Another broken relationship

[tanya_cd]

Good news - I may be crossdressing a whole lot more. Bad News - I have to let go of my GG because she can't stop seeing another man. I know she never approved of my crossdressing. I think she always sensed something but I don't think she ever knew FOR SURE (maybe she did, since I met her about a month and a half after I did a full body shave). Well, I have kept my crossdressing under wraps for the most part of our relationship. I only dressed a couple times since we met. Tonight though, she didn't come home. At this moment, she is with another man.

So if this sounds like Jerry Springer? Maybe it does. All I know is that I am a Crossdresser, I loved her, and I am still a human being.

My counselor told me that crossdressing might be a coping mechanism. Maybe. Maybe not.

If this is true, I am going to be "coping" a lot, because I loved her. A long hard road ahead.

Real problem is, I may be transgender. I have been getting lost in thought of HRT for a couple years now. Maybe now I do it.

[Lucy23]

Tanya, I'm sorry to hear that. Although it is definitely tough right now and will be for the time being, but maybe some good will eventually come out of it. You sound like weren't happy either, at least now you will be able to decide what is best for you, even in regards to HRT. May I ask about what your counselor said about crossdressing a coping mechanism? What drove him/her to think about it this way?

[Lana Mae]

Tanya, sorry to hear about your GF problem! I too am interested in your counselor's comment that your CDing is a coping mechanism. True it helps us deal with stress, but if you are like most of us it is part of who you are! Hugs Lana Mae

[tanya_cd]

@Lucy23 ... I think he suggested that it was a distraction to stressful moments in my life. I didn't elaborate too much with him on it. But the subject became more significant after I stopped seeing him.

[CarlaWestin]

Just my opinion but, I believe that being in an honest DADT relationship is way better than having a partner screwing around on you. Of course the ultimate relationship is one where your partner understands that your gender expression is just more encompassing and advanced than your average boring male. And I sure hope your therapist has actual training and experience with gender psychology and not just a personal opinion. Personally, I would get rid of both of them and then mention to the new boy toy that he might want to have a medical check up.

[Julie MA]

Tanya, feeling for you. It may be best since neither you nor your GF has the full picture of your gender and CDing. Get comfortable with that and the rest may fall into place. Julie

[michelemcd55]

I am sorry for the loss of your love and while I know it hurts, perhaps this is a push you needed. I am new to this CD.com but not to the feelings. I have been dressing and wishing nearly my whole life (I am much older than you) but haven't had the courage to be me. Your last line rings true to me also and I wish I knew then what I know now. I wish you all the best.
PS - I am new to this so pardon me if I am overstepping some boundary, but you are a beautiful woman.

[CONSUELO]

Tanya,
I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. It must be emotionally wrenching for you right now and it seems that they way in which she has rejected you is most hurtful.

That said, I would always argue that you need to be open about your cross dressing at the beginning of any relationship. Hiding it is not a solution to anything.

I do scratch my head about the counsellor's remark. While it may be that cross dressing can be used as a stress-coping mechanism, I have never seen any professional opinion that it is a cause of cross dressing.

Best wishes.

[Stephanie47]

I also am somewhat perplexed the counselor indicated your cross dressing may be a coping mechanism. I will agree I too believe wearing women's clothing may be a stress reliever. It is for me. However, I believe I know the source of my angst/stress/whatever term to be applied. I do see a counselor for the source of my stress. If a counselor is going to throw out some overly broad statement the counselor should get to the root cause of your stress. People have different ways of coping with stress. Drugs? Alcohol? Sex? Then the question arises, why choose cross dressing to relieve stress?

[Jaylyn]

Tanya your title is "Another broken relationship", has this happened before? If it has and presume it has from the title that maybe you need to be up front with those you are dating or getting serious with. It's not Jerry Springer in that you just need to take a step back, reassure yourself of what you want out of life and then go for it. Just don't be hasty just because some counselor said your just coping by doing this. I have been doing this long before I had any thing I needed to cope about.
I am sorry for what happened to you but pull up your big girl panties and get on with life. Be yourself and be up front with those you become seriously in love with. No surprises in a relationship. Theirs always someone out there that will love you for who you are. JMHO

[Dana44]

Tanya, I was in a relationship like that. In the divorce court my lawyer, yep told him everything. He said that we ad an open relationship and none of that needs to come in the court. So it was all thrown out. Do not despair, be yourself and let her go since she is not into you. I know it messes with your head but know that you have a better heart. Hers is far more evil.

[docrobbysherry]

Tanya, like the song says, "Breaking up is hard to do." But, u r free now to explore who u r. U will become more confidant and secure when u find where u r on the trans scale. Which will make meeting a new partner that suits u in the long run much easier.

Remember, even tho it hurts, u have to kiss a lot of frogs. I certainly did before I found my ex wife!

[Amy Lynn3]

Tanya, I think Roy Clark said this in one of his songs or shows, but I think it may help you mend your broken heart. He said women are like buses, it you miss one another one will be along soon. The same can be said for men also, but the point is not to focus on the loss, but look forward to the next girlfriend.

[Aunt Kelly]

I am sorry to hear of your pain, Tanya. We here can't know all of the dynamics that led up to the wreck, but it sure sounds like it's not you. Dishonesty and infidelity are what they are and can't be explained away nor excused because of the victim's personality traits. Be kind to yourself while you convince yourself that your not the bad guy here. Then start thinking about how to be up front about yourself when the next relationship opportunity comes along.

Big Hug,


Kelly

[Cheryl T]

If she is out with another man then it's time to move on.
From the sound of it she lives with you?? You said she didn't come home. If that's the case then there is little to hang on to.

[Tracii G]

You may have loved her but she didn't love you if she was sleeping around that much is obvious.
I say forget her because she isn't worth your time.
If she tries to get back with you don't give her the time of day.
As much you might want to she will go back to her old ways because she will think she has you wrapped around her finger.

[Gabriella111]

That sucks. I'm sorry you're having to go through this. I hope, though, that you're able to find someone who accepts you completely for who you are. It's such an amazing experience to love someone who knows and loves you completely and unconditionally. You didn't have that with her, so maybe it's something to be hopeful for.

[IleneD]

Your profile picture?
Tanya, .... you are adorable, darling.
Why are you even considering hanging on to the girlfriend (friend? really? what kind?).
Dear, you have it going on with The Look; and the world holds so much more potential and excitement in relationships for someone of your natural talents.

Be the boss here, girl, and show your GG in firm words and ways the door unless she shows real signs of wanting ALL of you.
And then..... move on.

[Tracii G]

You mentioned having to "cope" so I have to ask why?
She isn't worth it to be honest she cheated on you and showed you no respect.
This other man did you a favor and now she is his pain in the ass and chances are she will cheat on him in the future.

[Ressie]

If I may ask, how long were you together? It sounds like you weren't at the point of living together, were you?

[Becky Blue]

Sorry to hear Tanya, hopefully the pain you are feeling is very short lived and you move onwards and upwards to better things

[Alaina R]

When life goes bad, such as it is for you now, dressing can serve as a place to retreat so as to make yourself feel better and/or safer. I don't think that is especially unusual and I think one could legitimately say that, at some level, it can be part of a coping mechanism - so I don't think your counselor is out of bounds with that observation. My guess, based on my own painful experiences from younger days, is that you are feeling hurt, wounded and somewhat hopeless about relationships and love. This would NOT be a good time to make any decisions about HRT. You need to heal first. By the way, it is not hopeless. There are women out there who can love you as you are - I found one and you can too. Good luck.

[Marianne S]

Hi Tanya,

I'm very sorry to hear what you're going through. Breaking up IS hard to do, as Doc said.

As an aside, I often notice now varied the meanings are that people can read into a given post. When you referred to "another" broken relationship, another one for whom? I tend to think broadly, so I guessed you meant another one for people on this board. Somebody else thinks you meant another breakup in your own life. I hope that's not true, but I realize it could be. Another poster thinks if your girlfriend is already out with another man, you hadn't yet reached the stage of living together. Since you said she "didn't come home" tonight, it looks to me as if you have been living together. But what the heck do I know? Still, none of that is important when everybody here had good advice to give.

There are two things I'd like to say, even if it is at MUCH greater length than other posts! (I'm verbose; so shoot me! )

First, I heartily echo what just about everyone else had to say. A breakup is painful without doubt, but it's probably for the best in the long run. I can certainly attest to that from personal experience, just as Doc did.

I was with my first "serious" girlfriend for three and a half years or more. Admittedly we were drifting apart toward the end, but although we never lived together, we had been virtually inseparable. Our friends saw us as a "couple" (which I loved), we'd had great fun together and we both believed for a long time that we'd be getting married. When I found out she was starting to date another guy, I did feel devastated.

Crossdressing incidentally had nothing to do with this. Although I'd been crossdressing since I was thirteen (or maybe even twelve), I never told her that. I was at that stage of youth when I hoped and believed (wishful thinking of course!) that it was an urge I could "get over" once I was married, having sex any night, and all the rest of it. As we all know, that didn't turn out to be true, but some things we have to learn for ourselves, most of all things about ourselves!

But we were young at the time. I have no idea how old you are, but she for instance was only sixteen when we first met, and not quite seventeen when we first became a "couple." "She was only sixteen, only sixteen..." Now that's a song even more antiquated that Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up...!" But true wisdom is timeless. Contrary to the apparent, literal meaning of the song's lyrics, sixteen is not "too young to fall in love"--and all the more passionately so on account of being so young! But that's where the conflict lies, because for most people it is too young to truly know ourselves: who we really are, where we're going, what we're going to become, what we're going to need and want as mature adults--and what kind of partner will be best for us throughout our (hopefully long) lives.

As an incurable romantic myself (and proud of it), I'm always glad to hear of people who married their high school sweethearts and had many years of happy life together. Not to mention those who say they "fell in love at first sight"! But when those partnerships do work out well, my ruthlessly pragmatic side can't help suspecting that it's more by luck than judgment!

To make matters worse, any relationship we have when we're young takes up a proportionately larger slice of our life than a relationship we have when we're older.

I'm always sorry to hear of married couples who split after twenty years, sometimes as much as thirty or forty years. Their relationship must have been meaningful for them to spend so much time together during their most eventful life passages. When it occupied such an enormous portion of their lives--as much as half or even two-thirds at the time they split--it's no wonder that the collapse of a marriage is disastrous for many. However, I never forget that if we break up while we're young, even after a three-year relationship, say, that relationship has occupied a far larger portion of the life we've known so far! That's even more true when we discount "childhood" spent in (hopefully) emotional security with our parents, and start counting from puberty, say--or even from the onset of "adulthood," which may be eighteen or even twenty-one, depending on whose criterion of "adulthood" we're using!

Judged by those standards, a serious relationship may be the only one we've known in our lives, and the only one we've known for the last third or a half of our "independent" or "post-pubertal" or "adult" lives--possibly for all of our "adult" lives so far! So it's not surprising if the collapse of such a relationship feels subjectively as catastrophic, even more so, than the collapse of a twenty- or forty-year marriage to an older person. It's easy to feel, as many have, that "my life is ruined forever."

That's the bad news: that it feels terrible at the time. The good news of course is if we're lucky enough to find a better, truer and more lasting partnership later in life, the three years of that earlier relationship seems comparatively short. And with the healing hand of time, the pain and loss does shrink into its true perspective. Only patiece is needed.

I drifted along for a few years after that. I had some relationships of a kind, three that I have very special memories of, but in the end those women were not for me. Here again I keep coming back to what Doc said: "you have to kiss a lot of frogs" before you find that prince or princess! I'm happy to report that in retrospect, there's nobody in my past that I'd ever call a "frog." Just not MY kind of "princess," that's all.

Perhaps I've been lucky. Another song I never forgot was Al Stewart's self-revealing epic titled Love Chronicles," years before he became more famous for songs like Year of the Cat. Al's earlier work was a twenty-minute autobiography ending with the memorable line: "And all the girls I ever loved have left themselves inside me." I'm happy to say that's the way I'm able to feel today, that every girl in my own past added to (rather than subtracting from) my life. In a way, I still "love" that first girlfriend I shared more than three years with, for the times we had together.

But just like Doc's own experience, much of this is because that early breakup, painful as it was at the time, liberated me to find the woman who became my "Wife for Life." She's a woman who was not only just as much fun as my first serious girlfriend, but shared more of my real values and also accepted my crossdressing, just as I'd slowly come to accept it myself. So it was all for the best in the long run.

In retrospect, there were things "not quite right" for me about that earlier relationship. Crossdressing was only one. I never told my first girlfriend about it, but I did sort of "hint" once about an interest in the idea, and it struck no chord whatsoever. I suspect it would not have gone down well!

She wasn't the only woman like that. Another woman I had a serious relationship with I never told either, but from some remarks she made I was pretty sure the notion of crossdressing would have gone over with her like the proverbial "Led Zeppelin." Yet in both cases I realized also that we had other differences totally unrelated to crossdressing: not the same in either case, but which could very well have caused either an abrupt split at some point, or a slow drifting apart, with much the same result in the end.

For instance, my first girlfriend, while sharing my wacky and irreverent Monty Pythonish sense of humor, had a different attitude to religion. It's not that I'm "deeply religious"--heaven forbid! (if "heaven" is an appropriate word to use in the circumstances! )--but on the more serious side of life it bothered me that she didn't have the same respect for religion that I felt it deserved. A more worrying fact was the cynicism she expressed, even at a young age, about the notion of married couples staying faithful to one another throughout life.

Sure, we humans all have our faults. Occasionally "affairs" can even help to preserve some people's marriages, rather than destroying them. I'm probably more idealistic than she was, but just the same, if that was her attitude, I'm deeply thankful that I never had to deal with another cheating female. So thank heaven (again!) that we weren't married at the time. Of course it hurts like hell if you're "in love." but it's so much worse if you're married at the time, or "committed" in other ways.

It's bad enough that you don't know "where a cheater has been," and what ultimately lethal germs she might be bringing home to you without your knowledge. But just think of all the other awful things that could and do happen! Far too often a man is ripped off by a cheating wife who ruins him financially by waltzing off with a "divorce settlement"--when SHE should been paying HIM damages instead for shamelessly breaching the terms of their marriage contract. And that's the least of it. What if they have children? Far too much of the time the cheating wife walks off with HIS children, and instead of paying him damages for depriving him of relationships with his own kids, HE'S expected to pay HER even more crippling amounts of his money for the privilege SHE enjoys of "keeping" them! Among many others, I can't help feeling sorry for a nephew of mine, a thoroughly decent young man, who was ripped off in this way even though the "wife" who did it wasn't actually cheating on him... as far as I know.

Cheating only makes it worse. What if they're not HIS children at all, but brats that his faithless wife conceived in an illegitimate relationship with some alleycat "lover"? Even if the couple do stay married, that's the worst betrayal a female could pull on a man, to dump these "cuckoos" in the nest that HE'S paying for with his daily labors.

We all have to die some time, and as much as we treasure the dream of transcending death through immortality, the only "immortality" most of us can ever truly experience is through our children: whatever we pass on to them through our genes, and through our teaching. If we're deprived of our rightful relationships with them, we're deprived of our ability to pass anything on to them culturally. And if they're not biologically ours in the first place, we're deprived of our ability to pass our genes on either.

The cheating female who dumps a child on her husband that's not his is at best tricking him into paying to pass on, not his own genes, but the genes of an enemy, the man she's conspired with to cuckold him. Worse, if he discovers that fact, the child who had no moral right to exist in the first place is a constant reminder in his own home of his wife's infidelity, and his own consequent humiliation.

Worst of all, if they divorce, and his wife takes the child (as usually happens), he's still required to cripple himself financially, jeopardizing his chances of forming another and happier family relationship, to pay for his cheating wife's enjoyment of the child she conceived with another man, who will never be his in any sense of the word.

Thank heaven (again!) that I never had to deal with anything like that! And thank heaven my parents were never like that either. I don't doubt that my good father was my father, that my good mother was my mother, and my lovely daughter is mine too. So if your girlfriend is cheating on you, however painful and disappointing because you can't help "loving" her, just realize that you DODGED A BULLET! And DUMP her post haste, before something worse happens! Better things are in store for you in the years to come.

So much for that topic! Second, like other posters here, if your counselor told you that crossdressing was a "coping mechanism," I'm compelled to question what he meant by it. That sounds very superficial to me, largely due to the negative (not to mention dismissive implications of the term "coping mechanism."

We have countless ways of "coping" with the problems that confront us in life, but the term "coping mechanism" generally implies some shortcoming, at least some makeshift and temporary practice that's not necessarily healthy. That probably isn't true for you at all.

Let's examine for a moment what we generally mean by "coping mechanism." At usually means some way of dealing with life's challenges that's the best we can do at the time, until something better comes along. At best it implies some behavior that fails to get to the root of the problem; at worst, behavior that's actually destructive. Labeling something as a "coping mechanism" implies that there's something "better" that you could or should be using instead.

A couple of examples will suffice. "Coping behaviors" are usually about emotional stress of some kind; but what kind exactly? What if they're money worries, and somebody "copes" with them by drinking, to "drown their sorrows"? That's destructive in two ways. It not only destroys their health, but it actually makes the problem worse, by depriving them of their capacity to earn money and resolve their financial problems!

What if a guy loses his wife, and "copes with" his loss, as some do, by "throwing himself into his work"? Especially if it's work of a creative kind. Well, at least that isn't destructive, like drowning himself in drink. But it's still rightly termed a "coping mechanism," because it's an "escape" of sorts. As comforting and constructive as it may be, it still fails to deal with the necessary emotional process of grieving his loss, or possibly (in a divorce situation) confronting his own shortcomings that led the marriage to fail.

But putting the two together, what if somebody is facing bankruptcy and "copes with" that by throwing himself into his work? Assuming he's earning money at it, surely that's the most appropriate way, not only of taking his mind off his problems, but actually solving them in reality!

So what about you? If your therapist labeled your crossdressing as a "coping mechanism," WHAT problem did he imagine you were "coping" WITH?

If it was difficulties in your relationship, and what you sensed as its impending breakdown, then that's a problem in itself. And it's not one that most people would "cope with" by crossdressing. There's probably nothing you can do to solve it, except dump the woman who's cheating on you.

But why does crossdressing "relieve stress" for you, when it wouldn't do the same for a great many ordinary people? And what IS the true source of the "stress" that it's relieving? As you've pointed out yourself, it only "relieves stress" for you BECAUSE of your "feminine" tendencies. And what is the "something better" that you "could" or "should" be doing instead? I don't see that there is one.

For that reason I would never disparage your crossdressing as a mere "coping mechanism." In reality it's the best and most necessary thing you personally could be doing in order to explore the extent of any transgender tendencies you may have. Like Alaina, I do agree that this is not the best time to make any hasty decisions about your future. But it is a space to explore yourself and take the time to find out where your life is headed. That's not a mere "coping mechanism." It's an essential part of life's journey.

By the way, I think you look very beautiful, and you're bound to succeed, whichever sex you choose to end up in. The best of luck to you!

[GretchenM]

I suspect that for some crossdressing is a way to deal with stress in the sense that it is running away from yourself to be someone else. But I have to question a conclusion that it is a cause of crossdressing in a person. It is such a dramatic shift in expression. It seems to me there was something more fundamental that caused a person to crossdress and then they discovered it could be used as a tool to relieve stress and therefore it becomes, under specific conditions, a way to relieve stress. I think your counselor might have the cart before the horse. It is hard to imagine someone who is under severe stress suddenly thinking that if I put on a dress and some makeup I will be like someone else and the stress will be relieved and I can continue in my life in this new expression. Sorry, that doesn't make much sense to me. Thus, using it as a stress relieving tool seems to require engaging in a very elaborate behavior pattern well before the discovery that it can used to make yourself experience less stress.

[JeanTG]

I agree with Gretchen. Yes, crossdressing does relieve stress. Yes for some it can be an escape. But for many of us the stress it relieves is the stress of trying to pretend what we are not, that is inherently macho guys even if some of us do a great job of faking it! That it also helps us survive life stresses doesn't hurt. Some find relieve in the bottom of a bottle; others in a drug, yet others in extreme exercise or sports. Whatever floats your boat. When I can't dress, heavy exercise does it for me.

My desire to dress is inherent in me and allows me to express a very prominent part of my identity, femininity. Dressing has a double-whammy: relieves the stress of having to suppress this desire, and the stress of day-to-day life. The good news is that unlike an alcoholic or a drug addict, our particular form of relief still allows us to be highly functional. I work from home and can do exactly the same job dressed or in drab, can participate in conference calls, etc., when dressed. Try doing that in an alcoholic fog.

When I first discovered dressing, when I was young and horny, this discovery was tied to my sexuality in a big way. But now not so much. On rare occasions yes (maybe 1 or 2x per year), mostly no, the pleasure is sensual, not sexual. So its discovery was not as a stress-relieving tool, but a sexual gratification tool. That has been eclipsed now, and yes it does relieve stress in a big way. But the pattern is written on our souls by something different than stress relieve, and I happen to know in my case that it was written on my soul when I was a child.

I would find a therapist that understands crossdressing and gender issues.