I need help and advice on how to tell my wife that I am a crossdresser. She knows that I shave my legs and she is fine with that. We have been married for 12 years and I have come to the point that I cannot keep it a secret any longer. She is fairly open minded but I realize that she could have a very negative reaction.

Would like to know if there are any surveys that have been done that indicate what percentage of wives accept or reject and to what degree.

Any ideas or advice?

Thanks for your help.

Meredith, Wendy, and Nikki all have good points, and you should heed them. Something to consider, too, is whether you are just cross-dressing, or may be a full TS. What worked for me (and at least one acquaintance, also a "part-time CD") was to include the wife in preliminary dressing "games". One night I put on one of her sexy nighties, and then we had a terrific roll in the sack. She had no objections from then on, to occasional similar nights, and within a few months I was in a nightie every night. It slowly progressed to panties and a bra as well, and after a few years I was getting help from her choosing clothes, makeup, etc. for all-out dressing for fun together!
Whatever you do, remember your marriage promise to share with her. Make her a part of your secret life - not someone to hide from when you are living that part.

Karin

I was reluctant to reply to this thread because SaraAnn describes herself as a life long CD'r and as Karin points out, it will make a difference whether you are CD or TS. Are you dressing for comfort or sexual purposes? Do you want to involve your wife or is it something you like to do alone? You need to make your wife your bestfriend. Wendy got it right with "trust". Of everything that could have gone wrong when I told my wife, trust was what she focused on. Two years later things are definitely much better between us, but I would say the trust issue still lingers.
Hugs,
Marsha

Karin and Marsha, wow both of you make some exelent points I only wish I had kept the news paper clipping that had the Ann Landers colum Ive refered to several times in this forum. I do recall that Ms Landers said that maybe three percent of all wives ere really O K with cross dressing. The issue that ive seen raised over and over is "When Ya gonna Take Hormone, be a Woman"? tnen they will invaribly go in to guilting you and tears, yes the tears,its their way of nagging back to health according to them.
First, is you'r e dressing a way to gratify you're self sexually? Do have the urge to go and masterbate? Do you want you're wife to preform on you to humiliate you, tie you up role play? . Look dear, Im not being judgemental here. If you enjoy a dress from time to time , great there are hundreds of couples that dress and reverse pole play , they go out on dates , dinner and even more! If thats the case, go to Tri-ess,.com they specialize in hetrosexual cross dressing meetings with wives as a focal point! In fact the wives even have their own meetings known as Spice Meetings. Im happy to share the missadventures that my wife and I have endured over the past ten years. She even went to a Trans clinic to be evaluated as to her possibly being a candidate for becomiong a man! We wouldnt have been the first couple to have done that but it would have been interesting none the less. Now as for me I want to take hormones , but my doctor advised me against it because of some medical isues I have. Meanwhile, I dress as a female everyday. I go to my part time job as a professional driver and yes, ocasionally, I might get Read, NO BIG WUP! Ladies, I am who I are! Oh yes , Im very proud of who I am too. I spent almost an entire lifetime putting myself down because I wanted to be a woman. Well years ago, I stopped . I stopped drinking , I stopped smoking , I saw that I was destroying myself, I came out ! Today , im not looking back, Im moving forward!Ellen

SaraAnn,

You've asked this question at a very opportune time. Halloween is just around the corner. Halloween is like Mardi Gras for trannies! If you and the wife haven't been invited to a masquerade party, find one, and go! See how she reacts to the suggestion that you "dress-up" for Halloween. It might tell you something about how she might react when you ultimately tell her the whole truth. Be sure that you make it clear that you want to dress in a respectful and dignified way, and be sure to stay away from sleazy. Put your best pedicured foot forward and make her proud.

Or you could try to pull off the hot sexy look, but the chances of her being receptive to your situation will be far less.

This is a tough situation, one that I never want to face again. I'm not trying to frighten you, but you need to be prepared. I spent several months preparing myself for the worst, and learning to find hope for the best.

I was literally terrified that I would lose everything; family, friends, job, home, and possibly myself. Fortunately for me, I only lost some of them, many have done far worse.

Most importantly, you need to be prepared to answer her questions, as there will be many; but that's a good thing. If she's asking questions, then there is a good chance that she wants to understand; your job is to be spot-on with the answers. She's going to want to know the "6-W's" (Who? What? When? Where? Why?, and HoW?)

And the one that came out of left field for me was, "Are you gay?"

I wasn't expecting that one. "No," I said, "I don't think so."

Surely you must have a pretty good idea of your status on the gender "gray-scale", you'd better nail that down firmly before you say anything. We all know that for many of us, that gender can be very fluid. You don't want to get stuck trying to nail Jello to the wall.

When I first began crossdressing in public, I thought of myself just as a guy in a dress having fun with other guys in dresses, and that was fine. Soon however, I found that I was becoming more and more self conscious about my desire to be attractive to men. The next thing I know, those long suppressed memories of childhood, praying to be a girl when I wake up the next morning, came flooding back.

So when the wife asked, "Do you want to be a woman?"

I lied and said, "No." But I wanted to say, "I'm not sure right now, but I'm beginning to think that perhaps I already am."

We were divorced in less than a year. Now I'm trying to decide which surgeon is going to do my SRS.

SaraAnn, I sincerely wish you the best, that things work out how you want them.

Nicole

Hi Everyone,
My spouse went into a round of depression when I told her. The thing we forget is that we have been dealing with the inner thoughts , desires and identity issues for some time. Quite often we forget many of the issues and needs of our spouses..

example:
Trust - was she lied to? Can she trust you in the future?
Sexual Orientation - If she accepts the woman that you are inside (or as a xdresser), how does it change her status, sexual orientation and how people view her?
Quite often the question of - Are you Gay comes up, as most people confuse sexual identity with sexual preference.

In my wifes case - She began to question if she was "woman enough", with self doubt about her attractiveness, her emotional strength and was she desirable enough.

It took some time to assure her that none of these were her issues, it was my latent identity that came to the surface. An Identity I had been denying to myself since a very early age. We are still together, but I have to be careful about Michelle around her. Finally, her religious beliefs will make it difficult for us.

All said, it is difficult to predict your spouses response. Take it very slowly and try to view the subject from your spouses point of view. Be mindful of how it effects her.

My prayer is that my transition be swift and not cause undo harm to those I love. However, that may sometimes not always be possible, so the best we can hope for is to minimize the hurt in others, while we claim our real identities.

Good Luck from a supportive sister,
MichelleLynn

It seems that a MAJOR issue with wives is the "trust" issue. They feel they have been "lied to" by their spouse. This is not necessarily true, as the husband may not have understood what an inescapable drive being TG is. However, lack of intend to deceive or harm their partner does not negate this feeling in the wife and should not be dealt with by logical argument. Even a partner who will totally accept you is likely to have to deal with these feelings. In addition, this can come up later as she starts thinking (I say she, but this could come up in relationships where the unaware partner is male). You need to arm yourself with knowledge and be prepared to focus on your partner's needs when you come out to them. You are going to be prepared but they are not. They will need your support at this time.

As Mere has pointed out, it's hard to be sure how a person will react to this knowledge. Take your time before coming out to them. Also remember, once you tell anyone it is no longer a secret you alone control. Be prepared for worst case scenarios even if you don't expect them. I had an excellent response from my significant other, but we still have issues to deal with even though I had almost the opposite response that Mere did. Remember, it took you a long time to accept yourself.

SaraAnn, it might be worthwhile looking through the 'coming out' forum to see how others experienced it.

For me personally, it was not a real issue, although my wife did want to know how far I wanted to take it and how we could make it work for us both and thereby stay together. A compromise had to reached but one that we were both happy with.

Don't also forget that you have had many years to deal with your feelings and to come to terms with it. Don't expect your wife to accept it in a short time. It will take her a long time too and you should take your cue from her and proceed at her pace. It took my wife probably two years to fully come to terms with everything and we had a lot of discussions regarding it.

However I was lucky, she had no issues with TG people in the first place so I had no problems there, just with her dealing with her own partner being TG.

Everyone is different and only you can decide the best way to proceed.

Nikki