship on coming out as a cross dresser, alone, is a cop out.
Jennifer, I did not mean that just the "reveal" itself (the act of revealing) would end a strong relationship. I do believe that it is possible, even when based on nothing more than revealing something that to the other party that is totally unacceptable to them, that goes against their own beliefs or whatever. I would guess that in a strong relationship, that most of the time the issues would be able to be over come. However, my post was also meant to state that I believe that there is every possibility that over time that strong relationships can fail because one party is doing something that the other does not approve of, and that includes crossdressing, as well as, the other examples I gave in my earlier post here and probably many others that someone else can mention. It is not a cop out, it is the reality of one of the parties that can not accept that new information in any way, no matter how hard they try.
I totally understand that maybe most strong relationships may be able to weather the reveal and the mid to long term adjustments that both parties try to make to keep the relationship going. I also think that even some shaky relationships can weather the storm too. However, I totally disagree that "all" strong relationships will survive over the long term. There are just too many variables in people, relationships and personal circumstances that come into play, that are not necessarily obvious or even known to either party when the crossdressing comes into the picture to be able to state as strongly and often crossdressing will not break up strong relationships. That to me is totally unreasonable. If you would state that in most circumstances it should not fail, then I would agree. There are very few absolutes in this crazy and unpredictable world of ours, especially when concerning humans, except death, taxes and some laws of nature.
I would like to believe that what you say is totally correct, but I see too many breakups for all kinds of reasons, including a very important one that people can and do change over time, they may lose interest in one thing and have new interests that may seem totally out of character to the ones that are closest to them, like SO's, family and friends. Sometimes those new interests, or hidden interests, that were unknown to them are just not acceptable to them, even though they have a great relationship with zero issues up to that moment. They may try to adapt, tolerate and may even say that they accept it and support their SO, but as can be seen so many times on this site, sometimes the SO just can't live with it over the long term, thus the surprise reversal in feelings when least expected. Are all those relationships perfect, probably not, but then I really haven't seen many perfect ones, including some of those that lasted forever, but were really just a sham for a long time.
I do think that just as with other relationship issues both parties should try as hard as possible to identify all the causes for their problems and make every effort twice or three times before calling it quits. That includes counseling, compromise, and working to improve their individual communication processes and skills, which for many people are very difficult to learn.
The years of deception is what I feel is at the heart of the destruction of a relationship. Love and intimacy is built on trust. Once that has been shattered, how do you fix it?Originally Posted by Jenniferathome
Lynn Marie
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I thought my previous marriage was built on a strong loving and mutually supportive relationship. So when I revealed my interests, all seemed OK. Over time my dressing ate away at my ex and she quietly reorganised her life. Mentally she moved on. Her announcement that she was leaving me came out of the blue. Would that have happened if our relationship was genuinely strong? I'll never know but there was a strong coincidence in timing between my starting dressing and her withdrawing participation in the relationship.
Now remarried in a strong loving and mutually supportive relationship, the reveal led to some very shaky times and took months to move past the shock and feeling from both sides that we weren't truly loved. Things are now at a point where our marriage is very strong again but my dressing is strickly out of sight and never discussed - an extreme DADT.
Allie, I very much share your view. CDing is such a strong negative to many (most?) women that the impact even within strong relationships can be fatal even if the impact is not immediately apparent. There are just so many variables.
It is very wrong of us on this forum to provide advice that is absolute. The best we can do is recount our own experiences. In my case, that is one all.
The related question though is knowing the downside should we still reveal. With my current (and future!!) wife, it wasn't years of deception but the sudden reemergence of the need to dress after 3 1/2 years together. She saw it as me deceiving and trapping her but it really wasn't.
I am now pleased that I told her of the return of my need to dress. I feel a degree of honesty about my dressing. While I try to hide clothes and my dressing, being caught will not risk to our relationship.
But everyone has to make their own decision about whether to reveal and live with the consequences whether they do or don't. Bottom line is that CDing is a very difficult interest for our SOs to deal with.
Last edited by Michelle (Oz); 09-01-2013 at 12:48 AM.
Marriages r on a sliding scale. Same as gender and sex drive.
There r strong marriages and weak marriages. Most of them fall in between.
A strong marriage can handle situations that may be very traumatic. Coming out may not even be on the list of "worst things that could happen".
A weak partnership can fail because of a seemingly minor irritation. Well short of one person coming out.
The fact is this. MANY folks "settle" for their current partner. Later on realizing that was a mistake! And, very little of this has anything to do with dressing!
U can't keep doing the same things over and over and expect to enjoy life to the max. When u try new things, even if they r out of your comfort zone, u may experience new excitement and growth that u never expected.
Challenge yourself and pursue your passions! When your life clock runs out, you'll have few or NO REGRETS!
No, it really isn't. I get the argument that a marriage can and some may say should survive the disclosure, and that it isn't really the dressing, its the lies, half truths, time, money, etc. associated with it. But the thing that most CD's don't tell, tell part of the truth on, or spend too much time or money doing, is . . . crossdressing.I Its kind of like a SO saying I don't mind gambling, its the fact money is spent on gambling, more time than should be is devoted to gambling, and a spouse cares more about gambling than his or her family. But all the negative traits that a spouse hates are still about gambling. Here, dressing is the root of trouble for tons of couples, some women can't accept it or get past it, and many relationships don't survive disclosure. .
So many different circumstances and variables can result in so many different consequences.
A "big reveal" about what: Occasional crossdressing? Transition? Bi-sexual desires? Out of control spending? Telling the family?
Relationship: Long term marriage? New girlfriend? Solid relationship? Already troubled relationship? History?
Circumstances: Children? Living with parents or in-laws? Financial sound or unsound?
Personalities: Wife/SO open-minded? Communication skills? Trust levels? Ages?
Too vague to determine results or any generalities regarding effect on relationship.
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