Is your spouse ashamed of you?

[ReineD]

I appreciate that there are people like you out there, who'd look at the spouse and say "I love this, because I love you and this is part of you". That's obviously rare.

Yes it is rare. Di is one in a million. I love my own SO and I have supported him throughout his CDing journey, but I can’t say that I love the CDing. Life is just so much easier without it because like it or not, we live in a world where most people misunderstand and disparage it, no matter what they say to your face. Neither my SO nor I cared to tell his family or mine. And my SO didn’t want his peers at work and most of his friends to know, just like Di’s SO wanted to keep things separate from the music life. And keeping things separate doesn’t necessarily involve lying, but it most definitely involves non-disclosure which is not my ideal way to live.

Anyway, now onto your points:

I've come to realize and accept that a lot of made me not fit in was, in fact, a psychologically androgynous and feminine leaning nature.

Gosh. Feminine leaning? If this is the case then I am most definitely male leaning. I’m logical, I like to build things, I like to fix things, I like to explain things, I like to direct things. Yet, I am most definitely a woman and I like it. Thing is, I don’t believe in "male" vs "female" personalities any more. That may have been the case when there was a definite gender divide in our society, but no longer. I just need to observe my sons and their wives, and all their married friends to know this. Both younger men and women are nurturing, take charge, balance both household chores and their careers, are responsible for their children, share their emotions, have opinions about the aesthetics of their home, their clothes, etc, feel joy, feel anger, and feel all the other human emotions. Gone are the days when men couldn’t cry and women did all the cooking and didn’t know how to replace the battery in the car.

I tried to be the man she wanted, but I obviously failed long before trying my first pair of panties.

Why would you think you failed? Just because your wife prefers that you not dress in public? Does your wife think that you failed in your role as a husband, father and grandfather? Have you asked her?

She tolerates what has surfaced on the outside to get some of the value that's inside. But, the things that are surfacing are expressions of the inside that she seems to devalue.

If she accepts your presentation as long as it’s private, then it appears as if she does accept what drives your choices in presentation … as long as it’s private. Fundamentally, she does not reject your presentation outright, else she would refuse to see you dressed at all.

How does she respond when you tell her that you need her to accept you for who you are internally. What does she say when you ask her whether she loves you less when you dress.

If she's turned off by the quirks, it just makes me mask them, or deal with a constant feeling of rejection.

Two things:

1. You need to learn to be OK with the idea that you and your wife feel differently about your presentation. You may not fear the potential negative consequences of some people finding out; keep in mind that YOU are the one who derives benefit from the CDing, not your wife, so the benefit to you outweighs any potential disadvantage that would crop up if you fully went public. Also, although your choice of presentation may be fundamental to you, it is only one of the many fundamental aspects of who you are as a husband, father, and grandfather, that your wife does love and support. We all are so much more than an expression of gender.

2. Of course I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that her request to keep things private has anything to do with how she feels about you. One thing to understand is that the need for social approval is hard-wired for most of us. We are not islands onto ourselves, in fact the fear of rejection for not playing by the rules is what drives social cohesion - which is necessary for our survival as a species. Even a group of anarchists have rules that would cause the rejection of a member if he flaunted them.

I don’t know that your wife feels any differently about your feminine appearance than I do about my SO’s, despite my support of my SO’s need to express himself. We do go out in public but only in towns far enough away to not run into anyone we know. As mentioned, neither one of us want our families and friends to know. We did once run into someone whom we did not wish to share my SO’s CDing, and we both panicked - my SO bolted out the door. Some people simply cannot handle that level of stress. I dare say that a great number of our CD members feel the same way as your wife and this is why they do not CDress outside their homes. What percentage of our membership go out in public at all?

And before you say that you also have a deep seated need to have your feminine self approved of by society, just as your wife has her need for social acceptance (or non-rejection, non-criticism), keep in mind that neither you nor your wife can control how the society of your family, friends, peers, or general acquaintances will react to you wearing feminine clothing. Again, the reality is that although some people might support you, their support might be conditional - for example some friends might be OK with you showing up at their house dressed but they wouldn’t want to go out to a restaurant with you dressed. And there are lots of other people whose opinions of you (and by association, their opinion of your wife) would be diminished, even if they don’t say anything to you outright. But their behavior toward you would change.
You may not care about any of this, but surely you cannot blame your wife, most other wives, and a big chunk of the CDing population if they do?

Also one point bears repetition because it is so important. In a world where the CDing is viewed suspiciously at best, and disdainfully at worst, you are the one who derives benefit from it, not her. You ask if she is ashamed of you. My guess is that she is not, but she may fear that other people’s opinions will shame you both.

I hope I’ve been able to provide you with a different way to look at things.