Getting whiplash/how do I convince him it's OK to talk to me?

[Pandora2020]

Hi, all!
(If this is in the wrong spot or has tmi, please forgive and direct me - this is my 1st time on a msg board.)

I'm hoping to find some insight or advice about my husband, who first mentioned his desire to xdress 6 wks ago- after 20+ years of marriage. Apologies in advance for the life story. (Please feel free to skip ahead 11 paragraphs for the tl;dr version.) ��

Some relevant background: I'm feeling guilty bc I feel responsible. For a lot of the confusion, anyway.
On one side of the equation: we have 3 adult daughters. Our middle one came home for spring break and announced she's transitioning to male. (I'm using 'she' by her request; we live in a very small town in the Bible belt, and she's not 'out' everywhere yet. I will say that I appreciate that bc it's giving me time to get used to the idea.) My SO seemed to have more problems with it than I did; while I helped her decide her new male name and find appropriate clothing, he insisted it was a phase. Yes, it came out of left field, but I didn't/don't doubt her.

I'm slowly realizing his reaction was a test.

On the other side: the last 2 yrs or so we've been having a great time getting used to our empty nest & becoming, er, reacquainted. But shortly after our daughter made her announcement, I noticed him pulling back. (I always had to initiate, and even then got shot down 3 out of 5 times.) We'd had an incredibly lonely time for the 5 years prior to our kids moving out, where he only wanted sex on our anniversary, so I got worried and told him I refused to go back to that.

He blamed his disinterest on job stress and his weight (he's 6'5", 400+lbs. I should add that we're a little mismatched, as I'm 5'7, 135). So like a total fool, I started looking for ways around those particular problems.

One of the things recommended to me was a Yes/No/Maybe list. (Lol. Spoiler alert: don't do this. Not unless you're 100% ready for your partner to say yes to every single kinky/fetishy option.) That's why I picked the name Pandora: I totally opened the friggin' box. :-)

One of the questions, of course, was about crossdressing. And this is where we've since enacted a rule about graphic honesty (no euphemisms allowed). Because while I answered, "Idk, I'm a girl, so don't think it's a problem?" - meaning, of course, that I couldn't think of any outfits girls can't wear--he read it as "she is OK with male crossdressing," which, in my naiveté, I didn't even know existed. I mean, I've done it with dudes in lacy undies before, but if you'd asked me what I thought xdressing was, I probably would have defaulted to the RuPaul stereotype--cases in which a guy would probably have very little interest in me to begin with, so again, didn't think it was relevant. (Apologies.)

So. (Again, sorry for details!) My first clue I was missing something bigger: the night we were going to swap lists, he came home drunk to the gills. Waaay out of character. Looking back, idk why I did the list stone cold sober. I had no idea what he was so worried about... So when I opened his list and read all the things I already knew he was into, I was still confused about his hesitance. He shyly asked, "the crossdressing thing didn't throw you off?" I'd missed it, but my reaction was, "Um, no? Let your freak flag fly!"



This was my first shock: he got so excited, so happy, that he immediately went online and spent roughly $600 on girl clothes. (This is how I know it was his first time shopping, btw. He didn't know where to shop or what sizes to get, let alone take advantage of sales. I told him the same thing I told my kid: I might not know the right things to say, but I have a black belt in shopping. :-) Let me help.) We have an old-fashioned cliché of a marriage: he makes the money & I spend it. I know everything he buys down to the penny. The man has never willingly spent more than $100 on, well, anything in his entire life.

Fast forward 48 hrs (gotta love Amazon). His 1st packages arrived. I haven't seen him this happy since the day I told him he was going to be a dad. I'm under the understanding this is a family site, so I'll skip the graphic details.

And this is where it got weird. ��

So I was benched for a few days, which was probably for the best. It gave us time to assess. He wanted to make sure I was OK and not just going along out with it, and I needed to know that, too. We have to be very, very careful with anything new bc I have very bad PTSD (from a kidnapping/rape when I was 18. It ticks me off that I even have to mention it, bc I know this makes me a bigger cliché.) One of the unfortunate aspects is that I'm very, very good at compartmentalizing (or powering through) negative emotions and experiences. It's a survival technique. I don't always know I'm doing it in the moment; the telltale sign is foggy or unreal-feeling memories. I'm missing full years of my life, and neither of us wants that to happen again.

So I promised to tell him the second anything got uncomfortable or too much for me. We both learned that I'm OK with the undies/bralette, but any bra forms/hints of actual breasts leave me cold. (I feel like I'm hugging my grandma, who was unfortunately built a lot like a busty version of my SO. Not hot.) Negligees are hit and miss, but it seems to hinge on that boobs thing. He seemed accepting of that. Ish. But when I mentioned that the full dress, wigs, makeup, etc would be too much for me (I have to see the man I married), he got really quiet. I tried to ask him if that was a problem, and he shrugged it off. (Note: he's only purchased undergarments so far. I still have/had no idea if he wants more.) He did ask the question, "so if you came home one day and I was hanging out in a dress, what would you do?" —but he phrased it like a joke.

I sensed he was really asking, so I told him the truth: "I have no idea. It wouldn't bother me on an intellectual level, but emotionally?? And sexually, I'm into dudes. So as long as you're not expecting me to get hot and bothered... "

He laughed and changed the subject. A while later, he said what I've learned is a common refrain, "You know it's all a spectrum. You liked it the other night. You might be a little bi."

I lost my cool, and asked him if he would ask a gay man if he'd tried enough women. It's the same premise. I had to shut that down, hard.

Long story short: back to now: we had a few talks over the next few days, he continued to dress in nighties, and I thought we were both OK. But after about 2-3 weeks, he told me he's always been "a little transgender." I admit I froze a bit - my daughter's transition hit front and center. When I asked him to expand on that, he said he was confused and didn't know exactly how far he wanted to take it. Then he said he actually got the idea from me, because I'd once used my bra on him when we were first dating (Thx.)

I told him that I'm with him and not planning to go anywhere, but I need to know what is going on. I don't want to be blindsided. Inwardly, I was kicking myself. It explained so much. Not to mention making me the stupid cliché of the assault survivor who marries a closeted dude bc there's no safer man to marry than a female. Sigh.

3 days later I came home and he'd hidden everything away. When I asked him about it, he said it had been something he was trying, but he wasn't interested anymore. It's cyclical, he said, but it'd be a long time before he'd even want to think about it again. OK. And the "possibly trans" thing? His answer: "I don't know what you're talking about." The next day, he refused to talk about any of it, and accused me of making it a bigger thing than it is.

The stuff stayed hidden for 2 wks. He brought out the nightie again last weekend. But when I tentatively asked if he wanted to talk about it, he shut me down and basically told me I was imagining it all. (I mean, I have the receipts and the pdf of the kink list. So I don't think I'm making it all up.)

He's making me feel insane, and I'm starting to suspect it's on purpose.
So how do I convince him it's not something to be ashamed about, without accusing him of intentionally messing with my mind??? I'm familiar enough with denial to know this has to be killing him.

(Not to mention, killing me. This uncertainty is hitting all my buttons and turning me into the moody, suicidal emo girl I grew out of 20 years ago. Ugh.)

Any advice?
-Dora