For those who were pretty open with their SO from the start...

[Rhonda Jean]

Well, it was over 40 years ago, so neither of us knew it was anything other than my own personal preference/look/proclivity/choice. We obviously didn't have the internet or any other frame/source of reference. I had been doing it to a large degree since my early teens with the acceptance/encouragement/blessings of my parents. She was very much in my corner on it. "It shouldn't matter how you dress, it should only matter that you're a good person". Getting married at 20 and moving to a new larger city and living on our own for the first time I think we both felt emboldened by that. I know I did. I wore more clothes from the girl's side of the aisle than from the boys, but I had done that prior to marriage. I had always worn my nails very long, but the first time I wore red polish in public was at her urging. I (or she) rolled my hair and frequently slept in huge curlers. If I needed to run an errand while I had my hair in curlers, I wore curlers in public (and for some reason I seemed to always have an errand to run!). Two months after we were married (and before I was even old enough to drink) I had to go out of town for work for a week. She helped me pack a separate suitcase of her clothes, makeup, etc. for me to wear every evening after my work stuff. My hotel was across the parking lot from a mall, so every night I'd get dressed up and go to the mall and out to eat. For the next 10 years (until we had our first child) I continually refined my female side until there just wasn't much male side left. I tried to revive it so I'd be a proper dad. That was short lived. Tried again after our second child. Again, short lived. As we matured and our circumstance/jobs/income/friends/neighborhoods/responsibilities changed, it wasn't so cool to have a husband that looked like a woman. I was so deep in that I was either unwilling or unable to change.

I was lucky, lucky, lucky to have the acceptance and encouragement (or at least enabling) of my parents, and then I went directly into the same thing with my wife. Her acceptance and encouragement dwindled (appropriately, I guess) as our circumstances changed. I do not blame her for becoming intolerant, particularly now that I've heard more of her side. As I've said many times on this forum, I carried it way too far for someone who was not transitioning (which she thought I was).

[Steph_CD_62]

I got caught by my first wife

My second wife I told her of my love of lingerie from day #1. Within a couple of weeks of meeting her, I told her that I enjoyed wearing lingerie. She had the normal questions, gay? want to transitition to female? how long? why? After our initial talk about me wearing lingerie, we didn't talk for a couple days. I wanted her to have her time to think about what I told her. When we talked again she didn't have a problem with it.

I knew I wanted to be honest from the beginning and I knew it was a risk, but from the first time of holding her I knew she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I got very lucky that she was accepting of my crossdressing. Since we met, my crossdressing has grown beyond lingerie. With each new thing I would talk with my wife to make sure she was okay with it. We came up with some ground rules and I try to follow them as best as I can. No dressing every day of the week. No dressing on major holidays. No dressing on her birthday. And no dressing on our anniversary. She married a man, and she still wants to see me as a man, but has accepted that I am who I am and I won't change.