I apologize in advance as this is another lengthy Isha rant thread

Hi all. I know I have not been here a long time but I have made it daily habit to read a majority of the posts. The ones I find interesting are the ones that hit close to home. No more prolific subject appears than "coming out". I myself as some you may know only recently came out to my wife of 24 years. Yup, kept that secret buried and hidden from her for that long . . .

Does that make me a bad person, facetious, the evil master of the netherworld, or a criminal? No. It makes me human and guess what humans make mistakes, exercise poor judgement or heaven forbid try to insulate themselves from harm, ridicule or just plain nastiness. I did not wake up one day and say . . . "Hey I'm bored what can I do to ruin a life. Ah ha, I think I am going to start wearing dresses and panties, find a woman, marry her, keep it a secret and then drop it on her after 24 years." No. I couldn't change who I was, if it was that easy I wouldn't be here. Instead, I carried this secret locked deep inside because I was embarrassed and confused.

Funny thing about the human psyche and identity, we are composed of several which we carry through life and they make sense . . . There is the me identity (who I am where I fit in), the male identity (boys do boy things), my military identity, my husband identity and a whole list of identities that synch. Then along comes Isha and guess what, she doesn't synch with the rest . . . can you say psyche short circuit . . .oh yeah. We (humans) don't deal well with things that upset our sense of self and our psyche will try to insulate us. Some people repress (did my share of that), hide and hope for the best (been there done that) but eventually we either have to embrace and incorporate or suffer the emotional repercussions. In some instances we come out to our wives or it is discovered. In either case the cat is out the bag, the three hundred pound elephant now has a name and everyone has see the guy in the gorilla suit. Now it has to be dealt with.

For the most part, everyone provides great and appropriate advice/comments. But for some the undertone of the advice is "shame, shame, bad, bad, liar, liar pants on fire". Don't get me wrong, I get it, we lied to our SOs some of us for years but as I said above it was not done with malice it was done to protect. When I met my wife I fell instantly in love with her , we just belonged together. Was I secretly wearing lingerie at nights when we weren't together? Yup. Did I continue to engage in my proclivities after marriage? Yup. Did I think about telling her before marriage? Briefly, but I was afraid I would loose her. Does that make me a bad person? No. I wanted to maintain the companionship and love I found. We are after all is said and done, social creatures.

So next question, why not come clean sooner? Why? Because it was a shameful secret. We would be naïve to think society writ large sees us as normal and not some freakish "Dressed to Kill Tranny". So, I insulated myself, protected myself and in some crazy "seven degrees of something" wanted to protect my wife from knowing this horrible, shameful thing. Now before anyone goes of on the "that's just being selfish" band wagon I dare anyone on this forum to do a bit of introspective soul searching and tell me that they have never hidden something from their family or SO because you didn't think they would understand or you would loose them "Let s/he who has not sinned cast the first stone".

So to bottle the genie. I really find it quite harsh that a lot of replies make those of us who come out feel like deviants and bad people because we chose not to say on our first date with someone "Oh by the way, I really like your skirt, can I borrow it sometime as it goes with my new heels".

We did nothing wrong in protecting ourselves, we are not bad people and we should not be made to feel as though we are. What we are guilty of is being human and making a bad judgement call (God help us if we were all perfect . . . what a boring world this would be). Do we owe our SOs and explanation? You bet. Do we need to make amends? Yes. Do we have to cower in the corner and take every ultimatum our SO throws at us or walk on eggshells in order to be accepted? No. We cannot change who we are anymore then you can stop the world from turning.

If the relationship is going to survive, two parties need to work together to make it survive. One party (GG or CD) cannot have a position of power over the other, that is just wrong. Talking, sharing, truth, caring, loving are all good constructs but it has to be from a level/equal playing field not one-sided. My wife and I talk everyday. She puts her foot down on some things, I put mine down on others (this includes CDing and everyday life). We find common ground and move on. The minute one party has all the power "My way or the highway" well . . . sounds a bit abusive.

Final rant . . . I know, when will this girl shut up .

Just because someone has chosen not to come out . . . please cut them some slack. Dig deep in to your own past. How long did you carry your secret before you came out? If you are one of these rare birds who came out immediately, then good for you, I applaud your courage and choice. However, everyone has to make the decision for themselves and unless we can walk a mile in her heels, we should not be wagging our fingers and saying "shame, shame".

Once again, I relinquish the soap box.

Hugs

Isha