Quote Originally Posted by TGMarla View Post
Leslie, as you know, I'm in one of thoses DADT situations as well. But everyone is different. My wife, like yours, simply cannot wrap her mind around the whole thing. She watches all these shows on TV, like Dr. Phil and Oprah (when it was on), and is seemingly very accepting of trans people. She just can't handle her own husband being one of them. And over the years, I've done this thing on my own for so long now, I admit I'd feel a little strange crossdressing in front of her. Had things worked out differently, who can say? I might be a lot more "out" than I am now. But we've reached a balance that works for us. The other shoe hasn't dropped yet, and she's not had to confront me face to face about all of it in many years.

I agree with you that it's frustrating. I agree with you that ideally we'd all like to be able to share this most integral part of ourselves with the persons with whom we've chosen to share our lives. But instead, I continue to do my best to keep this out of her life, and concentrate on making every other thing in our marriage as good as I can make it. If that's the very best I can get, then I'm willing to settle for it. Bringing this whole thing out into the open in front of her and forcing her to deal with it is not worth the personal cost to me of losing her and all that comes with her. So I do what I've always done - suck it up and deal with it by myself.

I guess the bottom line for me is that although there's no way I'll ever stop crossdressing, being way out and open about it isn't important enough to me to end my marriage over it.
Thank you for that very thoughtful response, Marla.

Yes, we do seem to share a lot in common, but on the other hand, there are probably different degrees of DADT out there depending on each individual couple's ability to compromise. Yours sounds like a "true" DADT situation where the boundaries are clearly drawn, and both parties respect them unconditionally once mutually negotiated.

In my case, DADT is a bit more fluid and situational. Extended periods of time may go by when my crossdressing is never mentioned and appears to be tacitly accepted. However, when we do have an argument - regardless of the topic - my crossdressing tends to get trotted out in due course as a way for my wife to claim the moral high ground - at least in her mind. The obvious intent is to somehow diminish me by putting me in the position of being more defensive than I might otherwise be. This is a very manipulative practice that women commony engage in, as they tend to approach arguments from an emotional standpoint as opposed to relying more on pure reason.

Marriage counselors typically advise that it is both normal and healthy to sometimes have heated discussions as a way of clearing the air when couples disagree on a subject, or if one party feels slighted as a result of certain actions by the other. But at the same time, they advise following established "rules of engagement" to keep these fights both fair and productive, and not have them degenerate into marginalizing or diminishing the other person by resorting to insults or name-calling, which then becomes counter-intuitive.

I would categorize my wife's approach as one that typically veers off into the "unfair" category, especially when previous DADT agreements then become victims of collateral damage in the process.

That, too, is part of my frustration with our version of DADT...