A quick recap, wife is pro transgender rights but doesn't want anything to do with my crossdressing. We have an out of sight, out of mind, DADT agreement.
About a week or so ago, we were having a fantastic day, I had gotten very little sleep the night before so I took a nap in the afternoon while she mucked about the house. When I woke up she was clearly upset. I had to leave for a time sensitive errand but I asked her what was bothering her before I went, she said we could talk about it when I got back because she didn't want it to blowup when I needed to leave. Not having any indication of what it could be I asked her just to give me an idea before i left, she replied, "Your crossdressing." My heart sank.
Upon my return we sat down to discuss it. It was an accumulation of a few things. The last being, that while I was napping she had gone down to the basement to break down cardboard boxes for recycle. The basement is typically my domain but she wanted to help out since I had been so busy lately. She found a shoebox that I hadn't gotten rid of and it was an expensive shoe store. She said she didn't really care about the cost, it was my money to do with what I wanted. It was more that with some other things that had happened it had upset her. We recently got a new bedroom set, really nice, and we each ended up with separate dressers. She admitted that she got curious to see how I had organized my dresser and had looked through the drawers. She knew my female clothes were in there and that her being upset over seeing the skirts in there wasn't anything that was my fault. Another thing that came up is that she always calls me when she's on her way home from work and we talk while she's driving, lately I've been so distracted by work that by the time she calls I really need to use the bathroom and the phone call gives me enough pause to realize this so I've ended several calls before she's gotten home so that I could use the bathroom. She assumed I was changing out of women's clothes whenever I did this and was starting to think that I dressed a lot more frequently than I admitted to. The last thing that she was starting to worry about is that we've recently decided we definitely want to try and have kids, and since we've agreed to keep my crossdressing between the two of us, and her thinking that I was dressing a lot more than I do when she wasn't home, how was this going to work with kids. She didn't really want me to dress in front of the kids, not because she thought it was wrong, and if our kids ended being crossdressers she would definitely support them in that, but because kids have no filters and would most likely out me to anyone and everyone.
I apologized about the shoebox and asked her if there had been anything else I hadn't kept out of sight? And she said there wasn't, that I was being very good about that. I brought up how before we got married that she had asked me to make as sure as possible that I didn't want to transition or dress full time and that I struggled for awhile on how to figure that out. That eventually it boiled down to one question. "How would things be different if she was fully accepting of my crossdressing?" and that the answer was, "Not that much." I told her a bit about my typical dressing, that I tend towards more lounge around the house type clothes rather than the skirts and dresses. She asked if I meant lingerie and I told her no, that it was typically stuff like sweats and tee shirts (yeah yeah yeah, you can all raz me about that one). That I typically do all my usual stuff, work, read, play video games, clean the house, just in more feminine attire. That I still considered myself a man, just wearing different clothes. That for some reason it makes me feel calm and alleviates stress. I told her that when I do dress that I change a good deal in advance of her getting off work and there was only a time or two that I had still been dressed when she called and that I had said I needed to change, she couldn't recall when I had done that and I said it was probably unnoteworthy because we were going out when she got home so it made sense for other reasons. In regards to the kids I stressed that I really wished she would have brought it up before it got to the point of upsetting her so that we could figure it out together as a team vs when she's upset and I'm worried. We brainstormed a few solutions. I also mentioned that I feel like I get mixed signals from her, that she's very pro-transgender rights but she gets so upset when it comes to my dressing. She recognized that there is a conflict there and wasn't really sure why there is. At that point we were both feeling a bit better, her less upset and me less worried I decided to let the conversation go as we had covered a lot of stuff and I didn't want to get us both riled up again trying to figure out her internal conflict with nerves a bit raw.
A few days later we were going to a get together and talking about who might be there, I mentioned James and Elliot might be there, James is FtM and pretty open about it. My wife responded, "I really don't know why I have such a hard time with your dressing, I have no problem with James at all." It was an absolutely sincere statement. I told her I had been mulling over that it might be good for us if we talked more about what I do when I dress so that she has a clearer picture of it and so it doesn't get overly built up in her mind to the point where she can't handle it. Also, that if she wanted to try and get to the bottom of her internal conflict over it that we could definitely do that. That we could have these discussions not so that boundaries might change but so that she might have an easier time with it. We talked a bit about it. She thinks its mainly due to her perception of me. That one of the first things that drew her to me when we met was that I was a strong defender type. I brought up that I had been reading a history on crossdressing. How that women who lived as men were often accepted as long as they didn't make it known they were women but for men it was very different. That it boiled down to the belief on inequality of the sexes. Women were accepted as men because they were trying to become better than what they are without challenging the gender roles but men were seen as making themselves less. This gave her a bit of a pause. Again, I let the conversation wander off without pressing too much.
I think a key to her having less of an internal struggle over my dressing is the realization that I'm the same person no matter what clothes I'm wearing. I'm hoping that we don't go another year before it comes up again. Thank you for reading all of this, as I don't have anyone else to talk to, its good to do that here.
