Do we all want our SOs to know?

[jeank]

Haven't posted recently, but have been following most threads most days.

The thread on where people hide their clothes got me thinking again - the closeted ones amongst us tend to stay in the background a bit more....

I am in a position where I am not out to my wife about my dressing - a lot of reasons, but although I say it's because I am unsure what her reaction would be and don't want to take the risk, when it comes down to it, there may be another factor, which is me.

We've been together for over 30 years and I am not sure I want to change the dynamic of our relationship by introducing Jean to her - indeed I'm not sure that Jean would be comfortable in her presence.

I may not have explained it that well, but can the closeted folks here relate to that? Or is it just me being a Woosy ?

[DeeNile]

My wife is in the know. I told her very early in the relationship that CDing is something I do. She has never seen me, and I don't think i would be all that comfortable if she did, but I wish we could interact with it more. Its rather lonely sneaking around the house dressed.

[BillieAnneJean]

Forgive because I am definitely not closeted. BUT:

I keep no secrets from my SO. It wasn't easy mostly because she saw more in CDing than I do. So we had to work through her fears to get to the facts that I had been saying all along. Actually I asked her before I dressed the first time.

After what I went through I can understand the reasoning in not telling your SO. For two years my life was HELL. All for imaginary "sins" I never even would consider. But now my life is better than it was before CDing. And it really had nothing to do with CDing. CDing was just the catalyst for the discussions that had to take place. Now my SO is happy and therefore I can be happy.

If you do choose to reveal yourself, do so compassionately. Make SURE she knows before you tell her about CDing, that she is important to you and why.

My heart goes out to those who are closeted. I may not be (and it cost me dearly to not be) but I certainly do understand.

[Isabella Ross]

Well, I couldn't live for another day without my wife knowing. So I came clean. No more living in the shadows, skulking, and living in fear that she will catch me (which was inevitable). Everyone's situation is, of course, different.

[Rachelakld]

Congrads on hiding your stuff for so long.
My teen found my stuff a year after it came in the house (she explored every inch of the house when she was 14, to see what interesting stuff mum & dad had), my oldest has spotted microscopic leftovers of mascara on my eyelashes, from 10 feet away.

My wife isn't comfortable when Rachel is in the house, but she normally just gives me a once over, thumbs up or down for style, then I'm off shopping while she does her thing for a few hours

[~Joanne~]

I am out to my SO but not to anyone else. A lot can be said about telling your SO about this and I don't believe that there is anyone here who wouldn't like to tell their SO BUT it should always be done after a lot of consideration and not because of the pressure that this forum tends to put on you to do so.

There are a few of us that had nothing but positive reactions from our SO's but there are 10x more that didn't. I guess it all comes down to how important it is to you to tell her, how she will react to such news, and what kind of person she is. Only YOU know that.

[Katey888]

I'm reading here that Jean was looking primarily for closeted folks to answer whether they could relate to her feelings of wanting to remain closeted... rather than all those who are out to their SOs simply rationalising why they told their SOs when they clearly cannot relate because they obviously felt so strongly that they had to be out...

Jean - you're not being woosy! You have stated one very straightforward and rational reason why you would not want to risk changing the nature of the relationship after so long - and if you can manage the need to dress (and the where, what and when you do...) without suffering any stressful, emotional consequences, then why would you not carry on as you have always done? It takes a great deal of psychological strength and fortitude to carry something like this alone - which is why semi-anonymous forums like this can help as we're able to share and understand that there are others like us out there (here...), and there is not just one way of addressing any issue... I can fully relate to a whole host of valid reasons why anyone would want to keep this to themselves.

But I'm afraid there won't be many married, closeted folk responding to this as we are in a minority here... and like any forum, majority views sometimes tend to carry the sway of opinion as if it were gospel...

I know that this condition has periods of remission for me: how about I find over the next few years the desire diminishes and I no longer feel the need..? No - like you, I'd rather keep the major part of my life the way I know it can be, rather than risk dire consequences for something that I know I can control and live with, even though I have to do it alone. Discovery is not inevitable - that's clearly another post-reveal rationalisation - but the desire to 'share' comes down to individual's motivations and degree of TG-ness as well as individual personalities and relationships. There are no universal truths in this, as with a lot of things in life - we each have to find our own way according to our own judgment and values.

I've got your back on this one, Jean...

Katey x

[GretchenJ]

Hi Jean

Like Katey and yourself, I am also in the same boat, and no you are not a Woosy ! Like Katey stated very accurately, we are in a minority here, most married folks here are either full disclosure with full acceptance, full disclosure with no acceptance, or some form of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT).

The personal reasons for not disclosing are an exact mirror of mine, it is always nice to know that I am not alone, (but Katey always manages to take me down from the ledge)

We are still in a row boat, just now one of us can take a break from rowing

[Sarah Louise]

If I could guarantee that my wife would support me, I would this minute go upstairs and tell her. I'd love to share this important part of me - just too scared it will not work out.

Sometimes, I wish I had one of those gadgets in Men in Black that wipes short term memory. I'd tell her and wipe her memory if it went badly!

[Dana Nichole]

My wife does not know. Dressing is fairly new for me. It is something I've had an interest in for many years, occasional fantasies, someday I should try it...and finally I did try it and loved it. I've been toying with the idea of letting her stumble upon something of mine so as to begin the discussion. Makes me real nervous. If I knew for sure that she would support me I would tell her in a minute but isn't that the rub? My other issue would be my two sons, 22 and 16, both very manly type guys. I don't think I would ever want for them to know.

[jeri1973]

Interesting enough. My wife knew about me being a transsexual (mtf). I've been through therapy, taken hormones, and even started really presenting well. However, because of my love for her I stopped transition. Very hard to do BTW. I thought Jeri was forever dead.

Sadly, the formal transition was halted but the mental part never was. Just goes along with the fact there isn't a cure for transsexuals.

Well after about 8 months I couldn't stand it anymore. Jeri is back and hopefully forever. That being said for the past 2 months I have been secretly dressing while wife was at work.

That all changed today. I had ALL of my things laid out for her to see. Full disclosure now. She's not happy about it but she deserves the truth.

Hope you continue to do what makes you happy. Whether you are out or not, just be you.

Jeri

[SaraSmile]

Jean -

Before I found this place, I thought I was a complete anomaly. Having spent weeks reading the forum archived (and seeing the sheer volume of "help, I have lost my mind" type posts), I now feel like a cliche, as common as the cold. My guess is that there are many married men out there, who harbor some form of CD-interest, whether expressed or not. It has just progressed a little farther in our case.

And to your point, I have spent a lot of time, thinking about that exact question. I feel like I have an extraordinary strong and loving marriage (my wife is my lover, best friend, business partner, mother to our children, etc.). Excluding this secret, she may know me better than myself, and she has weathered all of my phases and stages from my rockstar teenage years to middle-age suburbia years and everything in between. I want to tell her about my crossdressing interest because (a) I tell her everything, (b) I sometimes feel like I need to talk to someone in the real world, and she is the person who I want to talk to, and (c) I see the closeness of married couples on this website, having shared the secret.

But ultimately, I have decided against telling her. Here are my reasons:

1. I do not have a commitment to crossdressing, at least this point. My interest is sporadic, haphazard, incomplete, and more fetish-oriented, and I do not have the time or interest to move forward. Hanging out here in the forum has enabled me to compare my level of CD interest to others, and I am just no where close, and I really am not prepared to make THAT kind of effort. There are some very convincing, accomplished, beautiful CD females, and of great value to me, they talk about the amount of time, money, and effort that goes into it.

2. There is a cost to us that I cannot ignore. She will obviously be concerned. She will have all of the usual questions (Am I gay? Do I want to be a woman? Do I want to go out dressed? Why do I dress? Why don't I stop?), but in all probability, she will believe that I am having some sort of mental breakdown ... in fact, given the level of work stress that I was under last year, I know she will think that (and there may be some truth to that ... really rough 2014 for me). While she will always love me and stay with me, there is nothing positive that I will gain beyond ridding myself of the burden of the secret. At this point, I would only want to share the secret, not the actual dressing.

3. Similarly, I do not see any "upside" for her, at all, in knowing the secret. She gets the burden of having to hide my secret with me AND allow time for it (if that is what I wanted) AND make an effort not to allow it to negatively impact her or our lives. My best guess is that it would rock the boat and then go into some version of DADT remission of sorts or suppression, meaning she would not want to see me dressed, I would not want her to see me dressed, and it would just be a different kind of closet.

To be sure, there could come a day when I feel differently. I am still trying to understand what happened to me last month. It honestly felt like someone spiked my drinking water with estrogen! I felt just an overwhelming desire to dress more fully and talk to my wife about it (to the point of drafting emails not sent and trying to figure out subtle ways to raise the issue). And maybe, if that happens to me again, it will "tip the scales" and I will just have to tell. But at least at the moment, I have very strong self-control over myself and my CD urges, the interest to dress has largely dissipated, and with it, the desire to talk to my wife.

Ironically, the one remain issue for me is ... reading this forum. I spend too much time on here, reading, as there is just a bottomless wealth of information here from years and years of people, like me, searching for and then finding answers. I am so happy to have found it. I understand myself so much better today, and more importantly, I accept myself. At the risk of getting all Stuart Smalley, I very much like who I am, including my feminine attributes and interests, which make me who I am today. But as a chronic procrastinator, this forum is now a bigger problem than the crossdressing!

[Jeninus]

I am one of those who did not reveal to my wife during the first two years of our marriage, and then was caught in flagrante delicto (as we lawyers put it) one evening when she returned home early from college. Fortunately for me, after a nerve-wracking couple of days, my wife fully accepted and we've been happy with it for the following 42 years of our marriage. But it could easily have gone the other way. Once the cat is out of the bag...it is OUT!!! And no one can predict her reaction. So, to stay closeted you have to be perfect every time. I was demonstrably not perfect but was lucky. So no, you're definitely not being a Woos, but I don't envy your situation.

[Suzie Petersen]

Jean,

I can absolutely understand why you might not want to share this secret with your wife.

We can spend a whole conference discussing if it is right or not to keep a secret, and I believe there are lots of good arguments for why a marriage should not have any secrets at all. Let me also say that I fundamentally believe in full openness and honesty.
However .. the other side of the coin is, Is it fair to your wife to potentially ruin her life, after 30 years?

Sickness and Health, Good times and Bad, yes, true, she signed up for that and you did too. I think we will all here in this group agree that there is nothing wrong with us, we just have this slightly odd desire to take on the opposite gender role to a degree, some more than others. But most wifes, and in fact most people in the general population, think this is far beyond odd. Hard to say why, but many find it somehow threatening as if we are trying to deceive them somehow, and they react very harsh to us, some even violently. Maybe not to our face in the moment, maybe they just ignore us, but the majority of reactions are negative.

So coming clean with a secret like this has the potential of ending a marriage, right then and there. She might not be able to deal with it, no matter how much she otherwise love you. Would you be ready for that?

Then there is the reasons you directly mention, and this is a very good point. You might not yourself be comfortable being around your wife as Jean! I can understand that too. Have had the same feelings.
So then, if you disclose this side of you to her, and then cant/wont share it with her anyway, then whats the point?
Well the point, obviously, is honesty. Dont keep secrets. But the question is, At what cost?

You should of course also consider what will happen if you do not share this with her. What will the reaction be, if she finds your things? Walks in on you dressed? Find indicators that there was another woman in the house, but doesnt connect it with you dressing up? Will that be a worse situation than telling her under controlled circumstances?
30 years together is a long time. If she has not caught you yet, you are either very very good at covering your tracks, or damn lucky! They are usually pretty good at figuring us out, so it is also very possible she did, and just didnt tell you that she knows!

I think Sara's comment about "What is the upside for her, knowing" is a very valid point. Most people will tell you that this side of us is best shared very early in a relationship. After 30 years, is there a benefit for her in knowing this now? Or is it best left as is for as long as possible.

What it comes down to, is that nobody here can tell you what is right for you and your wife. Only you can know that. We all have a story, some good some bad. And some started out good, and then went bad. Thats my story, but I will leave that for another time. But only you know your wife at this level.

If you do decide to tell her, you should bring that up again here because there are a million ways to make that go very badly. No sure way to make it go well, but many known bad ones.

Hugs
Suzie

[LexiNexi]

My gf knows but I don't think she understands the whole feeling.

But don't hide who you are from the most important girl in your life.

[bridget thronton]

For me hiding was not a choice I would have been comfortable with

[janettexie]

My wife knows about my feelings to dress but has no urge to support. She didn't say anything about it
I have to dress secretly because i don't be sure what happens if she find out i still do.
I do love her and respect her opinion to much to gamble with her love.

[Dani0948]

When I joined the forum (over 2 years ago), it never occurred to me to tell me wife. A bit later, I convinced myself that I was going to tell. Because of several of her medical conditions, planning for our daughter's wedding and the loss of her father, I put it on hold. Today I'm glad I did. Her medical conditions have not improved and I really can't see how telling her would do anything but make her unhappy. As much as I would like to tell her, I don't see an upside for her, so why would I do this to her? I know that I may eventually get caught, and will face that situation when it arrives. My only advice is to make sure that you consider what your reveal would do to her.

[pamela7]

would anyone not want their SO to know IF they knew the reception would be positive and encouraging?

[Welshgirl]

To Dana Nichole,

Please be careful about leaving stuff out and hoping that she finds it in order to precipitate a conversation about CD. There is a thread going at the moment about a video (the perfect vehicle for opening the conversation, or similar title). In it, the girlfriend finds a pair of undies and has quite a strong reaction to it, thinking that her man is cheating on her. That is a much more likely thought for a wife to have than that her husband is a secret cross dresser.

If you want to tell her, then tell her in a controlled way because she will have enough to think about without having to deal with panic over a presumed affair too. Also, remember that if you do tell her it will take her some time to come to terms with it. This is something that is very familiar to you, but very new to her. It will take her some time to catch up mentally, to adjust to the new image of you that this will inevitably create for her.

To Jeank,

I am the wife of a CDer, and I have known about it from the start, followed its development and shared the journey up to the present day where yesterday we went wig shopping together for Pamela. This has been a journey of over 12 years so far, and I have been very happy to share it.

If I were to put myself in your wife's shoes and consider how I would feel about finding that my husband of 30 years had undertaken all this exploration without sharing it with me in any way... that would be difficult for me to take. Obviously I can only consider it from my own perspective, and we do have a very close and open relationship which may or may not be the case for you, but if you did say anything to her then you would have to have a very good set of excuses for not having shared it sooner! I can see why you would want to keep it secret, and if you can manage your life like that then you have probably made the best choice for you.

Saying all that, I would reiterate the advice given a little while ago. Clearly you have a collection of clothes hidden away somewhere. If you are not telling your wife now, then please consider leaving a note with them so that if you were to shuffle off this mortal coil unexpectedly and she was to find your things, at least she would know why they were there. Otherwise, you would risk her living out the rest of her life in doubt and mistrust over why you were hiding ladies' clothes from her, potentially poisoning her memories of her whole life with you. Knowing that you didn't tell her because you wanted to protect her from the shock would be far the lesser evil than letting her wonder if there was another woman in your life behind her back.

[Patty B.]

Jean you can not predict how this would play out if you were to tell your wife. It could range from total acceptance to divorce, mine ended in divorce and an ugly one at that although like after 30 years + couldn't see this one or didn't think it through as well enough. Hope this helps and good luck.

[GemmaK]

We've been married for 42 years. For the first 30 I did not have any great conscious desire to cross-dress. Very occasionally I might try on a skirt or something, but did not think of it as dressing. My wife was always "into fashion" as she was a very good window dresser for a younger fashion store. I was used to going shopping with her and helping to choose outfits for photography - fashion shows and of her window displays. Many years ago it was she who first suggested that I wear women's jeans. With her knowledge. general approval, and assistance I gradually slid into wearing mostly women's jeans and female underwear.

Anyway, about 10/15 years ago, being considered a very conservative person by most who know me, I decided to shake things up a bit and dress for New Year in a rather Goth female outfit - short skirt(one of my wifes), etc. It went well, but I'd got the bug hadn't I, and I've usually done New Year dressed most years since. My wife didn't like it, though, but I started to build a small secret stash if clothes. I really didn't like not being open with my wife as secrecy had not been a part of our marriage. Each year, the NYE dressing would create a period of tension as she realised what I wanted to wear and had bought items she knew nothing about.

This last year we headed towards the same scenario, but this year turned out differently because we had an argument which in the past I'd sort of run away from, not least because I felt I was the one trying to get her to accept something she had not expected and really didn't like. For the first time we each spoke as clearly as we could about how we each felt and we were able to better understand and accept each other's views. I think she now accepts that the dressing is not going to go away, that I'm occasionally going to buy female clothes and maybe wear them on NYE or possibly on other similar occasions, and that I may dress occasionally whilst at home/on holiday with her. She helped me with buying an outfit for NYE and with make up, etc. Also, for the first time I felt ok actually dressing in front of her and she has commented on other clothing.

"Coming out" has, in a way, been a slow process rather than an immediate shock, and I'm extremely grateful and love my wife all the more for her movement towards acceptance rather than her not knowing or being reluctantly tolerant. We are one of those couples who others see as joined at the hip, share everything, and are seen as "rock solid". That didn't help though except in that I honestly felt that we would ultimately work towards a solution even if it was slower than I would have wished. I recognise that I/we failed for many years to tackle the issue, falling I suppose into the DADT scenario, however undesirable - or maybe the time wasn't right and it might have gone badly wrong..

Ultimately, for me, I felt very uncomfortable doing something without my wife's knowledge. Full approval of cross dressing will probably never come, but a working acceptance on both sides is much preferable to the secrecy. For others it will be different dependent upon so many factors as to be impossible to know or assess. You just have to make the decisions you feel are right for you and your relationship, and trust that it works out.

[Nikkilovesdresses]

No, you explained it very well. I'm out to my wife, and recently she agreed to see some pics, but has never seen me crossdressed and clearly feels no urge to. I dislike hiding things from her, so I told her, but I am very wary of spoiling things between us for the sake of a few dresses and wigs that I can perfectly well wear when she's away. Sad, given the fun that some of the people on this site have with their SOs, but there it is.

[Jorja]

would anyone not want their SO to know IF they knew the reception would be positive and encouraging?

The problem is Pamela7, there are many wives that are not positive and encouraging. Count yourself in the minority and mighty lucky that your wife is positive and encouraging.

[pamela7]

yes, I do count my blessings, and I realise. Perhaps I'm not understanding why people are so non-accepting and judgmental. We live a live and let live life, and are frequently astounded by little england attitudes / Nimby-isms. So ... "where is the love then"?