Not much besides money! I discovered all this after the wife passed away! I have two wonderful children who accept and just want daddy to be happy! Out to my sister in law and she accepts! I totally accept myself so I am alright there! Some indecisions do occur from time to time! Generally it is all good! Still traveling on the journey and going where it takes me! Hugs Lana Mae
Life is worth living!
"Foxy lady! You look so good!!" Jimi Hendrix
It cost me a pretty good amount of time and money. Stealing moments here and there that could have been spent with family and friends but most important it cost me my marriage of 22 years to a woman that I loved. I also figure it cost me to lose some respect from my kids but I'm not 100% sure of that. I know they still love me and I love them too. The cost has been high but I am what I am, a crossdressing / transgender person.
Most of my family found out about my fem side about a year an a half ago, and to my good fortune, most of them accepted the new me. So the only solid negatives right now are that my brother in law (sister's husband) has banned me from their home, and he wants nothing to do with me. I can do just fine with never seeing him again. We never liked each other anyway. My sister is still working he way to acceptance (she insists she still loves me and wants me to be happy, but she isn't yet ready to 'meet her new big sister'), and her husband's reaction to finding out about my fem side has made it much more difficult for me to spend any time with my sister.
On the other hand, her three daughters and her son and their spouses all think their daddy (my unaccepting brother in law) is being a jerk, and they all accept me just fine, as a woman or as the man they knew me as growing up.
Other costs...
Much harder to find a date. I'm widowed now and 60 years old. That alone limits my field of choices. Being bi helps even it out a little, but preferring to go out socially as a lesbian transwoman yields lots of 'dancing and drinking gal-pals', but no 'girlfriends'. Finding someone who can accepts my fem side and who can love me as a MtF trans woman has been quite a challenge, and I hardly ever get even a romantic kiss any more. Experiencing only one 'date' (which didn't even end in a good night hug, let alone a kiss) and only one 'hooked up and fooled around evening', over the period of 4 years since I was widowed and came out has been quite discouraging.
Also makeup is expensive enough that on my retired budget, I have to limit how often I go out en-femme.
my dressing has cost me the total respect and trust of my wife, a very heavy price one, i don't believe is worth the cost
Thank you Pat for sharing this perspective. Actually everything that I have lost would not have been mine if I could have had the life that I was meant to have.Originally Posted by Pat
Superb question. Part of dialog right now with a close friend and pastor: the cost.
For me: over 50 years of cycles of expression, denial, purging, hating my male body, seclusion, low self esteem, etc. Remarkably in all that I had friendships, an amazing career, and married and helped raise two amazing daughters. It took me 50 years and much spiritual self examination, the Unity church principles, and some key mentors (including Aunt Kelly on this forum illuminating the term "non-binary") to reach some level of peace.
Costs are high. I think if I had been raised in a culture that allowed gender expression, my life would have been very different.
Right now I am entering some new phase, yet to be determined. Basically I am waiting for the right time, the right window to open. First: death of my mother and FIL-- to finish key obligations. Then, put myself first and foremost and truly figure out who I am gender wise. I don't think I can take my wife on this journey, perhaps not my oldest daughter, certainly main friends.
Costs are high. It is a difficult journey. Wish I could talk about Spiritual aspects, and my own thoughts on that, but not happening on a forum platform.
I have often wondered what life would have been like if I was gender normal. But, I accept what is, and I have grown through the pain, and successes and struggles.
I would not wish this on anyone, however there are benefits to walking a gender blend world.
Rogina:
My "condition".
I'm in the same gender boat as many here.
A "lifer" in that I always harbored a femme side but never understood it; most often denied it.
Dabbled in underdressing and SOME drag dressing in my youth.
Lived a "normal straight life", married for 40 yrs
Came to full crossdressing about 2 yrs ago. The lights went on, so to speak.
The look, the feel, the identification with women and a will to live as a woman ...... all of it, have become entirely too important to me.
Yes, it's more than just the clothing. If given a choice right now I believe I could live comfortably full time as a woman.
I just don't know where I am yet on the transgender spectrum, though I truly believe I am squarely on it.
I'm taking baby steps. I'm taking notes. Finally I'm getting around after almost 6 decades of fighting it, to resolving my lifelong gender issues.
BUT..... I value the wonderful life I've built, my marriage and the relationships I have. Such things are not disposable. On the other hand, I can't see myself living miserably in gender hell and denial. NO MORE. I am also learning from this forum site and the experiences of my sisters.
I need to be sure, for a long long time before I commit to literally change my life.
From the bottom of my loving heart, I thank you and everyone for sharing their stories; for the love and support you girls bring.
There resides within me a Woman, and she is powerful.
She has been my Grace and Bearing on the stormiest seas.
I could no more deny Her than I would my own soul.
I call myself a plain vanilla cross dresser. No desire to live or become a women. Would I like to be en femme for an extended person of time; 24/7. Did that when my wife was visiting family for 7-10 days each time. I like my male side too. Money has never been an issue. My wife probably spends more on her hobby than I spend on women's clothing, and, that's not an insignificant amount.
I've come to the opinion everyone should embrace who they are. Unfortunately, that's a difficult hurdle to jump sometimes. Life would have been a lot simpler if I was not a man who feels the need to emulate a woman sometimes because there seems to be a bit of female DNA in my genes. The best I can do for others is to support them and combat the ignorance which abounds around transgender men and women, and, also gays and lesbians.
Great question!! thus far Becky has only really cost me money... a cost i am so happy to bare given how much she has enhanced my life.
A.K.A Rebecca & Bec
Time and money.
Many hours behind closed doors when I could have been doing something more cnstructive.
Money used to buy clothing, no it really was not wasted.
The time probably was not wasted as I had a great social life as a girl between 18 and when I got married.
Marriage was not a waste of time either I am still married and we do go out together dressed these days.
So cross dressing has cost time and money, but it was really not wasted.
Just that life would have been different without it.
Work on your elegance,
and beauty will follow.
Cost, for me; a relationship which in-turn cost me money with the divorce....She allowed me to dress. Then she changed or should say discovered her inner self.
Next stop on this crazy train trip for me will be retirement and its my turn to treat/express myself. Ilene thank you...
Escapism isn't necessarily bad, but is definitely unhealthy in the long term. While helpful in the short term, things will degrade over time. At some point, the escapee will have to face the issue. Things simply blowing over isn't really going to happen in many situations.
My crossdressing has not cost me much other than guilt and money. I no longer have any guilt and the money is less than a round of golf would cost me, so really not an issue.
Please call me Jamie, I always_have crossdressed, I always will, "alwayshave".
My wife is tolerant but my crossdressing, or more accurately, my going out while crossdressed, is causing stress in our marriage. We are trying to work through it.
She is afraid I will be "outed" and people will feel pity for her. In turn, I hide things from her, like the extent of my activities (she has told me to "lie to her"). I've also made some GG friends that know the CD me and my wife wants to know why I have GG friends and what they want from me (and she has her suspicions).
We've been married 25 years.
Pat's contribution very much is the same as I would put it. It is difficult question and can produce paradoxical expressions that can help us look at the Big Picture and how we each fit into that picture.
There was a loss in the secrecy but since coming out to vital people in my life, there has been a decidedly positive effect. Accepting the feminine in me rather than hiding it and burying myself in self imposed isolation and all of that producing deep and almost continuous depression has been liberating. I have become a different person, but that difference is blended with the positive parts of the former masculine person, less the distortions the fully masculine act generated and produced pain for others.
I don't fully dress often and then only when necessary to ward off gender dysphoric stresses which are becoming increasingly rare events. The liberation has allowed me to express the positive effects of being the real me, even though that self is not openly expressed except in bits and pieces of feminine attire mixed with masculine attire. I am a much happier person now and have found that the reduction in self orientation and realignment with other orientation has created a more "happy Buddha" type of orientation that people appreciate. Enveloping the total me helps me to shift the orientation away from "me" focus and more toward an "other" focus.
Ilene, you posed a great question and the outpouring of so many perspectives has been a beautiful thing.
Last edited by GretchenM; 02-12-2018 at 08:14 AM.
Excellent topic that makes one stop and reflect on their own lives perspective. Seems the spectrum of interest in occasional to full commitment to being en femme provides the drama of the experience. Fascinated by the image in the mirror, creativity enhanced by others postings, and perception of living as another gender become ones reality.
The physical,mental, and emotional are life's challenges we must endure. Let's hope ones higher power gives us direction.
It's cost me money of course but it's also cost me time that I should be spent doing other things.
Krisi
Maybe it's just me, but i'm thinking the "cost" in Ilene's OP wasn't so much about dollars and cents and as Beverley points out, except for those unfortunate purges we've all been through, the money spent isn't really a waste.
And it's also my opinion that it's that nasty shame and guilt cycle that leads us to casting a negative sheen over the time and money we've spent.
Money wise, not as much as you would think. I try to be a frugal girl.
Emotion & relationship wise? More than you know.
Before you can love another, you must first like yourself
I Aim To Misbehave
Labels belong on BOXES, not PEOPLE!
as with some others here, my greatest cost has been 'opportunity costs.' In economics, opportunity costs means if you're spending money on guns, you're spending less money on butter. In crossdressing, it means the time I spend dressed is time when I could be doing something constructive or some other activity I enjoy, like biking or hiking or working out in the garage...lol..not 'working out'...but working...out in the garage
o for me about 1000.00 my wife an 5 kids not much
It clearly varies by individual, but it's possible to crossdress AND do something constructive.
I am not a woman; I don't want to be a woman; I don't want to be mistaken for a woman.
I am not a man; I don't want to be a man; I don't want to be mistaken for a man.
I am a transgender person. And I'm still figuring out what that means.
Me it cost me my first marriage all my male friends my close family and my job .My current wife who i love with all my heart cant stand that this is part of me i dress alone and before i found this place thought i was alone .if only i could go back to when i was 20 years old i would have done so many things different.my current wife of 38 years isn't changing her mind so i guess im stuck with being all alone
I am with Elizabeth wife's trust hard to get back but I am working on it.
Time that I could be doing something else or the money that could be going on other stuff.
Last edited by Pat; 02-12-2018 at 05:49 PM. Reason: No gun references -- see "Rights of Content" in rules.
If you can't laugh and have fun you might as well go home.
Ilene,
Another good topic. My ex-wife would say that CDing was the reason for our divorce. But, I take exception because I fully disclosed my CDing to her before we were married in the early 70s. The divorce was inevitable and probably should have happened sooner.
As I identify as a transgender person today, I have to say that it has cost me decades of avoiding exploring my authentic self. I can't change the past, but I am blessed with three beautiful adult daughters and five grandchildren. I am in reasonably good health, enjoy my job and life, and strive to keep life simple.
My losses are minor in comparison to others.
what has it cost? A lot.
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