Trying to understand behavior

[Gerard]

thanks so much Joni. I did tell him right away how it made me feel...belittled, inferior...that it was OK to emulate me and my gender until there was a real issue to deal with and then it felt like he had to uneven the playing filed. He did say that it was nothing like that but I think any girl in my position would have felt the same way.

I'm not a girl, but not a big guy either and I think I can imagine some of what you would have felt. This is about how you felt, and if my experience with women is anything to go by, you were right on the money as to assessing why it happened, although he probably didn't do in consciously.

If he made you feel like that, then it was the wrong way to do, no matter what his conscious or unconscious intentions.

There are two types of very male behaviour I notice in stories on this forum, when concerning crossdressing husbands:
- Those that think that if their spouse isn't stopping them, she must be accepting and thus end up going too fast.
- Those that go after crossdressing like other men go after model trains. Men often are much more obsessive in their behaviour.

You have to remind yourself that under that dress and make-up, there still is a body with loads of testosterone and a male upbringing.
Men and women solve things differently, my experience is that women want to talk, and men just do things.
I don't know you or him, so I don't know you live and communicate with each other. But my advice to both sides usually is for the man to try and talk and listen more, and the woman to try and assert herself more.
For you that would mean that on the one hand you support him, but on the other hand you apply the breaks when things get outside your comfort zone. Not just in words, but also in deeds. For example, put his woman clothes in a closet where you have the key. Put yourself in control and in a position of power.

As in defence of us guys, most of us are not very good at putting our impulses and emotions into words and we will often react defensively and in denial when the deeper layers of our psyche are laid bare. Men are not taught to handle emotions and understand themselves.

I think much can be gained by you being in a position of power, and he learning to talk and communicate, instead of using body language. I agree with the poster above me that it sounds that he is in conflict with himself and has not come to know who he really is. Your story tells a of a lot of posturing, which is all façade and make believe. Try to make him open up to you either in boy or girl mode and slowly peel away the layers until the boy and girl become the same person.*

Just my 2 Euro-cents. Others here also have good opinions.

*) I'm not a Psychiatrist, you might want to consider professional councelling at some point. It seems others in this thread actually handle the whole thing by having very separate boy and girl persona, I personally found that I only started to feel whole after they merged.