Think like a good negotiator and expand the discussion [with yourself]. Just by the name of this post, you can start with the fact that you have been in the closet too long. But details are everything, and a lot can be discovered by expanding the words and connecting to lots of related words. Closet= isolation. It also means private space to enjoy. My guess is that the sense of isolation is hurting too much now. I once felt that my only options were cringing in the closet or telling everyone I wanted to wear frilly dresses all the time. That kind of reduced option choice results when we don't negotiate well with the inner critics and nameless cultural authority figures.

Now that I am out quite a bit the situation looks completely different. Once I put myself out there I found that people were ok with me deciding how to present myself, and for the messaging it does. But then I had to be responsible for my look now that it wasn't just an escape fantasy moment. Today , a year in, wearing a dress is much more of a practical issue rather than a desperate psychological release. I'm feeling the burdens GGs feel when I don't really want to spend a lot of time grooming for a conforming look, but I do want to wear a skirt because it is cool and light.

I'm realizing that for women just wearing a dress brings more focus to gender identity and cultural expectations than we might want, and now I understand why I am the only one wearing a dress on the subway or city street! I am wanting to bring focus to it! But once I feel that is not an issue anymore, the choice of how to dress becomes much more mundane. I'm now looking for parties to go to just to dress up! Anyone heard GGs say that? I get it fully now.

I am sure if you go out you will find what we all have found- general acceptance. No catastrophic results. The role of crossdressing in intimate relationships is different and a different subject, but both are part of the feeling of being in the closet.They have to be dealt with differently. With your wife, you have to work on emotional identity more than choice of clothes, and SOs rightfully don't want clothing to be more important than them. Just as we would not want our SOs to be obsessed with their clothing and not present with us.

Accumulating clothes for me is a way to have little touchstones for different kinds of feelings associated with different looks. Thank goodness for thrift stores! But it does get a little ridiculous to have clothes I will never wear- so I am starting a controlled purge of things that I can say mean X or Y to me, but I will not have any occasion to wear. I have to make sure that I feel like I am outgrowing it, rather than putting it away prematurely.