Some excellent points have been raised here, and not only is AnnaMarie's cri de coeur one that strikes close to home for many of us, I was particularly impressed by the responses and additional insights offered here so far by Amy, Molly, Nikki, and gendermutt.

Those of you here who occasionally follow my posts already know that my wife and I have been in an uneasy DADT relationship over my crossdressing for 40 of our 45 years of married life so far. While her stance has softened somewhat over the last 10 years or so, it still continues to be a major elephant in the room which casts a continuous pall over our relationship, and there is no doubt that despite the fundamental love that we still feel for each other, part of the collateral damage has been a permanent loss of intimacy in certain respects. That, and the underlying resentment on both our parts that we are each living a lie in our own particular way because there are some things that we simply cannot discuss freely with each other because of all the negative feelings that evokes...something that other couples don't ever have to deal with as they can be totally open and honest with each other at all times.

But there are also two other issues related to this subject that I haven't seen adequately addressed here yet, namely:

(1) The age bracket (demographics) of the couples involved and the cultural/historical context surrounding the initial reveal;

and

(2) Not just the reveal, but also how it was presented and managed

I'll provide my own spin (and experience) surrounding this aspect, and will let others chime in as they see fit. But first...full disclosure:

I just turned 68 and will have been married for 45 years this coming autumn. We have 2 married adult children who know (but it is never discussed), along with 3 grandchildren. This makes my wife and I card-carrying "Boomers" who came of age during the "Mad Men" era along with all the baggage that entails - very rigidly defined gender roles and expectations, a societally-ingrained belief that homosexuality was a disgusting perversion, and as for crossdressers (or "transvestites" as we were called back then, with all of the negative, fetishistic connotations that label entails), well, the world saw us as being an even lower form of life than the aforesaid homosexuals. No wonder that we were so deep inside the closet that we probably wouldn't have confessed to our deep, dark secret even under torture, and why we would have withheld that information from our intended for fear of irrevocably blowing up our burgeoning relationships.

Besides, like many of our era who were bumbling along without the benefit of today's internet and all the information to be found there now, we thought that we were the only ones in the world with these strange desires, that as a result we were disgusting people, but more importantly - many of us also thought that this was just a passing fancy and that marriage and a regular sex life would "cure" us - NOT! What I am driving a here is that I - and especially my wife - were products of our time in how we initially viewed this whole "crossdressing thing".

I am happy to say that over the intervening years I have finally come to fully accept this part of myself, knowing now that it will never go away. More importantly, I have also come to embrace it as something that makes me highly unique in a good way (at least to me, anyway), and gives me a broader, more balanced perspective on the gender divide than is typical, and one that is beyond most "vanilla" peoples' comprehension.

As for my wife, well, she is still stuck in a 1960's time warp, and has been so irretrievably socialized in terms of what she considers to be "normal" (and acceptable) male and female gender roles that no amount of exposure to the current media love affair with all things transgender-related including Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock and all of the awards and accolades that they have had bestowed upon them lately will make even the lightest dent in her perception of this whole crossdressing/transgender thing. That, and notwithstanding the growing trend to not only normalize but actually embrace it as part of the overall "celebrating diversity" umbrella that is all the rage these days. And so, DADT it is, and DADT it will stay albeit with a less acrimonious flavor attached to it nowadays.

As for Item (2), well, in my case I put out some feelers to my wife early on in our marriage (and before the children came along) about maybe trying on a few of her clothes some time "just for the fun of it". Needless to say, that idea immediately fell with a dull thud. Then some time later, she accidentally came across a pair of heels in my size that I foolishly thought were well-hidden, and the excrement duly hit the ventilator.

But the BIG reveal - when it finally did happen was both unexpected and traumatic, and occurred while our first-born was still a toddler. I was in our basement trying out a new pair of heels that I had just purchased when out of the blue my wife appeared at the foot of the stairs, only to promptly faint and collapse on the floor when she saw me. And at that moment - as if I needed any further convincing - it became crystal clear to me that having an accepting wife with regards to my crossdressing was simply not in the cards for me...not now, not ever.

I and others in my age bracket can only envy the younger gurls here who - along with their spouses and/or SO's - came of age in more enlightened, internet-enabled, and LGBT-friendly times where rigid gender roles were becoming increasingly blurry. At least you have a fighting chance that your better halves will not be as totally grossed out by a crossdressing partner as the women of our generation tend to be, even if other aspects of a planned reveal are still fraught with a degree of uncertainty as to the ultimate outcome.