It happened...

[Joanne Curl]

I've been a cross dresser for decades. I've been married for almost 15 years and I never told my wife. Three weeks ago, she was using my computer and was checking the history to see where our daughter had been on the internet. She saw this website. she went to the website and saw that it was for Cross Dressers. She asked me if I had been to the website, I told her that I had. She asked me if I was a cross dresser, I told that I was and that I've been cross dressing for over 40 years. She is devestated. She feels that our whole life together was built on a lie. She's not sure she can stay married to me. She says she had no idea that I was cross dressing and that everything we've sone as a couple, as a family is tainted by the secret I kept from her. She doesn't know if she can ever trust me again. I know not telling her was wrong. I've told her that every way I know how. She doesn't want to talk about my cross dressing or cross dressing in general. I don't know what I can do to convince her that I'm the same man she has loved for so long. Pray for us to reach an undersstanding.

[sweetjan]

My first wife did not approve of my crossdressing. My wife now does. I did tell both of them only because
it is who I am. Give it some time and then talk to her, but REALLY listen to her side. Good luck.

[Debra Russell]

She will slowly realize you are the same you as you have been for 15yrs and it ain't that bad !! hopefully she'll lighten up !!

[Nigella]

... hopefully she'll lighten up !!

Really, after 15 years of living a life, then finding out there was another life being led, she should "lighten up". Poor turn of phrase IMHO.

[WandaRae2009]

When my wife found out she felt the same way you did. We went through a rough few months. We then went for counseling with a professional experienced transgender issues, from cross dressers to those in transition. I can't tell you how much that helped both of us. She still doesn't like it but she knows and understands that it is a part of me and is not going to go away. One key that was pointed out is that I am still the person she fell in love with, and that feminine part in me was part of the attraction. We are in a don't ask don't tell phase right now, and are getting along quite well. Give her time and I would recommend professional help. It was a couple of months before we had our first appointment, and I think that led to a better session since the initial shock was over. By the way, I kept it a secret for almost 25 years. Good luck and our thoughts are with you.

[Sandra]

Well after 15 years I'm not surprised at her reaction, did you expect any different?

I suggest that you try and sit down with her and have a talk, be honest no more hiding the truth. I'll say now though it isn't going to be easy, she's going to feel very very hurt, betrayed and that her life has fell apart.

[Alberta_Pat]

Since this is a new experience for both of you, and that it will affect your life together, I would suggest that you ask her to attend couples counseling together.

One of the things that a counselor will tell her is that she cannot change who you are. The counselor will then try to find the common ground for you both that has held you together for as long as it has.

This, I feel, is one of those situations that truly requires a mediator.

Wishing you well in this new experience.

[Debra Russell]

Nigella
............ from WandaRay

"One key that was pointed out is that I am still the person she fell in love with, and that feminine part in me was part of the attraction."

This Is what I meant and hopefully things will get better....!!!

[Nigella]

Then you made a very poor choice of words, your choice of words implied the SO is the one who is in the wrong.

[Kelly DeWinter]

Joanne;

It sounds like you have a lot of ups and downs ahead of you. Some of the stories on other threads have wonderful suggestions to think about. My prayers are with you and your family.

Kelly,

[TGMarla]

Really, after 15 years of living a life, then finding out there was another life being led.....

It's not another life. It's merely an aspect, an activity, within the life Joanne has already been living. I've said it before: crossdressing is a lousy reason to allow a good relationship to end, especially a marriage.

I also did not tell my wife. As is the way with secrets, they tend to not stay secret. My wife had a hard time coming to grips with it when she found out, but she did so, and now does not hold it against me. Be understood after a while why I kept it to myself. I do not force this aspect of my life upon her, and she doesn't often bring it up. It works for us, and our relationship is very strong.

Joanne, the key ingredients to getting through this are love and time. I wish you well. Good luck.

[JenniferR771]

My wife hated my crossdressing when she found out. Of course, I didn't tell her because I knew she might have this attitude--and be non-understanding. I hid it because of my own disapproval, and suspected mother's disapproval, and society in general disapproval. She found out and was upset. But now tiny baby steps of progress have happened. Last week she didn't object to my going to support group in drab. She usually does not object to me going to support group if I change on site. Last week she said I had too many dresses--she suggested I limit my dresses to no more than ten. She bought me three 40 gallon big plastic storage bins for my dresses and shoe collection. I already have bins for my wigs and lingerie.

Did she tell you all about her past lovers?
Did she tell her father? Why not?

A lot depends on your loving relationship--if you love each other--you will find a way.

[Stephanie47]

Joanne, my prayer are with you. Hopefully, after she absorbs the initial shock of discovering your cross-dressing, she will be able to communicate with you directly or through counseling.

In general terms, it never ceases to amaze me that a woman will toss away an otherwise strong marriage over cross-dressing. At sixty plus years of age I've seen it all, either through family or work relationships. Women will marry some guy knowing of his alcohol and drug dependencies, bed hopping sexual proclivities, lazy or lacking employment habits, abusive behavior. Other women will find these same habits were hidden during the courtship and stay in the relationship. Fifty percent of the marriages do not fail because the guy is a cross-dresser!

I really get tired of reading on this site, "What did you expect when you lived a life of deceit?" Marla stated it correctly. Cross-dressing is one aspect of a person's life. An entirely good marriage is not built on one building block.

How many responders on this site have said their wife or SO was told of his cross-dressing are WERE fine with it, only to later resent it, toss it in his face? Why aren't you coming down hard on those women, who led their cross-dressing husbands or boyfriends to believe they were 'cool' with it?

I'm ready for the barrage of comments.

[Inna]

Joanne, find a gender therapist, tell your wife that you are taking first steps to deal with this issue and will go to the therapy. Suggest that perhaps she could go with you, but do not be forceful.
What you are going to achieve here is allowing cool down period and concrete first step in coping with this issue.
Your wife will first feel that perhaps you are going to be cured ( you know better)and are doing everything in your power for you, for her and for entire family!!!!!!!!!!!!
She will have to come around eventually when gaining enough information about Crossdressing, she will realize of what it really is, but for now CDing is a mental sickness and freak factor creeps in.
You must understand her position of being caught off guard and the shock she endured.
There are no guarantees of her ever regaining the relationship she had, she has the right to feel betrayed, but hopefully with therapist help she will be able to understand the condition and perhaps regain some of what was lost.

On the other hand, and I know, now it isn't probably the best time to say this, but, I believe everything in life happens as a direct result of life's grand plan. You are on the first step of allowing the truth into your life, no more secret, no more hiding, no more guilt. This might have been the happiest moment of failure you have ever experienced and your life may bring awesome future and happiness.

I write this with love and from a perspective of someone whos been there not long ago and now is free and ecstatic about my future but the pain I had to endure was severe and my wife gained understanding but parted my life with divorce becoming a good friend but no longer my lover.

[Debra Russell]

It's not another life. It's merely an aspect, an activity, within the life Joanne has already been living. I've said it before: crossdressing is a lousy reason to allow a good relationship to end, especially a marriage.

I also did not tell my wife. As is the way with secrets, they tend to not stay secret. My wife had a hard time coming to grips with it when she found out, but she did so, and now does not hold it against me. Be understood after a while why I kept it to myself. I do not force this aspect of my life upon her, and she doesn't often bring it up. It works for us, and our relationship is very strong.

Joanne, the key ingredients to getting through this are love and time. I wish you well. Good luck.

Exactly ! ! ! " not another life merely an aspect"

[Samantha B L]

Hello Joanne, Just as an individual I wouldn't advise anybody to lie about even the most trivial stuff. It has a way of muddying the waters eventually. Offhand,I kinda don't blame you for keeping it a secret because telling people(sometimes even your wife and other family members)can be a real invitation to a hanging. Yet I don't mean to sound like a bossy wiseass but maybe you shoulda told her from the start.

But what's done is done and your "out" now and in a way,you can be proud. I live with my Sister and some family members and I came out a couple of months ago. All my close freinds know too. It's a very free feeling. You get to live "To Wong Foo" and "Wigstock" instead of just watching it on cable TV. But I hope all the rough edges get smoothed out and there's no permanent rift with your wife. You are in my thoughts,Joanne,and I hope the waters settle soon.

[Tara D. Rose]

How many responders on this site have said their wife or SO was told of his cross-dressing are WERE fine with it, only to later resent it, toss it in his face? Why aren't you coming down hard on those women, who led their cross-dressing husbands or boyfriends to believe they were 'cool' with it?

I'm ready for the barrage of comments.[/QUOTE]

I was in that boat. My wife would never have known about my crossdressing. For it was something that I had some long ago and was not a practicing crossdresser at the time of our marriage. So one year into our marriage, "I" decided to tell her, and she was not only cool with it but encouraged me to dress. So after some time and lots of money, I came out and showed her Tara for the first time. She loved Tara for a few months but then like so many wives I have read about and heard about, my wife too, did a 180 degree about face in her "so-called" acceptance. I've had to slow down my dressing very significantly, to just maybe 5 times per year now as a result of her in and out acceptance. But Tara is here to stay this time, I will never give up my crossdressing. Joanne, I really do feel for you that your wife had to find out in the way that she did. Of course I cannot tell you anything any different than the others on here about going to marriage counciling, etc. Just be glad today at long last that this secret of yours is out to your wife. But with her finding out this way, tho, she may want to tell all of your family and friends and try to ruin you. I vonluntarily told my wife and made her promise before any disclosure that she would never tell a soul. But you don't know a wife till you divorce them, so I expect her to tell the world should we ever divorce. But Joanne, answer all of her questions that she ever has. Even if she asks everday the same questions.This will help her so much. Talk about it with her everytime she wants to talk about it. I pray the best for both of you. ..Tara

[david]

joanne curl i have been a crossdresser for a long time and have been married for 45 yrs to a verry understanding wife she only found out by accident when i was on the computer on femme dressed.So i told her what i was a female in mind and i felt that i alwase will be and it woud never go away. She helped me come to terms what it ment to be a female in lifes great struggle to be accepted in society in todays non accepted of tgs .Howdo other people see what is inside the person they are looking at?

[Momarie]

I know this is rough and I feel bad for both of you.

Don't you see...in her minds eye, you are not the man she married.
Her husband didn't keep such deep sercrets or crossdress.

It's something you have always known but not her.
Her world has just been tipped off it's axel.
It's very hard for a woman to get her head around it.
It's confusing and scary to not have known something like this.

I know with my sweet Jim, I remembered certian personal things....and it hurt to know I thought we were enjoying the same thing, in the same way.
It turned out we weren't, he was enjoying it from a perspective I had no knowledge of, so I was participating under false pretenses.

For example, something as simple as cuddleing and watching a favorite TV show.
I didn't know he thinking of us as lesbian sorority sisters.

When I did know, I didn't want to play. I wasn't a lesbian.
I was a woman and I wanted a man.
I wanted Jim.
My guard went way up.....always wondering how he viewed a situation, trying to interpret it through his eyes.
I understood he couldn't help it but I also felt a need to protect my perceptions.

I felt like what the heck am I here for?
Wearing pretty feminine lingere was what I brought to the table and now what is my role?

How many of you say you disclosed before marriage and she accepted it?
But did you only say you liked to wear panties or a nightie to bed?
Did you disclose everything? The fantasys? How much this was a part of you? How important it was to you? How elemental in your heart, mind and soul?
Did you even know how things could accelerate over the years and if you did, did you prepare her?

In a way, you brought another woman into her home, plopped her in the middle of the room and now she must reckon with this.

If she doesn't want to talk, then don't.
A love letter would be nice, Jim did that for me.
Not about you or your crossdressing...but about her...you and her.

Acknowledge you hurt her, be as kind and gentle with her as you know how to be.
Offer simple gentle affection...rub her neck, hold her hand and stroke her hair.

In a way, she has to grieve for what she always believed you were....what you allowed her to believe.
It's really, really hard.
For Jim and I when I fully realized the full extent of this.... it was like seeing a freight train coming and I was powerless to stop it.
Jamie slowly kinda killed my Jim....and I had to witness it.
It was so hard to let Jim go, that's what I still struggle against.
I think that's what he struggles with too.

But we both cope the best we can, never forgetting how important our love and support is to each other.

I hope things get better for you and for her.

[Eryn]

Sometimes, for reasons good and bad, we decide not to tell a loved one something that will disturb them. You didn't withhold this information with the intent of harming your wife, you withheld it because you couldn't figure out how to tell her without hurting her.

The solution is communication. Talk to your wife and, more importantly, listen to what she has to say. She'll have a lot of questions and you should answer them as accurately as you can. Be careful to dispel the common misconceptions about CDing. "I don't know" is an acceptable answer if you truly don't know something. If she's willing, have her join this forum. It will help to put a human face on CDing and will give her access and support from GGs who have gone through the same thing.

The other thing your wife will need is time. You've lived with CDing for a long time. She's lived with it for three weeks, which isn't nearly enough time to wrap her brain around the concept.

Hopefully, with talk and time, your wife will be able to come to terms with this newly-discovered aspect of you. 15 years of marriage is a long time and I'm willing to bet that you've had a few bumps along the way. As long as you and your wife maintains a mature and calm attitude your relationship will survive this bump as well.

[Cynthia Anne]

Yes Joanne the water could get rough ahead! When it does let her rock the boat! If you're going to make it through this, you must stay calm! After-all you rocked it first! Wishing the best for you!

[joanna marie]

My wife found out the same way about 8 months ago.We have been having troubles for awhile and this did not help. I had kept this side of me secret all those years because her reactions to any hint that I would like to dress at halloween was met with a " thats sick and preverted " comment. I am a retired teacher and once fully dressed at school for the day as part of a fund raiser 12 years ago. My wife never understood me doing it and had brought it up in arguments ever since.I have never dressed in front of her and she has never seen my clothes stash.

I have been in the closet for all these years. I crossdressed before I met and married her but I have kept it hidden because I did not understand how strong my desire would become. I have kept it hidden later knowing what the reaction would be. On the other hand I never knew her feelings on the subject because it never came up before our marriage.

I have never dressed in front of her and she has never seen my clothes.I have been in the closet for all these years.Recently she did find the pictures of me dressed at school,that caused quite an explosion

We have been together for 39 years raised two sons and her words after finding out was that 'Crossdressing is a deal breaker'. My wife is an RN and talked about it with a psychologist friend at the hopital where she worked. The psychologist told her that crossdressing is the same as cheating in a marriage and crossdressering is a narcissistic behavior ; so much for seeking professional help.

We are at a strange place in our marrige with a lot of don't ask don't tell. I do feel better with it out in the open except now my crossdressing is thrown up to me whenever we try to work out other problems in our relationship .

I don't see this getting better.

We still love each other but love can only do so much.

[RebeccaJ]

As others have said, communication is the absolute key. Answer questions at her pace but be honest with the good, bad and the ugly as you do not want to compound with more lies.

Momarie, you made some awesome points.

[Babeba]

I wish your wife and your relationship the best of luck with this situation. It's got to be difficult to deal with a longstanding secret encompassing something so fundamental to a person's core being as gender identity, and it's going to take a great deal of time and heartache before things are settled again. I wouldn't be surprised if this revelation makes your wife question every single moment you've spent together that she can remember, and try to go over it again in her mind to see how this is altered with the new information. Fifteen years is a lot of time to re-process.

Probably JamieTG's~SO's post will be the absolute most helpful thing in order to understand what your wife may be thinking right now.

It's true that you as a person have not fundamentally changed - but the way your wife knows you (and WHAT she knows about you) are irrevocably different now. So functionally to her, you ARE a different person because she never was able to percieve everything about you before. Hopefully with time, love and patience she will be able to reconcile that new knowledge with what she knew about you before and be able to see you now more completely, and appreciate the small things she probably fell in love with you for may stem from the same part of you that your crossdressing comes from. It's still going to be important for you to remember, the man she thought she was marrying 15 years ago didn't do anything at all like what she's recently found out you've been doing.

Did she tell you all about her past lovers?
Did she tell her father? Why not?

A lot depends on your loving relationship--if you love each other--you will find a way.

I just wanted to say that comments like these two sets are said on here an awful lot, and I really don't know how applicable they are to a crossdressing relationship.

For one, a past lover ought to be just that - the past. I'm sure the lovers most people are concerned about are the current ones and in most marriages that list usually is brief (and when it isn't, that spouse had better know about it and be truly okay with it ahead of time!!) If there is something about that relationship that will carry over into the present - Children? Ex-spouse getting alimony? STI's or the possiblity thereof? Potentially career damaging connections that may pose a national security risk? That sort of thing really OUGHT to be disclosed. It would be a betrayal to not talk about that ahead of time. Crossdressing is different, because it's something happening now and is not buried in the past. I understand many crossdressers have felt in the past that their urge to dress went away and was not coming back when they had a fulfilling relationship - okay. But when it starts up again... it's a current issue, it can affect the relationship, and really should be disclosed.

I would HOPE that the relationship I have with my SO is incredibly different than my relationship with my parents!! I'm not really sure what the point anyone is trying to make by asking that? Would you mind explaining it a little?

A loving relationship is important and I'm not going to deny that. The amount of love, support and closeness that can develop over 15 years is incredibly special, and is a huge motivation to try and work through things. But let's be clear: love is not like a pencil eraser. It's not the tool that will fix this. To me, I feel phrases like 'if you love each other you'll find a way' can be flipped around, too - 'if you don't find a way, you didn't really love each other.' That is COMPLETELY not true and I think if I were in a 15 year marriage, found out about a huge secret like this that shook my marriage and it DIDN'T work out - the idea that I was at fault because I didn't love him enough would probably destroy me.

The tools that will fix this (if it can be fixed) are patience, time, honesty, communication, care and counselling of one sort or another. If your wife feels comfortable with this, ask her to join this site and come join FAB. It's a place where she can say whatever she wants, to people who know what she's going through, and feel comfortable that it goes no farther. Even if your relationship ends, she would be welcome with us to work through her feelings and experiences for her own sake.

[Jorja]

Oh girl! You have some 'splainin to do.

Give her some time to get her head around it. She feels that the applecart has not only been upset but exploded. Communication between the both of you is what is needed. You will need to have patience, be honest and seek counseling. Then you might have a shot at saving the marriage.

When will you girls and boys ever learn, disclosing these types of things need to be done early on in the relationship.