The wife's point of view on crossdressing

Crossdressing as a part of or type of selfbondage.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

Post by Natybound »

Karren wrote:
kinbaku wrote:
Karren wrote:... Loosing that trust is really hard to get back.
I think not telling her in advance was a mistake. But who never makes a mistake? So try to regain her confidence and work to rebuild that trust, how difficult it is. Since you are married there are so many more things why you love each other. I hope that one day she will forgive you and that you can be happy together for a long time to come.
Telling 40 years ago was coming out as a pervert... Transgender hadn't been invented yet... nor kind of accepted like it is today... Totally my fault for not telling her.. but I never planned on telling anyone, ever!
I think that deciding never to tell your partner is also a valid option as long as you can live with it without problems.

These days I was talking to a crossdresser who after 25 years of marriage felt the need to tell his wife. At this point I don't know if it's a good idea, but I also can't know for sure how he feels about the whole situation.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Natybound wrote:These days I was talking to a crossdresser who after 25 years of marriage felt the need to tell his wife. At this point I don't know if it's a good idea, but I also can't know for sure how he feels about the whole situation.
I don't know either, but it is better to tell after 25 years than that the woman will find out after 30 years herself (and women can!). The case of that broken trust that is very difficult to repair.
If you take it carefully and don't give her a cold shower with it. Also let her share her opinion and agree with it - in this case, she is the aggrieved party. So you can probably find together a solution for both parties.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Anything that could be considered a dealbreaker, or at least a very strong decision influencer should always be disclosed before the actual decision. You can't assume love is the answer because it frequently isn't. Secret crossdressing comes with a whole pile of follow-up questions and doubts.

Having said this, I did tell my wife before I married her but it was also 4 years into the relationship before I did. It's a very good thing she was supportive. In retrospect, if she wasn't supportive, she might have felt that I cheated her out of the 4 years already invested into the relationship when she could have been with someone else.

How did I tell her?

I told her about my bondage kink after a year. I told her how I knew I was kinky, when it happened and how I view it (as in I'd see women tied up in TV shows and wondered what it was like to be in their position). It's a bit chauvinistic, but bound men never seemed particularly authentic to me, not that any TV show-level bondage was but "helpless woman" was more believable in my mind. We only did kinky games occasionally. I never really pushed it but I got enough to remain satisfied.

I told her about my self bondage kink after 3 years. I told her that before her, not having someone to tie me up meant I had to get creative.

Leading up to the 4 year mark, I talked more about my helpless damsel-in-distress fantasies and asked if we could play one out with wardrobe which she was willing to accommodate. Shortly after that session, I revealed that wasn't the first time I had been bound in female clothing and explained what I liked about it and how it enhanced the experience.

Since then, she's accommodated all of my fetishes without question. I'll admit that I am sometimes a little greedy about doing what I want to do and not enough of what she wants to do so I can see how crossdressers frequently fail to have enough empathy for their partners.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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kinbaku wrote:
Natybound wrote:These days I was talking to a crossdresser who after 25 years of marriage felt the need to tell his wife. At this point I don't know if it's a good idea, but I also can't know for sure how he feels about the whole situation.
I don't know either, but it is better to tell after 25 years than that the woman will find out after 30 years herself (and women can!). The case of that broken trust that is very difficult to repair.
If you take it carefully and don't give her a cold shower with it. Also let her share her opinion and agree with it - in this case, she is the aggrieved party. So you can probably find together a solution for both parties.
I'm not so sure about that. Just think that it's not the only option available to you to solve that situation. Anyway, what I'm trying to do is to let everyone come to their own conclusion on how to handle this issue. :)
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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vm1971 wrote:Anything that could be considered a dealbreaker, or at least a very strong decision influencer should always be disclosed before the actual decision. You can't assume love is the answer because it frequently isn't. Secret crossdressing comes with a whole pile of follow-up questions and doubts.

Having said this, I did tell my wife before I married her but it was also 4 years into the relationship before I did. It's a very good thing she was supportive. In retrospect, if she wasn't supportive, she might have felt that I cheated her out of the 4 years already invested into the relationship when she could have been with someone else.

How did I tell her?

I told her about my bondage kink after a year. I told her how I knew I was kinky, when it happened and how I view it (as in I'd see women tied up in TV shows and wondered what it was like to be in their position). It's a bit chauvinistic, but bound men never seemed particularly authentic to me, not that any TV show-level bondage was but "helpless woman" was more believable in my mind. We only did kinky games occasionally. I never really pushed it but I got enough to remain satisfied.

I told her about my self bondage kink after 3 years. I told her that before her, not having someone to tie me up meant I had to get creative.

Leading up to the 4 year mark, I talked more about my helpless damsel-in-distress fantasies and asked if we could play one out with wardrobe which she was willing to accommodate. Shortly after that session, I revealed that wasn't the first time I had been bound in female clothing and explained what I liked about it and how it enhanced the experience.

Since then, she's accommodated all of my fetishes without question. I'll admit that I am sometimes a little greedy about doing what I want to do and not enough of what she wants to do so I can see how crossdressers frequently fail to have enough empathy for their partners.
I'm glad to hear that you came to all those conclusions through your own efforts. I too went through a very similar path to yours to talk to my wife, with the difference that I did it after I got married and it was not a smooth path although in the end both my wife and I came out of this situation with flying colors.

There is something I would like to raise with you all because it seems to me something interesting that I have realized with this article I have written, and it is the reason that leads us to hide our tastes to everyone.

The only explanation I can think of is that we ourselves are convinced that what we do is wrong. If this is true, it is quite complicated that we can convince someone of it if we ourselves do not believe that it is right.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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I blame upbringing. Children are trained to get rid of what they don't understand. Anything that looks different in the school yard is shamed and punished until defeated. Whether you were a part of the shaming, the victim, or an observer, that is what is accepted as normal. Later in life, realizing that you are different, you still might use school days lore as the compass for what is "right". Just one theory.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Shannon SteelSlave wrote:Children are trained to get rid of what they don't understand. Anything that looks different in the school yard is shamed and punished until defeated.
That is why I am glad that my mother raised me more freely.
And that even her mother was so free-thinking. Although very Catholic - she knew all the psalms by heart - she welcomed Protestants into her home at that time where this was prohibited.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Natybound wrote:The only explanation I can think of is that we ourselves are convinced that what we do is wrong. If this is true, it is quite complicated that we can convince someone of it if we ourselves do not believe that it is right.
I don't view it so much as wrong as an obstacle to assimilating with society. People might think I'm weird and I'd rather just get along.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Shannon SteelSlave wrote:I blame upbringing. Children are trained to get rid of what they don't understand. Anything that looks different in the school yard is shamed and punished until defeated. Whether you were a part of the shaming, the victim, or an observer, that is what is accepted as normal. Later in life, realizing that you are different, you still might use school days lore as the compass for what is "right". Just one theory.
Although I think it is valuable to know the reasons for the situation, I think it is more important to know what you are going to do from now on, now that you know many things that you did not know before.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Natybound wrote:Although I think it is valuable to know the reasons for the situation, I think it is more important to know what you are going to do from now on, now that you know many things that you did not know before.
That's what people call growing up. In your life you come across new experiences that determine your further decisions. Sometimes those new decisions are wrong in retrospect, but that is also a learning process that you go through in order to be able to make even better decisions later on. However, it is important that you take responsibility for your decisions and learn from them.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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kinbaku wrote:However, it is important that you take responsibility for your decisions and learn from them.
This point is important, and not only in relation to this topic. :wink:
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

Post by Natasha Belle »

First I would like to qualify my thoughts by saying that I believe honesty is always the best policy but sometimes it needs to be amended.

For most people in relationships today the level of trust is severely strained compared to that of our parents and grandparents, this is exactly what to expect when travel, working away from home (usually), inter-connection through places like this site and all feeling empowered to initiate contact. There are two ways to approach this I think;
Denial - partner assumes that the other is completely faithful to a pre-determined (but often not communicated) level. This may apply but it might not, the doubt that causes will start to erode a relationship even if nothing ever happens. Of the 32 in my class at school only one has been in a single relationship since then (1979). The others have split and remarried etc. for a mountain of reasons well over half of which come down to 'I think they were cheating', often from a partner who admits they were also cheating!
Agreement - There have been mariners in my family for generations with husbands sometimes away for years even in Peacetime. They return and pick up their relationship again and, for both parties, what went on while they were apart was ignored and accepted. The only exception was if there were consequences that needed allowances. My paternal grand-parents were married 69 years, about 25 of them saw grandDad away with the Navy, then in WW2 with a Heavy Construction Unit clearing up after the Blitz. When he passed he'd left a diary telling all which my grandmother burned the same day without opening. 'What's done is done, he never hurt me and I was no angel.'

It all comes down to trust, in the first case trust has never been discussed so everything is built on assumption, hope and wishful thinking. Sometimes this is enough. The second sees partners trusting each other to not harm them, this is easier and much more flexible.

So to cross-dressing, you were unsure of a partners reaction to something you did so you hid it and assumed they wouldn't find out. No matter how you cut it that's the bottom line. As the relationship is built on a deception another deception may move things on. Either 'I used to cross-dress, met you and stopped but couldn't throw stuff away' or 'I think I'd like to try cross-dressing'. At this point your Partner's view of the relationship is all that matters, do the benefits outweigh the extra dimension? This is a yes/no question but may be sugar-coated by conditional statements, however preparing for the big reveal may make all the difference.

Sorry for the wall of text but I've just a bit more...
...I lurve The Rocky Horror Show and have seen it at a theatre every year. A few years ago the girls in our social group decided that the guys would go dressed female, the girls as male. My partner knew of my cross dressing and was cool with it despite me saying nothing for the first few dates, it was strange but an extremely good evening. On the way home she said 'You should dress nicely more often, it makes you happy and you've got a great arse and legs, just don't look better than I do.' She recognised my transgender side that I'd buried so deep I'd all but forgotten it. We are apart now but still friends and I have no male clothes at all. I'm about to start hormones for mtf transition and everything in my life has changed and I'm so, so happy.
Be careful what you wish for, you may find yourself going a lot further than you imagined.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Well, when we got married, I wasn't into crossdressing. I hadn't done it for years. However, as we got older, despite several trips to the hospital, she was unable to have sex. Even KY jelly used to make her sore. without penetration.

She wasn't able to do it manually for me, wouldn't do it orally for me so rather than be unfaithful, cross dressing started to come out. She said as long as she didn't see it she didn't mind. Eventually she accepted I had to have some pleasure and that it would help me to get manual relief.

Had I thought that she could have had an orgasm, I would have considered her, and only her, pegging me using a strap on on me. I never realised at the time, women can have an orgasm using one. It might have been fun, her lifting my skirt and bending me over. Painful, as I found out when I had to be tested for bowel cancer.

When she had her mini strokes and became bedridden, she liked me in my nurses uniforms as she knew I couldn't go out dressed like that.

Now I sit here, although it's cold, my legs are warm as I'm in a long skirt and petticoat.
We have ways of making you happily suffer. You WILL enjoy yourself. That's an order.
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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Natasha Belle wrote:First I would like to qualify my thoughts by saying that I believe honesty is always the best policy but sometimes it needs to be amended.

For most people in relationships today the level of trust is severely strained compared to that of our parents and grandparents, this is exactly what to expect when travel, working away from home (usually), inter-connection through places like this site and all feeling empowered to initiate contact. There are two ways to approach this I think;
Denial - partner assumes that the other is completely faithful to a pre-determined (but often not communicated) level. This may apply but it might not, the doubt that causes will start to erode a relationship even if nothing ever happens. Of the 32 in my class at school only one has been in a single relationship since then (1979). The others have split and remarried etc. for a mountain of reasons well over half of which come down to 'I think they were cheating', often from a partner who admits they were also cheating!
Agreement - There have been mariners in my family for generations with husbands sometimes away for years even in Peacetime. They return and pick up their relationship again and, for both parties, what went on while they were apart was ignored and accepted. The only exception was if there were consequences that needed allowances. My paternal grand-parents were married 69 years, about 25 of them saw grandDad away with the Navy, then in WW2 with a Heavy Construction Unit clearing up after the Blitz. When he passed he'd left a diary telling all which my grandmother burned the same day without opening. 'What's done is done, he never hurt me and I was no angel.'

It all comes down to trust, in the first case trust has never been discussed so everything is built on assumption, hope and wishful thinking. Sometimes this is enough. The second sees partners trusting each other to not harm them, this is easier and much more flexible.

So to cross-dressing, you were unsure of a partners reaction to something you did so you hid it and assumed they wouldn't find out. No matter how you cut it that's the bottom line. As the relationship is built on a deception another deception may move things on. Either 'I used to cross-dress, met you and stopped but couldn't throw stuff away' or 'I think I'd like to try cross-dressing'. At this point your Partner's view of the relationship is all that matters, do the benefits outweigh the extra dimension? This is a yes/no question but may be sugar-coated by conditional statements, however preparing for the big reveal may make all the difference.

Sorry for the wall of text but I've just a bit more...
...I lurve The Rocky Horror Show and have seen it at a theatre every year. A few years ago the girls in our social group decided that the guys would go dressed female, the girls as male. My partner knew of my cross dressing and was cool with it despite me saying nothing for the first few dates, it was strange but an extremely good evening. On the way home she said 'You should dress nicely more often, it makes you happy and you've got a great arse and legs, just don't look better than I do.' She recognised my transgender side that I'd buried so deep I'd all but forgotten it. We are apart now but still friends and I have no male clothes at all. I'm about to start hormones for mtf transition and everything in my life has changed and I'm so, so happy.
Be careful what you wish for, you may find yourself going a lot further than you imagined.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience on the subject. I'm glad to hear that you are happy living the life you chose. :)
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Re: The wife's point of view on crossdressing

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restricted wrote:Well, when we got married, I wasn't into crossdressing. I hadn't done it for years. However, as we got older, despite several trips to the hospital, she was unable to have sex. Even KY jelly used to make her sore. without penetration.

She wasn't able to do it manually for me, wouldn't do it orally for me so rather than be unfaithful, cross dressing started to come out. She said as long as she didn't see it she didn't mind. Eventually she accepted I had to have some pleasure and that it would help me to get manual relief.

Had I thought that she could have had an orgasm, I would have considered her, and only her, pegging me using a strap on on me. I never realised at the time, women can have an orgasm using one. It might have been fun, her lifting my skirt and bending me over. Painful, as I found out when I had to be tested for bowel cancer.

When she had her mini strokes and became bedridden, she liked me in my nurses uniforms as she knew I couldn't go out dressed like that.

Now I sit here, although it's cold, my legs are warm as I'm in a long skirt and petticoat.
Thank you for sharing your personal experiences. How nice that you both found a way to continue to enjoy sex. :)
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