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Hi everyone. I’ve been a member of crossdresserheaven for a few months but decided it’s time to also join this site as I consider myself more transgender than just a crossdresser. I’m not planning on transitioning at this time as that would pretty much trash my marriage and we have a great relationship. She not only accepts my crossdressing, she even helps me with makeup a few times a month. I feel feminine all the time. It’s a source of some tension between us as she keeps saying she misses her husband and wants me to be masculine sometimes. I just don’t feel it any more and haven’t for a while. I just hope I can find a balance that I can live with and keeps her happy.
Diana:
It has been my observation that yours is a relatively common situation regarding the members here. I don’t have magic solutions and I don’t expect that there would be. Every situation is different and has its own set of subtleties and nuances.
However, what I will say is to be sure to put conscious thought into what you are going to do. It doesn’t do any good to get swept away by events over which you have no control. And yes, I know. Easier said than done…
So, I’m glad that you found us and I hope this will be a very good experience for you!
Thank you. She has been amazingly supportive about this. I’m able to wear feminine clothes and even lipstick around her and she recognizes that I feel feminine and she calls me Diana sometimes. But she’s hurting because she feels she’s losing her husband in many ways and I’m trying to be sensitive to that even as the pink fog keeps descending on me. It’s definitely a process. Plus this only started for me barely six months ago so it’s still new to me!
Hello DeeAnn. You mention compromise and finding one that everyone can live with. After almost 4 years of trying to find a compromise that my wife and I could both live with she has gone ahead with the divorce paperwork. I am moving into an apartment now.
Her idea of compromise was for me to dress in my room, which I explain to her is the same as staying in the closet. And that is impossible. My idea of compromise was not to dress as female when she and I went together into a public location but to dress androgynous, which is what I have to do at work anyway.
Compromise is hard to do when a person’s straight wife decides that she cannot be married to a trans female.
Well, for some it works, but sadly for others, it does not. One thing I learned from my first marriage is that we all enter with a preconceived notion of how the relationship should be. However, some of those notions are just unworkable in real life.
It should be obvious to all what an upheaval that the spouses have to deal with. There isn’t much allowance for not being the person that she thought you were. There are couples that stay together after transition. I know of at least 2 here in town. Also, my wife and I have stayed together, but my case is a bit different. I have essentially transitioned socially, but I never did have any plans for surgeries. I have never seen any statistics, but anecdotally I suspect that the majority of folks do separate.
Since there is no fixing it, that says that the only thing to do is move forward. What else is there?
I used to think the number of marriages that stayed together was higher but recently I read an article that said it was down to 9%.
Yes, that would seem consistent with what I know anecdotally.
I while back someone here posted a question here as to whether or not their marriage would survive after she transitioned. I didn’t say it at the time, but my thought was “Go find some dice…”.
What enlightened folks have finally understood is that our gender identify and our sexuality are innate. We can attempt to live a lie for a while, but those needs will eventually manifest themselves stronger than ever. As I’ve said before, this is why conversion therapy doesn’t work.
All we can do is live with the situation that has been placed before us. We can’t ignore it. We can’t work around it. We can only face it…
DeeAnn, I definitely agree with you about conversion therapy. My parents sent me to conversion therapy when I was 5 and all it did was push me into the closet and make me deathly afraid of getting caught dressing. And it screwed up my life for the next 55 years until I started my transition.
Did you happen to see the link that I posted in one of these threads about an open letter that 9 leaders/founders of ex-gay organizations posted back in 2014? They are pretty clear now that their prior work caused more damage than it helped. It is very unfortunate that so many conservatives still think that conversion therapy works, but the truth is that it flat out does NOT work. We just can’t change who we are…
Yes I did thank you.
This has been a great discussion. Thank you to both of you for sharing your thoughts. One thing I already know is ignoring my feelings is not an option. Sometimes I can barely contain them as it is. I’m keeping all options on the table, including transition. At the moment I have no desire to transition as it will almost certainly destroy my marriage. But I’m under no illusions about where this is going. I know the feelings will grow stronger over time.
I couldn’t edit my original post but I wanted to add this to give more background info about me. I am feminine. I feel it to my soul. I’m here to explore what that might mean for me in the future.
When Diana first emerged I thought I was just going to be a man who likes wearing dresses but it seems I am much more than that. My tastes in just about everything have changed. I watch a lot of house flipping shows on HGTV, stuff I was never interested in before. I even love romance films. My taste in music has totally changed. Even my taste in books has changed. I used to love horror and action thrillers. Now I’m devouring romance novels. I definitely have a feminine side and she’s exerting more of an influence on me. Transitioning is not on the cards as my wife has made it clear she married a man and any change in that would effectively end our marriage. We have been married for 15 years and after a rocky few days she has been amazingly understanding and supportive, even allowing me to be dressed around her and even calling me Diana a few times. My favorite alcoholic drink is red wine, where I used to prefer beer. I belong to Goodreads and I just changed my profile just putting my name as D W, my masculine and feminine initials. I took down my profile pic and put a pic of the words “I like who I am becoming…a lot.” I’m not ready to come out fully on GR, but anyone who has been following my reading list must have noticed how my book choices have changed.
The point to my post is for anyone who became a CD later in life, and I know there are a fair few of you out there, did you notice a similar change in tastes? Or is it just me? I’m just curious to know how common this phenomenon is.
Yes, the system times out relatively quickly, and after that you can’t edit a message.
I have a theory about the relationship between crossdressing and ultimately being transgender. I think it is a bit like peeling an onion. Peeling away some layers of masculinity may, in some cases, allow more of our true selves to be revealed. We don’t “become” because we already “are”. It just took some time and the right situation to discover who we are.
Similarly, I don’t view it as a change in tastes. I think when the veneers are striped away, we allow ourselves to make different choices. Choices that, without societal pressures and expectations, we might have done sooner.
Just my theory, anyway…
Hello Diana. Welcome to this site. You are in a good place to get some help with your questions. Your desire to expand the female things that you do as time passes is very common. It is part of gender dysphoria. I know many trans individuals and only 1 of them has indicated that she has never had gender dysphoria.
As time passes, gender dysphoria usually increases in intensity and pushes us to increase our female side. Unfortunately, few wives appreciate that we have little control over what is happening to us and our need to increasingly live our true self is not a nice thing to do but it is survival for us.
I recommend you watch the YouTube videos of Dr. Z PHD. She has over 50 short videos and not all will apply to you but she explains many of the things you are experiencing. She is a trans gender therapist in the Los Angeles area and has several thousand trans patients.
Thank you! I will definitely check out those videos. You talk of gender dysphoria. I wonder if that’s what causes me to feel distressed at times. There are moments when I feel so stressed out I literally sit with my head in my hands. Distress is definitely the appropriate word. I’m dressed enough femme, even with lipstick on and I just feel I’m not feminine enough. It’s a scary feeling because I’m so uncomfortable in that moment and I’m afraid it’s going to get stronger in time. It has happened a few times now.
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