Me and my girl Cat have been together for over 6 years. We are engaged to be married. She is 32, I am 34.

When we started going out I did not tell her. However it's more complicated then that. I had ocassionally played around with aspects of crossdressing and bisexuality by myself on and off for a few years, but nothing much. For years, very ocassionally and kinda outta nowhere I would play around with my hair with hairspray (HUGE turn on for me), maybe borrow one of my sister's pairs of tights, fishnets or whatever and maybe play with some adult toys, that's it, maybe twice a year. No makeup, no "clothes", no shoes, etc. I'd do it and completely forget about it. Before I met Cat it started to happen more often, but it didn't really "progress". Once we got together it almost completely disappeared. Around 05-06 I started growing my hair long which I had always wanted to. One day I looked in the mirror with my longer hair and thought about what I used to do with my hair messing around and my brain went "You could do a lot more girly stuff with your hair now!" Suddenly the progression sorta went into overdrive. It also helped that I was unemployed for 6 months, lots of free time :p Problem is I had never really thought through the behaviour, but I started to as things progressed and I began to realize how much I LOVED it!

So now I started buying clothes online and boots & shoes, eventually having full outfits and makeup. I also started taking pictures of myself dressed up and videos too. During this time I started to feel terribly guilty because I was hiding it from Cat. Also I hadn't really accepted who I was yet, I still felt a tremendous amount of shame about cross dressing and told NO ONE! I was deathly afraid to tell Cat, fearing rejection and the possibility of losing her. So we had been together long enough, completely in love, where I began thinking about popping the question. However I felt like I couldn't because she didn't know the whole me...

I am an artist and I have a sketchbook journal that I write and sketch my painting/art ideas in and also functions as my diary of innermost thoughts. I had a seperate hidden one for my CDing thoughts. Cat is the only person on Earth I allow to read the sketchbook/journal. I decided I'd force the issue. I wrote in there that I had this big secret that I was afraid to tell her, wrote a whole page without mentioning what it was. Explaining that's why I hadn't popped the question yet and at the end in big letters I put so Cat if you read this ask me "What's the BIG secret?" A few weeks later we were driving back from a roadtrip/vacation weekend in upstate NY and she goes what's the big secret...

Thought I was going to die right then & there! :p I told her, she had many questions and was very accepting, thoughtful and loving about it while still having concerns. When we got home she wanted to see my stash of girly stuff and I dressed up for her and we made love :D Over the coming weeks she was, rightfully so, feeling a bit betrayed that I had hid this for so long. She worked it out and forgave me and our life has progressed in a very positive way ever since. There are the ocassional small problems, but nothing major. Overall it's been amazing. Yes I know as Penny stated before me, I am VERY LUCKY! Many of you know this firsthand since Cat, studying to be a social worker, has been working on a study of us crossdressers for school that many of you were kind enough to participate in. So we obviously have talked extensively about this subject. She's come a long way She helps with my makeup sometimes, we've gone out a lot with me dressed up, especially now that we live outside Portland. I have absolutely no reason to feel regretful for coming out to her.

P.S. Sorry my post's so long! I am not a very succinct person with my words, you'll learn that! :p