Well, I really want to be a contributing member of this list, so I decided I would share how I "came out". My wife knows about me being Joni and so do a couple of old girl friend from when I lived in California. I'm not out of the closet in the sense that I go out in public as Joni, although I certainly wish I could. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I live in a very small town in Central Oregon, I don't think I'd be flogged and pilloried (sounds fun, kind of) if I came out, but it would be uncomfortable and very difficult for my 16 year old son.

My wife found out when we moved into our first apartment together before we got married. I had a box full of my femme clothes, shoes, etc which I had stashed at the back of a storage closet and piled other boxes on top of. Yes, I was hiding it and no, I hadn't told her yet, though I was planning to. Well, I was! don't sit there and nod your head and roll your eyes like that!<g>. Anyway, I came home from work about the third day after we'd moved in and the box was sitting on the coffee table, it wasn't a very big box, it would have to be a lot bigger now. Basically, she wanted to know first of all if it was mine and second of all why I had a collection of women's underwear.

So, I told her all about me and being a girl some of the time and a guy some of the time and both of them are me and part of who and what I am. Well, she kind of surprised me. After asking a few guestions, she said, "Let's see." "See what?" sez I, with my usual gift for being obtuse.

"You as a girl," and she rummaged in the box and tossed me a bra and a pair of panties. "That should be enough for starters." Well, the rest as they say is history or herstory. I guess my point here is that I could have and should have been honest with her from the start or at least from the point we realized we were getting serious. As others have pointed out in other threads honesty is the best policy. There are wonderful caring and understanding women out there, may we all be lucky enough to find them. Oh, and to be ones ourselves. <g>

dear girls i also had a long and troubled time before i came out and told my wife about phylis it took all about 30 years to do it and since then she has let me go out to all my cd meetings,i even am able to put my dresses in our shared closet,i think its a good thing to tell your so at the beginning so you dont have to go through a long time in the closet and its wonderfull when you come out love phylis anne

Nice story Joni. It is all very well planning to tell your SO but often we put it off. Perhaps it was destiny that forced you into disclosing - I believe in my case it was - probably the best thing I ever did - apart from marrying her in the first place.

Hi All-

Thanks so much for all your nice comments and for being so positive and supportive. Tina, yes I do feel like I'm very lucky and to be honest, I'm glad she found that box. I was planning on telling her...sometime, but as you point out, those kind of things can be put off indefinitely. BTW, don't think my heart wasn't in my throat when I came home and saw what was up. I already knew my wife (to be) was a wonderful person, with a big heart and well, a sense of adventure, too, which certainly helped, but still, you never know how someone is going to handle something like that, which I guess is why so many of us put off coming out to our SO's. (Wow, is that a run on sentence or what?)

Hugs to all, Joni from Oregon

Brillant story joni , i to have told gf and she did just the same asking a few questions and now we go girlie clothes shopping etc togther its brillant not having to hide it from her ant it joni