It happened...

[Rianna Humble]

my heart goes out to your wife I know pretty much exactly where she is coming from at that point. 19yrs together but 15yrs of that married to one another I found out about my husbands CDing by looking more closley at a bank statment cause of a show I just watched on TV on idenity theft. Then saw many purchases on there I knew of the place but couldnt figure out for the life of me WHY we would of spent something there.. God knows he didnt buy anything for me there.. So I went upstairs knowing he had to be hiding it up there and "ta-da" found it upstairs under our bed actually locked up but I knew the combination to that lock so I unlocked it and found some of his things there.. although he had stuff hidden all over..

I felt lied to just like your wife.. 15yrs of marriage.. 19yrs together and he goes and does this stuff behind my back then has the courage each day to look at me and tell me he loves me... my head was spinning.. all the preaching from him that people need to be honest and truthful in a marriage and not lie which came from his mouth OFTEN.. and he was basically hiding the biggest secret of all in our marriage... thats when it just stabs you in the heart.. and no it doesnt heal right away if at all depending on each situation..

Hi SweetPea, thank you for sharing this with us, I know it took a lot of courage to open yourself up like that, but you have done us a great service by showing us how this sort of discovery can affect someone.

Although you say that you don't support 100% of the time, you have proved what an outstanding person you are by joining these forums to try to understand more and by being willing to share your experience with us.

Mainly I am trying to say don't say directly out "Well I didn't ask to be this way"... those words never and don't work for me when trying to find comfort.. and that's what the wife needs right now is comfort

I agree that when put like that it can sound confrontational and is unlikely to help a wife to come to terms with the discovery, but said in the right way and in the right context, it is an important point to convey that this is not some kind of hobby but part of the makeup of who the cross-dresser is.

For me, the most important thing that any cross-dresser can do when having "the talk" with their wife is to listen to her feelings and not try to win the argument - which is a fairly natural thing for most guys to do but would be wrong in this context.

I see several references to "lying" in recent posts.

My question is, did your SO truly lie or did he simply choose to keep this facet of his personality to himself?

Keeping the secret is usually done to avoid hurting the person he dearly loves and is afraid of losing. It is not an act with malicious intent.

You do not have to lie with malicious intent to deceive someone. Whether you call it lying or "keeping the secret" the fact is that you are not being honest with your wife about who you are. Relationships work on trust, yet time after time I see cross-dressers saying (in different words) "I did not trust my wife enough to tell her about my cross-dressing". Sometimes it is phrased as a fear of rejection, but it still boils down to the same thing, and yet these same cross-dressers are often upset when a wife discovers what the cross-dresser has been hiding for so many years and feels that her trust has been abused.

Joanne, I am not tryiong to condemn you, and I truly hope that you can rebuild the trust between you and your wife, it will take a lot of work on both sides, but please try to be sensitive to her feelings and try to remember that you have had a lifetime to come to terms with yourself as a cross-dresser, your wife has only just discovered this facet of who you are. Please try to be patient with her and don't forget to give her plenty of practical reminders of why she loves you in deeds rather than in words.