Helping Wives, Love Ones, Friends

and the General Public to Understand

Living Life as a Transgender Individual

So you just discovered your husband is a Crossdresser and you really don't know what to think about it. Your considering leaving him because now you believe that your Husband is a Homo or is Gay. Maybe you think he is sick in the head or is a little crazy and your afraid to stay with him now. You don't want anyone to find out that you married a queer or Homo or gay guy. You'll be embarrassed to be in public with him when and if anyone finds out what he does or thinks he is gay. Your afraid of what your children will do or say if they find out their daddy is a Crossdresser. Your afraid to think of what your friends might say or even your relatives. You don't want to be ridiculed by anyone for being with a person that does this sort of thing. You don't want anyone to think that your gay or Lesbian or attracted to other women. All these things may have gone through your mind and your still undecided what to do or what to think. Your probably really upset because your husband didn't tell you what he did or was before you and he were married.

There's probably many more things that have gone through your mind and if not they probably will in time. You're thinking if you continue to stay with your husband now knowing what he does you may find it very hard to think of him the same way you did before you found out.

Now lets put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. You are your husband and you have been doing this all your life just as your husband has been. Now think of how you would feel if you are the one with this life long secret. Your afraid someone will find out what you do. You have been hiding this secret ever since you can remember, maybe since you were 10 years old. At 10 years old you sort of felt like your different from your friends and know your friends must not find out that you like to put your sisters dresses on, or raid your mothers closet when no one is around. As you grow up the urge becomes stronger to wear women's clothing. Over the years of growing up you learned that wearing your mothers clothes or other women's clothes was something other men do not do, but, You find that you can not stop the want and the need to Crossdress. Now since you found out how much different you are from your friends and other men and what happens when someone like you is caught or found out, the need to keep your Crossdressing habit a secret becomes even more important to you. Now you fear even more about friends and relatives discovering your secret. These two things have become 2 of the most important things in your life now. You love to Crossdress, know that it is something you shouldn't be doing and really want to stop but no matter how hard you try to stop you can't. Now when ever you get a chance you Crossdress and each time you fear someone will catch you. You don't want anyone to catch you because they will think you're a Homo, Gay or a transsexual and you know that you are none of these. As time goes on the urge even becomes more stronger and you find yourself Crossdressing even more and taking more chances but even though you know the consequences of getting caught you still continue to Crossdress. The fear of someone finding out about your life long secret grows more intense. You start feeling really guilty about Crossdressing and want to stop more now then ever. So you bag up all the feminine things you have stashed away and put them in the garbage. All this so far has taken place and your only seventeen years old. You think now that you have gotten rid of all your feminine things you can stop, you feel good about yourself. You self esteem gets better, you are feeling better about yourself but maybe 2 days or 2 weeks later your girlfriend is wearing this really nice dress and it makes her look really fabulous. Seconds later you find yourself wanting to see what it looked like on you. The more you look at your girl friend the urge gets even greater to want to try on her gown, lets say you were at the prom at the time this happened. You find yourself looking more at your girlfriends dress then you are looking at your girl friend, you really want to see what you would look like in her dress, you can feel the fabric against your skin, the the more you look the more you want. The next day after the Prom you find yourself buying a new dress, you tell the sales person it is for your girlfriend but it is really for you. You race home and find that your mom and dad are not there and you run upstairs and try on the new dress. The whole time you were looking at your girlfriends glamorous satin gown, and in the store buying your new dress it is on your mind,  I don't really want to do this I want to stop Crossdressing. You keep repeating this to your self but you continue to buy the dress. You say to yourself this will be it, just this one more time and I'll stop, I won't Crossdress anymore, but one week later you have a few more dresses and feminine things and your back Crossdressing even more then before. Again the urge to Crossdress grows stronger, the quilt returns, the fear of getting caught returns but the urge to Crossdress is just to strong to let you stop. This process continues for many more years, you stop, you start, you stop, you start. You purge all your feminine clothes many times and then buy new clothes. Now you become depressed because you want to stop Crossdressing. You feel like your the only one that Crossdresses as much as you do, the fear of being caught is driving you crazy because you don't want to be labeled something your not. You meet a woman that really excites you, you fall in love with her, The bond between you and her has grown now to the point that you want to spend the rest of you life with her.You get married, the whole time your at your wedding your burning to see what it is like to wear your wife's gorgeous Satin Wedding Gown. You can't wait to have the chance, the whole time wishing you could stop Crossdressing. At your wedding and during the whole time you were courting your wife, and at the alter, your trying to decide how your going to tell your wife your a Crossdresser. You really don't want to keep this from her and you promise yourself your going to let her in on your life long secret. During your honeymoon your trying to get up the nerve to tell your wife that you are a Crossdresser and now you start to wonder how she is going to react to such a thing as you wearing dresses and many other feminine things. You start imaging the woman you love so deeply looking at you after you tell her, then she starts laughing really hard and loud, then calls you a queer and runs out side. That's the last time you ever see her. You very quickly come back to your senses and now you have lost your nerve to tell her. Now you fear for your very existence, if you loose your wife you'll go crazy with grief. So now the biggest thing you must do is keep your secret from the woman you love for fear of loosing her when she finds out. You really want to tell her but since you imagined what might happen you can't take the chance. You promise your self your going to stop. Again you throw away all your feminine belongings. You promise yourself your really going to stop this time. Your really begin feeling proud of yourself, you did it, you stopped. It has been maybe 2 months since you stopped now, you and your wife are really in love and get along really great. No secrets are kept between you except of ONE. Life has never been better, your happy, your a new man with a beautiful wife and now you've found out she is pregnant. This really makes you feel proud, your going to be a daddy now and raise your own family. A couple of weeks later your up in the attic of your new home you and your wife just purchased and your going through a couple of boxes to see what your going to keep. You come across your wife's wedding gown. Your eyes get big, you touch it and it feels really good. The next thing you know you are trying on your wife's wedding gown and luckily enough her shoes fit you to. You start prancing around the house, your wife is at work and it is your day off. You try on a wig your wife has and now the illusion is complete. You look in the mirror and you love what you see and the way it feels. Everything you had planned to do on your day off never gets done. You have had your wife's wedding gown on most of the day and it feels so good you hate to take it off. You start realizing what your doing and really get mad with yourself because you put on your wife's wedding gown, but it feels so good and you like it so much you just say screw it and leave it on until it is almost time for your wife to come home from work. Now you have to take it off and your fighting with

yourself the whole time, your pissed because you tried the dress on and your pissed because you have to take it off. Your feeling really confused right about now. You love your wife more then anything in this world but, the urge to crossdress  has become so strong again since the last time you stopped it is uncontrollable. The whole process starts all over again, Crossdressing the fear of being discovered by your wife, your friends your work buddies. You think of how bad the ridicule is going to get if you get caught. How much it is going to drive you crazy when your wife finds out and you loose the woman you love more then anything in the world. It's driving you mad because you want to stop, you need to stop but you really love Crossdressing the urge is so strong you just can't stop again. Your life has become pure hell trying to keep your secret from the world, trying to keep it from your wife and now your children. You look for every chance you can to crossdress and each time hate yourself for doing it but at the same time loving it. You going nuts with the worry of your family and friends discovering your secret but yet you continue to crossdress. You can't stop, the drive and the need has over come you. Your life has become a nightmare and you are hating yourself. The hatefulness for yourself, and fear of someone finding out, the urge to continue to crossdress has made you sick and you now hide that because you don't know how to explain it to anyone. This is how you live the rest of your life and then that fateful days happens, your wife finds out. How would you explain it to her? How would you feel? What would you do? You'll wonder how your wife is going to accept the fact she discovered your a Crossdresser and have been all your life. You'll worry about how your going to live together, how it is going to effect your lives, What will your children say or do if she tells them. What will your friends do if she tells them to. Your worrying yourself to death because you have no idea what your future holds in store for you. What your family is going to think, your mother, father, brothers and sisters. How will you ever look them in the eye ever again.

Now, think to yourself, how would you handle this if it were you? How would you feel? You were never gay or transsexual your whole life, you have lived with this ever since you can remember and hide it form the world, not because you wanted to but because you NEEDED TO, to protect yourself from ridiculed and being labeled something your not, to keep from loosing your wife and family. The whole time you have known your wife from the first meeting until the day she found out, you wanted to tell her but you were so afraid of loosing her you couldn't bring yourself to tell her your life's long secret.

This is what your husbands life has been like all his life living with this. It has haunted him and tortured him every day of his life. He doesn't know why he loves Crossdressing, he has tried to figure it out, he has probably read many articles on Crossdressing and still never found any reason for his habit. None of us have figured out why we love to crossdress and we all have lived our lives like your husband.

Right now if you have avoided him he is sick with worry about loosing you and his children like any Crossdresser whose wife found out accidentally. His life has been a hell, but at the same time it has probably been a wonderful life. We all are no different from the day we're discovered then we were the day before we still had our secret. The only difference is now some one knows about his life long secret and his future depends on how you or the person who made the discovery deals with it. You or that person can ruin his future or make it the best future anyone could ever want. If you can adjust to his secret, your marriage can and will be better then ever before. Ask my wife.

Before you make any decisions make sure you understand his torture and his feelings. Talk about it together and work it out. He is no different now then he was yesterday. He is  still the man you fell in love with that hasn't changed at all but your future together depends whether or not you can adjust to your discovery. Millions of wives have made that adjustment and they're marriage, family   and lives have been better then they could have ever imagined.

This type of thing just doesn't happen over night or start in your adult years when sex becomes one of the most important things in your life. It didn't start a couple of years ago. This is something your born with, and grow up with. It is part of your life and what makes you what and who you are. I don't care what anybody says or researches. If you have not lived your life wondering why you do this and have no idea why, no one else is going to be able to tell you either. They may have some scientific research ideas why they think Crossdressers do what they do but they are only guessing as far as I am concerned. Psychologist can help people deal with the fact Crossdressers are what they are and help them adjust and except it, maybe, but they will not cure it. These are my feelings on this subject, I have lived with Crossdressing all my life as far back as I can go and that's a long way back in time. Back to when I was 7 years old and even some time before that I can remember things about wearing women's clothing. Like for instance when I was about 5 or 6 I used to have a satin blouse that belonged to my grandmother I wore as a cowboy shirt. My grandfather went out and bought me a little boys cowboy shirt form the store but I liked my grandmothers blouse. That was my cowboy shirt. I remember I didn't want to wear it out side when I played cowboys and Indians with all my friends. For some reason my cowboy shirt seemed like it wouldn't be the same as everyone else's cowboy shirt and I though my friends would poke fun at me and that is when I would put on the cowboy shirt my grandfather bought me. So believe me when I tell you that this is a part of your life from the day you are born. It may not materialize for years. It may take until you become a teenager before you begin to feel that urge to start wearing your girlfriends clothes or your mothers but it will happen. Then the urge becomes so strong that it takes over your life and it become the most important thing in your life to do.

So now back to the way you are thinking or trying to figure out how your going to deal with this new issue in your life. If you have had all these thoughts because you found out your husband is a Crossdresser imagine what all your husband has gone through tying to keep all his friends, relatives, children and you from finding out about his life long secret. The fear of someone finding out that you are a Crossdresser is so intense it can put you in a state of depression for a long time. It can change how you live trying to hide the fact you are a Crossdresser from the world. I know this first hand and I wish I would have never been born with this as part of my life. But then again if I hadn't been born with it I may not be the person I am today. Your husband has had to deal with all the thoughts you have had since you found out he was a Crossdresser all his life not just for the past couple days you have found out or weeks or months. The thought of his wife discovering his life long secret has haunted him from the very first day you and he were married let alone all the days and years of being together before being married. The torture he has gone through all these years worrying if you would leave him or divorce him if you found out has probably been so great it was at times hard for him to hide his fear. He may have, once in a while, gone into a shell to get away from the horror of loosing the one woman he has loved for so long let alone worrying about what his children will do if they ever found out. I want to stress to you that your husband most likely is not gay, a Homo or crazy. He is the same person you married and had children together with. The only difference now is you know what he has known all his life. Now you will have the opportunity to help your husband deal with this life long secret. Don't judge him because he was born with this as part of him help him and let it become part of your life. The biggest thing he needs right now is your assurance that you will not judge him or think of him as queer, gay or crazy. Enjoy this with him, just because you have found out he is a Crossdresser and threaten him with leaving or divorcing him or telling everyone he knows is not going to stop something that is a part of his life, something that makes him, him. That's like him asking you to stop breathing for a whole week if you love him. Your not going to do it, you'll die. This is basically what would happen to him, his life wouldn't stop but your knowing him as he is will be a lot different, you will not know him as you know him now. In time he will change, his personally, style of life, behavior, characteristics, the way he treats you,  his understanding, the way he cares for his children, his concern for family, his tenderness, and passion. All these traits and characteristics stem from his Crossdressing life and the reason you fell in love with him and married him and had your children together. If he had not been born with this desire to crossdress you probably would not have fallen in love with him and married. You may not have even paid any attention to him at all, you may not have even met him.  It's not like trying to break an addiction to drugs or dry out from alcohol. these are habits you pick up in life and not born with, big big difference.

I'm not a Doctor or a Psychologist or any kind of researcher. Some of the things I say in this attempt to help you understand may not be exactly right but are in close proximity. Every thing I say in this attempt is from my own experience in life and from what I have read on the Internet and in books on the subject. Most of what I say is from my heart and from my own experience in my life. The best teacher in life are your own experiences, kind of like on the job training so to speak.

When my wife found out I was a Crossdresser I thought I was going to die on the spot. My heart pounded so hard I thought it was going to burst right there in the bedroom. I have never been more afraid of anything in my life as I was about loosing the one woman I loved and has been a part of my life for so long. My wife loves me, this is one thing I know for sure because she excepted the fact of what I do and who I am. Her finding out didn't change who I was, I was no different then I was a couple of days before she found out. The only difference now is she knows my life long secret and helps me deal with it by helping me. She said we can have a lot of fun with this together and we do. She goes out with me when I'm dressed in drag and we have a great time. Of course we only go to places where we are welcome for right now, but as I get braver we will eventually venture out to places that are more public. She supports me 100% in the Crossdressing part of my life. We have fun together, she'll tell me if my outfits are good or bad. She doesn't pass judgement on me because I am a little different then other men. I am no where even close to being gay, queer or bisexual. I am 100% man and have an excellent Husband wife relationship. I still live with the fear of my children finding out as well as my Sisters, Brothers, Mother, relatives and all my friends. I pray no one else finds out my life long secret because I don't know how they would take it. I was lucky when my wife found out because she has a very open mind and understands. I wish that all husbands were lucky enough to have a wife like I have.

Become a part of your husbands Crossdressing life and have fun with it, he isn't any different then he was yesterday or last year. He is still himself. You are the one that will make the difference in your's and his life if you judge him for something he was born with and really has no control over. The urge and want is uncontrollable sometimes to crossdress and it is just something we have to do. No Doctor, you, I or anyone else not even he himself can change that. If you can make the adjustment to your husbands need to crossdress, you and he can have some fabulous times together. Go out and see just how many others you and he can make believe the illusion he is projecting. You can dress in drag as a man and change roles, that's always loads of  fun. Your dressing as a man would be no different then you wearing men's clothes any other time that you have in your life. Woman do it all the time and nothing is ever said because it the norm as woman's fashion. You can go out dress as the woman you are and fool others into thinking your a lesbian couple. But you don't do any of these things where you'll be recognized by yours or his regular friends. If you stay home and let your husband go out all by himself all the time you'll get this feeling that he may become gay hanging around with other Crossdressers. This can and does lead to families breaking up because the wife begins thinking her husband is gay due to the fact he spends more time with other Crossdressers. He does this because he likes to go out in drag and doesn't like to go by himself. He likes to have others with him in drag, sometimes as a safe harbor or just to have a little more fun. When the wife accepts the fact that her husband is a Crossdresser they tend to spend more time with each other and this make's the marriage an even tighter bond between them. Going out with your husband while he is in drag also gives you the chance to meet his Crossdressing friends and see for yourself how they relate together when they're out. As far as your husband turning gay because he goes out with other Crossdressers will more then likely not happen. This again doesn't happen  unless he already has those tendencies which only a small percentage do and your husband is most likely in the percentage that do not have Gay tendencies. They just don't go out with each other and turn gay, it's not like that believe me. Other Crossdressers have the same fear as you and your husband but they are trying to deal with it and live with something that they cannot really control. Most Crossdressers live their lives just like I described and no one ever finds out about their secret. A majority hate themselves for Crossdressing, and hate always having the fear of being discovered but still crossdress because the urge is to great to stop. Most accept what they are and who they are and learn to adapt and live with it all their lives, they really have no choice.

I realize that I am repeating my self quite a bit but I really want to get these factors across to you, the Wives .... Just because a man Crossdress's, and wears women's clothes doesn't make him a transsexual, gay or bisexual in any way. There's a real big difference in a man who Crossdresser's and wants to become a full time woman with surgery or just live like a woman full time. Real big difference.

If you think about it, your husband has probably experienced the hardest hardship that anyone will ever have to deal with all his life. That is keeping his Crossdressing life a secret from the whole world. It's torture, and a devastating experience no man or woman should have to deal with but have no recourse but to deal with it. It is a big job keeping this from love ones and friends. Only being able to do what is a part of you when ever you can get a chance. To be so fearful of someone finding out, always living in the closet, sometimes missing family events just so you can take care of an urge which is uncontrollable. Lot's of times I have missed some of my children's events just so I could get the chance to crossdress just for an hour or maybe two. I really wanted to go attend my children's events or relatives party's or friends parties but the want and need to crossdress just becomes more important then anything else at times. I think you will find that if you can except and adjust to the need that your husband has had all his life your life will change as well as his for the better. He will not have to wait until he is alone to take care of that uncontrollable urge., You can help him and together your lives will become a better way of life. You'll find that you and he will attend more functions together and more children's events together because the need to be able to find the time to take care of the urge is now no longer a problem. You will enjoy his life and your life a lot more being together and sharing his secret. It is probably one of the most important things in your husbands life for you to be able to except him for who and what he is and share in his other world. Think about it and don't pass judgement so quickly. It could be the worst decision you could ever make.

Let me try to help you understand how we act when we get dressed in drag. First these are my feelings on this subject and no one else's. We're dressed as a woman in our women's finest so we try to take on the habits of a woman as far as actions, walking, posing, sitting, spoken word etc.. It's just part of the illusion we create while we're in drag. It doesn't mean that we are turning gay or bisexual. We think of ourselves as acting a little part and trying to make others believe we may be the illusion we project. But at that same time we never loose sight that we are still men at least I don't and I feel other Crossdresser are the same. When I'm dressed I do my best to be my Feminine self, it's that simple I become, lets say,  an actor, portraying who I really am inside,  it's just that simple. In a way, I am an actor in both roles of my life. When I'm dressed as my genetic self I need to act the macho life style of a man, that's who I am in my main life style. My hope is that someday I can act the role as my Feminine self as well as I am my genetic self. Not because I'm turning gay or becoming a bisexual but because I want to portray the role as best as possible. It's all just part of what we were born with. I'm 100% man, not gay, not transsexual and not bisexual. I have no gay tendencies or bisexual wishes and probably never will. I'm just being Me as is your husband being himself.

The one other thing your husband will need your help with is to help him keep this secret from anyone else. Now you know his secret you must understand that it is very important to him and you to be able to maintain this secret from others. If your husband wants to let others know about his Crossdressing life allow him to be the one to tell. Don't, and I cannot stress this enough, don't take it upon yourself to tell anyone your husbands life long painful secret. Don't let your husband be literally afraid to look anyone in the face for fear he thinks you have pass his secret on to them. The one thing you must do is to gain your husbands trust and let him know he has nothing to worry about, about your telling anyone what you know. Give him your love and devotion and trust. He needs it now more then ever.   

I hope I have been of some help to the wives, love ones or friends who recently found out about their husbands or friends secret identity and helped them to except something that their husband / friend was born with and just not picked up a couple of days or years ago. Crossdressing is one of the most misunderstood life signatures I have ever come across, I know first hand. People ridicule, poke fun at and pass judgement on someone for something they have no understanding about. These people make it really tough on the Crossdressing community of the world. They force us to hide who we are for fear of being run out of town so to speak, humiliated and called something we aren't.  I would say 75% of Crossdressers are not gay, bisexual or crazy, unless they are transsexuals or gay to begin with. But that is still no reason to ridicule or pass judgement on them because they are just being themselves, as I am being who I am,  that is who they are, their genetic selves, as I am my genetic self, that has been proven as far as that goes, by scientist from what I have read.

Lets go just one step further. Lets take a look at this at another angle. When you wear your husbands clothes, his jeans, sweat shirts, socks, shirts, suits, ties, underwear or anything your husband wears, are you considered to be gay, bisexual or lesbian. No. Why? Because it been something the female population of this world has done for Eons. Not one thing is thought about it. It is considered to just be plain female fashion. But you let a man put a dress on or anything feminine and right away he is labeled queer, gay, bisexual, you name it. Why is this? My feeling is that the male population of some of this world has never even considered the fact of wearing a dress for fashion. It is considered to be unmanly. But in reality there is no difference that I can see, of course I'm a Crossdresser but that has no bearing on this issue. Take a look at the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, the men of those cultures wear dresses all the time, the only difference is they are made for the men of that culture, but by the same token they are still dresses none the less. Many many times you can not tell a man's dress from a women's dress in that culture because there is no difference at times. Some of he same dresses women wear men wear but the only difference is that the zipper or closure is on the opposite side of the dress or fashion. The men of those cultures have been ridiculed, poked fun at, called queer, gay, and bisexual since the discovery of their cultures centuries ago and even in today's world the men of those cultures are still called these names because the western world man didn't and some still do not know their culture or fashions. Just  a paragraph point of interest.

Thanks for taking time to read this. Please let me know what you think after reading my attempt to help. If you have any questions please feel free to E-mail me and I will answer you promptly, and if I cannot help you find an answer I will direct you to someone who can.

Michelle Lynn GreyFeather

March 2001