I had something long and over-detailed about my history with my wife, but I'll try to be as succinct as I can while still providing enough context.

My desire to CD has been increasing lately, but I've found it terrifying to admit that to my wife. My journey started in earnest about two years ago when I started trying on my wife's clothes without her knowledge. She came home early about a month or two after that, and I had to explain what I had been doing. She was upset about my dishonesty in hiding it from her, and she asked me to just be upfront and honest with her moving forward. There's been two instances since then (one major, one minor) where the idea of crossdressing has come up. I told her what I was thinking and how I was interested in exploring it, but both times she has reacted by essentially asking questions like Does this mean you're gay? Trans? What does this mean for our relationship? All of which I can answer, but she then outright told me it makes her uncomfortable.

I've seen from other posts that some relationships have an agreement consisting of one person CDing while the other one is away, not home, asleep, etc. But our problem is that my wife wants to do EVERYTHING together. I mean that literally. Unless one of us is working, she doesn't like being away from me or doing separate things while we're home together. She even reacted negatively when I expressed an interest in finding a community online I could join to help understand what this desire means for me. Thus, even my posting here is something she would be against. In many other ways, doing everything in our relationship together works for us. But of course there are issues like CD that clearly make our relationship more complicated.

I should say, she's not an intolerant person at all. We have friends across the spectrum, and she's a very empathetic and caring person. But CD is a uniquely difficult subject in our relationship in that she is uncomfortable with me doing it and doesn't really want to talk about it. And she doesn't want an arrangement where there is ANYTHING we do without the other person's active participation.

Because of all this, I've continued trying on her clothes without her knowledge. I've even briefly gone outside for a walk twice now in her clothes. I've felt proud of myself for going out en femme, but I've felt guilty and ashamed of my continued dishonesty. I feel like I'm in a spiral of wanting more and more to explore CD but feeling like I need to lie to my wife in order to do it.

I'm sure almost everyone here has felt scared to have the talk with their SO. What can I do to broach the subject of CD again? What do I do if she says she's still uncomfortable and doesn't want to consider an agreement of exploring it without her present? Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.