I ended up separated for a few minutes from my wife while we were at the mall. I walked by the stores, looking at all the beautiful clothes. I've only really ever allowed myself furtive glances - but I took more time today. I was a little sad I couldn't buy anything for myself - I surely wanted to do that.
The hardest part was walking through the department store, looking for my wife in the shoe department. There were lots of pretty shoes, she didn't buy any though. I was kind of sad about that - I wasn't going to get anything, and I doubt they had my size, anyway. We walked through the women's wear and lingerie departments too - this was also really hard, as I saw lots of stuff I really liked.
We ended up shopping for shirts for me in the men's department. I've always hated this - but now, wow, I really hate it. It's a different world though - there were some rather attractive shirts in pink, purple, some paisley / floral type prints in the men's department. With different tailoring and 15 years ago, these would've been in the women's department. (Anyone else notice this? I never paid attention to those before - my male dress extremely conservative.) They were ~$180. I thought about buying one - they're kind of pretty. But I didn't, because I never buy stuff like that, and it would just defy all expectations everyone has of me if I showed up in something like that. I avoided things like that in the past, I guess, because subconciously I wanted to avoid even the slightest suggestion I was interested in feminine things.
I don't look at clothes the same way anymore - today's shopping really drove that home to me. I'm sure that sounds dumb. But I am changing - I guess that's what I found out.
I pushed back against this stuff so hard for so long. Now - it's like something in me broke - just snapped. I don't have too much fight in me any longer. There was always this part of me telling me "yeah, you aren't interested in that." "Not for you" "Move along" "Don't look at that too hard". That internal voice is just gone.
Anybody else ever experience anything like this?