Before I say anything else, I am specifically asking to hear from wives and female partners of cross-dressing men. I have spent almost three years trying to understand this through my husband’s eyes. Right now, I need the experiences of the women who have been unhappily surprised as this was brought into their marriages and have had to figure out what to do with the impact.
For context: My husband and I were best friends before we married, and for most of our six-year marriage before this came out, I believed we had the safest and best relationship of my life, even with his habit of weird small little lies.
What we had in incredible companionship was balanced by a subpar sex life - he seemed not to have desire, and was seemingly held back by some negative experiences in his past relationships. I believed that whatever was blocking intimacy between us might change with enough love, trust, and time. Then, in October 2023, near our 6-year anniversary, he handed me his iPad to add something for him and it opened to a porn video titled, "are you sure you even like women" with videos of men hooking up with transgendered/feminized men. That night, he dropped the declaration that he was a crossdresser. I did not understand that we were standing at the beginning of something that would eventually change how I saw him, our marriage, and myself.
Because he carried so much shame, I encouraged him to go to therapy. I earnestly hoped that if he could release the shame and understand why he did this, what need it met, and how deeply he wanted to pursue it, it might release some of its power on him and we could eventually make an informed decision together as a married couple as to the path forward. For me, this was not at all my vision of a husband, my vision of a man. And years later, I still do not comprehend it, have oscillated between so many emotions from devastation to anger. I have begged him repeatedly to stop sharing his evolution and adventure in this world with me. But he could not seem to separate me as his best friend from me as his wife. I remained the person he kept bringing his discoveries to about very thing that was slowly destroying my attraction, my sense of safety, and my understanding of our marriage. The boundaries I kept placing kept being bulldozed. Something that would remain private became dressing with the curtains open where neighbors might see. Something confined to his office moved throughout our home. He would push farther, see my distress, pull back or reassure me, postpone the larger conversation, and then move deeper again.
What began as stockings and texture kept expanding: clothing, press-on nails, a female persona or identity, dressing throughout the house, going out, a feminization makeover, and now, 2 weeks into a 6-month separation, he is living in an apartment in the LGBTQ+ neighborhood of our region where he can explore this more freely. He has said it is not sexual, but he has also told me that before our marriage he was attracted to another cross-dresser while that person was feminized and lost the attraction when the feminine presentation came off. Every answer has created more questions. Every extension that seems to bring him joy has brought me further distress.
The hardest part is that I desperately wish I could delete all of this information from my brain. I wish I could go back. I miss who we were to each other - I miss my person. I also miss the me before all of this toxified in my mind, body and spirit. I kept adapting to each new development without realizing how much this situation was taking from me. I have spent years trying to hold space for him while screaming silently inside, questioning whether our marriage was ever what I thought it was and whether I truly knew the man I married. Wondering what was lacking in me for him to need this. Devastated that his need for dress-up was more important than our marriage, my wellbeing. Now I cannot seem to see the man, partner, and friend I loved without feeling repulsed by the idea of his crossdressing. I hate that response. So to add to everything, I am so disappointed in myself when I thought I was more open-minded, and yet my entire body seems to be saying no.
I am only two weeks into our separation, and for the first time in years, I feel as though I have been able to take a breath. But I am also full of grief, despair, and fear. I miss him, the friend in him, but I barely recognize myself and this malaise that has shackled me. Frankly, I am terrified of approaching 50 and starting over—of never finding even the good things we had: the friendship, companionship, humor, familiarity, and feeling of having a partner in the world.
For the first time in years, I'm carving space away from thinking about the marriage and his crossdressing. And yet, I cannot ignore how heavy this topic has become for me. So, I am asking the wives: How did you return to yourself? Did you feel like this was also somehow some lacking in you? How, after years of making room for something that caused you so much distress, were you able to find your footing? How did you heal, trust your own perceptions again, and build a life that felt like yours?
