Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
Try not to take it too personally. Yes, she did have her say, but in the morning she relented and asked you to not throw the things out. I'm a GG so maybe I can help translate.

Excluding you, your wife has had no frame of reference for a man's desire to wear women's clothes, other than all the general misconceptions in the media (and in most people's attitudes) that she has been exposed to her entire life. She is familiar with men in dresses from knowing about Drag Queens (whom most people assume are gay). She is familiar with the stereotype of effeminate gay men wearing not-masculine clothing, even if they don't actually crossdress. In most people's minds, the crossdressing is associated either with effeminate men or men with fetishes, or both. And few wives want to compete with any fetish their husbands may have. I'm guessing your wife grew up in a family where no one was a crossdresser, and she has no crossdresser friends.

If you continue to react out of anger when your wife is being honest with you about her misgivings and/or her fears, she will learn to keep them to herself. This is not good because eventually you will buy more panties and shoes, and eventually you will buy more dresses. And the two of you will have the proverbial unspoken elephant in the room, which will eventually drive a wedge between you. Resentments will follow along with a loss of emotional intimacy.

You need to sit down with your wife and talk things through NOW. Don't wait.

Edited to add:
I hadn't read your follow up post and see that you did talk it through with her. That's good. If the two of you still need to resolve things, you might go ahead and see a marriage counselor who is familiar with crossdressing. The counselor will help the two of you get on the same page.
Appreciate that, Reine. I have zero problems with her opinions, wants, or needs. I think what hurt was that it came out of nowhere - again, I don't dress around her, and the last time I'd even brought it up was several days prior to say that I'd felt the urges were subsiding again.

Earlier that day we had a fairly minor argument - the past several weeks she's been doing quite a bit of "putting herself first", and I'd asked her to help out a little more around the house (I do pretty much 90% of the stuff around here, and while I'm fine with shouldering the majority I'd said in the past I'd prefer it more like 75%) and that it'd be nice if we could spend a bit of time together. I'm wondering if there was some resentment from me saying that which simmered and led to the broadside at dinner.

There just seems to be different rules for us - not specifically when it comes to dressing, but our marriage in general. When she takes time to herself its because she works hard and its needed; when I take time to myself I get questioned on why I don't want to do things as a family. When she says anything that's hurtful to me its because she's being honest, and marriages are built on honesty. If I say anything hurtful to her, it's because I'm being deliberately spiteful. I love her to the moon and back, but there's definitely an element of selfishness to her that's been crept in the past few years (and I'm not the only one who's noticed it.) Perhaps selfishness is too harsh - the inability to accept blame or be wrong is a bit closer to it, I think.

For that I fully maintain that despite our talk and resolution I think that's just a band aid, a temporary fix. We'd talked about counseling in the past, and she'd (grudgingly) agreed and said she'd find a counselor, but never did. After the talk the other night, I implored her again to find someone since there seems to be an occasional inability to see things from the other's point of view, and she agreed. When I asked this morning if she'd had a chance to look, she seem surprised that I'd asked and felt we'd already "sorted things out."

(BTW, we both actually suspect her brother crossdresses, likely for similar reasons I do as opposed to any form of latent femininity!!)