[LEFT]This is the big one for me I guess I joined this forum knowing I had to do it. OK quick resume I started cding at 8 years old and was sexually functioning at 10, my preferences are women and sex, great: cding and sex great: women cding and sex fantastic. I was 41 when I told my wife, I’d watched a drama on TV about a cder coming out the next morning I started to cry , I sobbed and sobbed 30 years of cding guilt was flooding out eventually my wife sat on my knee crying with me. I said how sorry I was and impress on her it wasn’t her fault it started years before and I asked her to tell me if she wanted a separation if she couldn’t live with it. I wanted to dress more than ever, it felt so intimate now I was sharing her clothes with her and we both knew it. Then one day she caught me it wasn’t intentional, she took one look ,left the house crying and went to her sister and told her and her husband. The inevitable conversation with him , no I’ not gay, no I don’t want a sex change, sometimes I think they would prefer that because they think they can deal with it but a man that wants to dress up, why would you want to do that?. My wife obviously was not accepting it she was shutting it out that really hurt, the hurt and rejection got so bad one morning I’d had enough. My mind was calm as I sat at the busy road junction, I waited for a big truck to get closer at the point where I knew he couldn’t stop my foot brushed the throttle, and in that split second the thought of dying wasn’t what stopped me it was a voice shouting in my head, “ You selfish ******** that guy has got to live with your death for the rest of his life!”. I didn’t tell my wife but my doctor sent me to a specialist. He just explained that it wasn’t a mental illness but obviously it was making me mentally ill, but if it wasn’t a secret it wouldn’t be a problem to try and help me he needed my wife to attend, she refused, so he prescribed Prozac through my GP. This had to be the turning point, part of my brain was male and had a real persona, and the other part had real thoughts but different needs so it had have its own persona, Teresa had become a physical person. Now she needed her own stuff , the darkroom was the ideal hiding place (we ran our photography business from home.) I would spend hours printing so I could spend hours dressed despite the family being in the house. My wife hit the menopause in her mid fifties and sex gradually disappeared, I stopped the hugs because I would probably want more and didn’t want to force anything , I didn’t ask for other favours and she never offered. This was hurting, short of me having an affair I may never have intimate contact with a woman again, all I have now is my cding. This may now change because she wants to clear the darkroom and change it’s use. I now have a problem, does she know what’s in there if she does she may let me clear it out but what if she doesn’t and goes BALLISTIC and tries to bin it all, that’s Teresa gone and a part of me destroyed. I am scared if I go BALLISTIC I’m really scared what I might do! She is also talking about eventually down sizing I have asked her straight does she love me enough to continue living together, her answer being how could I manage without you. So where does Teresa fit into all this ? I am not going to live without her it’s all I have. Explaining separation to our children would be hard and hurt them but Teresa has been hurting for so long, the roller coaster has has got to level out, Teresa deserves quality time too.
