This is why I find DADT so frustrating...(a GG perspective)

[ReineD]

But if he wanted to sit around the house in a bra and panties and pretend his name was Esmerelda and wanted us to giggle like girlfriends, than that relationship would be a short one.

Me too! LOL. You do have a way of putting things. :D

My thoughts on my H's dressing are very different to those of everyone here.

Not really, if you compare your thoughts to the other GGs. Many wives feel the same way you do. And although I support my SO's need to dress, there were aspects of it that I found hugely difficult and painful to understand.

I also see that CD can be a gender issue and not just about the clothing, though once again (and purely from a GG perspective) I can also see the addictive element at work here and just watching the strange high my H experiences after enjoying himself alone I worry that pushing further for that high creates gender confusion that was never originally there.

I get confused about this too. It's very difficult to determine why there seems to be such euphoria (pink fog) involved with expressing an alternate gender especially in the beginning. And, what wife wants to be married to a partner who appears to feel this enamored about something that is outside his relationship with his wife? We're talking about more than a love of golf here, and more than just taking on the expression of femininity as yet another facet of a CDer's personality. The highs seem to be akin to the highs that most of us experience when we first fall in love!

My SO and I began our relationship just as he was beginning to step out of his closet, going out in the mainstream in the next town over, very much during the time when I was still in the "new love" phase of our relationship. Without going into all the details, eventually it did feel as if his priorities had shifted away from me, and he was falling out of love with me. I was devastated and the only way I could survive was to also step back emotionally from him ... not because I was against the idea that he needed to express femininity, but because I felt that it was by far his most profound source of emotional joy, and at the time I felt that he could never feel the same way about me. I did not want to be in an unequal relationship, where he was my heart's priority, while expressing femininity was his, this was just too hard. So I also managed to pull away emotionally (I was not able to break it off entirely), to the point where I accepted that we only had a casual, part time sort of "dating" relationship … not the intimate, emotional connection between soul mates that I thought we had had. Slowly I began to detach and it was heartbreaking for me. We tried talking about all of this at the time, but we were both on different pages and the talks were not successful.

I can't pretend that I know what my SO was experiencing during that stage of our relationship, if it was pink fog over his increased feminine expression or if there were other relationship issues outside the CDing that were affecting the distancing. But, just as I felt that our relationship was ending, things began to change. I don't know if he noticed that we were having issues and he made a concerted effort to improve things, of if the focus/priority of experiencing all these wonderful new aspects of the CDing abated naturally as my SO found a way to incorporate expressing her femininity into his regular life, OR, if I just slowly stopped looking at the Cding through the lens that I had looked at it previously. Probably it was a combination of all these things. So now, things have settled down considerably for both of us. We're back in the proverbial saddle again.

My point in sharing this is to tell you that if your husband has it in him, as you say, to "be even more gender confused" (which really means questioning whether he is transsexual and wanting to transition), then no amount of suppression or non-acceptance from you with stop this. It may delay the final decision a bit, but in the meantime the two of you will continue to experience an uncomfortable push/pull with all of this. On the other hand, if your husband is NOT a transsexual (like my SO), then allowing him to express himself on a regular basis will help him to reach the place where he is happy with his own routine, and it will cease to take on epic proportions in his mind.

Among the vast majority of CDers, "more CDing" does not lead to wanting to become a woman, although it seems as if the members who do feel this way are pretty vocal around here ... as they should be. When you think of it, the members who are struggling with whether they are women or not do need to work through a lot more stuff than someone who knows who they are. My SO has not participated in this forum for well over a year. S/he's too busy!

[Moxie]

...it seems as if the members who do feel this way are pretty vocal around here ... as they should be. When you think of it, the members who are struggling with whether they are women or not do need to work through a lot more stuff than someone who knows who they are. My SO has not participated in this forum for well over a year. S/he's too busy!

You know, this makes A LOT of sense to me. I imagine plenty of the stories on here that scare me are from those facing the very difficult position of being truly gender dysphoric and it makes perfect sense that they're the most vocal. It's a little unnerving to a wife though, and perhaps some of these stories could be filtered into different categories? Or maybe that just separates everyone which I also imagine would make people feel worse. I will have to learn which posts to read!

I have also spoken enough to my H to know he isn't a transexual, nor has he ever had any personal doubt in this area. He doesn't consider himself to have any 'girl' inside his head or anywhere else. I don't feel this is our problem but rather his lack of control and addiction to dressing that is now, apparently, involving me. This is the pink fog, I guess. Funny, but I wouldn't mind a pink fog of my own right about now! I feel like having some fun times away from reality too. But I don't have any real way of disappearing from myself like my H can and that bugs me as, like you mentioned with your SO Reine, I often think he has more love for CD than for me.

And maybe he does.

I also thought I'd address the "silly" comment someone here mentioned. I didn't actually say this to my H as I'm not that unkind. I just posted here that this is how I instinctively feel about a man in a dress and that's something I know I need to work on. I totally understand how unfair this double standard is, given if I wanted to I could tug on a pair of work boots, tool belt and hike down the road and no-one would blink an eye. I get this. But I also wouldn't stuff socks down my pants or tape a fake beard to my face so this is a little different. I also wonder why women don't CD if it is something people are born with? Surely a birth condition would affect both genders and you'd have an equal portion of men and women doing this? Or maybe women do CD and they don't talk about it?

Thinking aloud...sorry.

Anyway, I'm grateful for all the feedback and comments here as they've given me much to contemplate. I may take a hiatus from the forum for a bit (lurking still, of course) as I'm not ready yet to chat to other wives as I feel crossdressed out, if that makes sense. I need to think of something else for a while and settle my mind. I've told my H to leave things alone for now and he has agreed to do that, amazingly. I guess this is a start.

Thanks again.

[ReineD]

I imagine plenty of the stories on here that scare me are from those facing the very difficult position of being truly gender dysphoric and it makes perfect sense that they're the most vocal. It's a little unnerving to a wife though, and perhaps some of these stories could be filtered into different categories? Or maybe that just separates everyone which I also imagine would make people feel worse. I will have to learn which posts to read!

Absolutely! You can imagine what I went through five years ago as my SO was branching out and either intentionally not communicating everything that was going through his mind to me, or assuming that I already knew and understood everything. lol. :p I put myself through the wringer reading all the threads here. And what complicates things is, no one puts "fetish CD", "identity CD", "TS", or "TS questioning" under their names, nor does anyone confine themselves neatly to the appropriately named forum sections! :D So yes, I had to learn to filter. And I asked a lot of questions. I'd PM people and ask what they meant when they said such and such in a thread. I'm sure many people thought I was a pain. The best solution for you though, would be to outright show a thread that concerns you to your SO, and get him to tell you how he feels about the individual posts. Tackle it by the horns, believe me it's a lot easier when you put everything out on the table that way.

I don't feel this is our problem but rather his lack of control and addiction to dressing that is now, apparently, involving me. This is the pink fog, I guess.

If this is fairly new behavior, sometimes the beginning feminine expressions seem fetishistic, when they're not really. I don't know your husband, but just the fact that you're married, with kids (and presumably happy together in and out of the bedroom) tells me that he is experiencing a need to express non-fetish femininity but he doesn't quite know how to yet. I'll give you an analogy. A few years ago I conducted an experiment. I wanted to know how difficult it would be for me to exhibit male behavior and so I asked my SO to give me some pointers on how to walk like a guy. I wasn't trying to be humorous, but honestly my attempts were so exaggerated that it was laughable. It's hard to express a gender different than the one we've been socialized in. So the more salient things about the other gender are the first things we notice and try to copy. In the case of a man who has a normal male libido, these things will be what men are attracted to, or the more stereotypical features of femininity, which are for example short skirts, blonde wigs, bright red nails, and so on. My SO's tastes in clothing and activities matured a great deal over the years with exposure and practice and now she dresses like any other GG. I think I mentioned that she goes out about twice per week schedule permitting and honestly, unless she talks to someone, most people don't clue in that he is a genetic male.

As to your husband involving you, I'm glad that he is respecting your head space about this right now and not insisting. Doing otherwise will make things much worse. But, your marriage is a two way street and the CDing (according to everything that I know about it) is not going away. So at one point you will need to make up your mind about how willing you are to recognize your husband's needs. And if you still can't be involved (he really does need to learn just how to be his normal self when he is dressed), then for the sanity of your marriage, he will need some time and space on his own. TG support groups are a good solution. The one that my SO belonged to (we hardly go any more since we don't need to), welcomes wives, parents, adult children, etc. They're a good bunch of people and there is absolutely no fetish/sexual behaviors involved. It's a large group and there is always dinner, a buisness meeting, an activity or a speaker, and just chance to sit around the table, make new friends, and reconnect with old friends.

Funny, but I wouldn't mind a pink fog of my own right about now! I feel like having some fun times away from reality too.

I felt the same way too. But not any more.

like you mentioned with your SO Reine, I often think he has more love for CD than for me.

This is the single most difficult issue between the CDers and their wives and the hardest thing to bridge between couples. But you need to understand that your husband and my SO are not like men who do not crossdress. So we cannot ascribe to them the same motives that we did to our past boyfriends for example. As difficult as it is for your husband to learn how to express femininity without making a caricature of it, it is hugely difficult for us as their partners to learn how to redefine what we thought we knew about them (and by extension our own roles in their lives), based on all the other men we've known throughout our lives. It's like learning a different language, and this is why communication is essential to a marriage where there is CDing. If he does something that rubs you the wrong way (for example acting like a frilly teenager), you and your husband have GOT to get to a point where each one of you can talk and BE HEARD without the other feeling insulted, hurt, or angry. And learn to come up with solutions that will be beneficial to you BOTH. It just never works when it just goes one way.

Good Luck DM! My heart goes out to you. But, I hugely admire your willingness to lay it out on the line with us here, and work through what everyone has said. It gives me hope that you will be able to do the same with your husband.

[Meghan]

If he does something that rubs you the wrong way (for example acting like a frilly teenager), you and your husband have GOT to get to a point where each one of you can talk and BE HEARD without the other feeling insulted, hurt, or angry. And learn to come up with solutions that will be beneficial to you BOTH. It just never works when it just goes one way.

My wife has been working with me on this for years now. It's hard not to pout when I am called out for feeling embarrassed or silly. It's really, really hard to get past that reflex.

The only way I know of to get to that place, where I am willing to listen to anything she says, is to let my defenses totally down. But I can do that only when I truly know that I am safe. That's the tough question, right? How do we both get to a place where we know we are completely safe to discuss anything?

I used to ask her questions like "are you sure" when she told me it was OK to push the front seat back when she was in the back seat. I thought I was being nice, she thought I was questioning her. I realized quite quickly that she was right. If I was pushing the seat back too far, she WOULD have told me, and I have learned to trust that.

Meghan