Posted by Fun_Grapefruit2486  April 8, 2025 5:20 pm | #1 |
Hi everyone. I am struggling in my marriage to my husband of almost 10 years. He told me about 3 years into our marriage, and after the birth of our first child, that he has always felt drawn to wearing women’s undergarments, going back to childhood, and he was tired of denying this part of himself. This was shocking and I was extremely upset. I felt lied to and was scared for what this meant for the future. We came to a sort of don’t ask don’t tell policy that worked for a couple of years, but then he started feeling depressed about feeling ashamed of this part of himself and started attending his own individual therapy about 2 years ago to understand himself better. He has dove in headfirst to this and read, listened, watched TONS of things to understand himself more and has come to the conclusion that he is a gender non conforming male or also he has used the term nonbinary man. He repeatedly has stated that he doesn’t want me involved in his practice of wearing women’s underwear, but it is clear he wants me to be more comfortable and accepting of it than I am. We are in couples therapy with a specialist working on this, and in the course he revealed that he is curious about wearing women’s clothing in public, not just underclothes in private, and started wearing women's leggings to his workouts and experimenting with heels/skirts/etc. I feel incredible panicked about this, like it’s a slippery slope to eventual transitioning, which he has consistently told me he is not.
He has also started growing his hair longer, and wants to shave his legs. He says these are just the way he feels most comfortable in his body and don't have anything to do with gender.
A few weeks ago, he said something that alarmed me about putting a ceiling on what he would even consider due to how upset things make me, social conditioning, growing up in the South in a conservative family, etc. I told him that it was punishing me and causing me great distress to always be thinking something else is around the corner. Today in our couples therapy session, he said that he tried wearing a full womens outfit in public and felt good in them but "repulsed when I saw myself in a mirror." He also said that he wore breast forms and "it felt right in some sort of way." He said he doesn't think he is trans, but he (and our therapist) said that there is always the chance for evolution in many directions when it comes to gender so there's no way to completely rule that out for the rest of our lives.I am not trying to offend anyone and I feel extremely guilty about my inability to get comfortable with this; I am a social worker and mother of two sons and I would be really upset if my clients or my sons felt this was part of their identity and their partner made them feel bad about it. Please be gentle with me because I promise I have beat myself up more for this than anyone ever could.I guess what I’m hoping for in posting is any guidance or hope someone can provide me in how to move forward. I am not attracted to femininity and my husband is masculine presenting in general and was entirely when we met and fell in love. I feel like I've been so lied to, but he is defensive about that and says he suppressed it for a variety of reasons. Thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far. I’m scared. I'm so worried about our two small children and how this will affect them. I don't want to be divorced but I don't know if I can do this anymore.
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Posted by lily April 8, 2025 8:20 pm | #2 |
Hi Fun - the thing I want to shout out to you is Don't Feel Guilty. omg.
Initially you feel upset and feel that you have been lied to. Yes of course you have been lied to. Yes of course you feel upset, you thought you had a husband who wanted you for life.
You're supposed to feel guilty for not being more accepting of him??? omg. Perhaps you should ask him why isn't he being more accepting of you?
It is only natural for a straight woman to want a straight man. He knows this just as much as you do.
Much as I can sympathise with him wanting to come out of the closet, much as I can recognise his need to feminise is paramount for him, can he not see that his marriage is now out the window and why isn't he helping you with your feelings? Are you supposed to sacrifice your life looking after him while he gives no regard to you?
wishing you all the best, Lily
Last edited by lily (April 8, 2025 8:23 pm)
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Posted by Ellexoh_nz April 8, 2025 10:23 pm | #3 |
Fun_Grapefruit2486 wrote:
...... I don't want to be divorced but I don't know if I can do this anymore.
Many of us here have been in the "between a rock and a hard place" that you're in but you seem to be pretty determined where you don't want to be.....and that is actually between a rock and a hard place, so the decision will be yours if and when you have all your ducks in a row, finances sorted, plans laid, because there aren't many straightspouses who get out of this Mindfuck unscathed. Either financially or emotionally.
Your husband sounds 100% trans to me and if you stay with him you will end up second fiddle to his new persona.
We have a wonderful member here who has been through this and come out the other side still willing to pop back in to help, advise women who find this has happened to them..
Edited to say....trans/gender fluid/non-binary schminary.....what a word salad circus!
Elle
Last edited by Ellexoh_nz (April 8, 2025 10:25 pm)
KIA KAHA
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Posted by freedmyself April 9, 2025 2:34 am | #4 |
Fun, I'm so sorry you're going through this.
I didn't have the women's clothing/potential trans issue in my marriage, so I hope that someone with experience will hop on here too.
I DO want to let you know that you have every right to not be attracted to man dressed in women's clothes. That's not what you signed up for. It's a violation of the terms of your relationship. It's unfair for your husband to expect for you to adjust, and adjust and adjust some more to wherever his feelings might take him. It's a slippery slope, all this accommodation of one's closeted spouse. It's easy to put their feelings ahead of our own, especially in service of being open-minded.
It's one thing to not judge trans people. It's quite another to accept whatever sexuality your husband lands on. You matter, your feelings matter, and your needs in your marriage matter.
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Posted by Jupiter1 April 9, 2025 4:00 pm | #5 |
Hi Fun, I second what Freed, Elle, and Lily say about you having the right and imperative to respect your own needs and sexuality. You didn’t chose a cross dressing partner and this change on your husband’s part brings you rightly so to this decision point.
It’s certainly difficult with children involved as well as shared finances and extended family. You so much have my empathy and I hope you can take your time to sort out what’s best for YOU in this situation. Your children will do well with you in your best place possible vis a vis their dad.
My husband is a cross dresser, & we’ve been separated for a year or so. He’s super into it, dresses in public but I don’t think he’ll go the medical route transition. I found the following resources helping in figuring out what the h**** happened to my husband of 40 years and our family:
Interviews and writings by Ray Blanchard on Autogynephilia. He was interviewed on the our path podcast and many others. I follow him on X as well.
Anne Lawrence: Men trapped in men’s bodies.
Michael Bailey, The man who would be queen.
What I’ve learned:
Not alll men who cross dress transition. Even if they don’t ITS STILL HARD as the spouse.
This doesn’t go away. Don’t think it will honestly. I’ve followed MTF detransitioners and rarely do men throw off the urges/wants/desires to feminize, even if they want to.
Some people continue the don’t ask don’t tell philosophy. It sounds like your husband with his dressing and leg shaving is maybe beyond that point (mine was).
Some fully embrace their husbands gender change (Helen Boyd, My Husband Betty). Groups like TriEsse support cross dressers and their partners.
And of course, separation/divorce so that each partner can be liberated to be themselves.
Sending a hug. Keep us posted❤️
Last edited by Jupiter1 (April 9, 2025 4:32 pm)
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Posted by Fun_Grapefruit2486 April 9, 2025 4:53 pm | #6 |
@Jupiter1
Thank you so much for this reply. I found it very helpful. Would it be ok if I sent you a a private message? It sounds like our experiences are very similar.
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Posted by Jupiter1 April 9, 2025 5:10 pm | #7 |
Of course
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Posted by OutofHisCloset April 14, 2025 10:41 am | #8 |
Fun Grapefruit:
Oh, where to start! With your fear you are somehow out of line or politically incorrect for your very reasonable reaction to your husband's rejection of the male self he presented himself as when you married him? You're not. Of course you would be distressed. He's telling you he isn't what he seemed or presented himself to be, and knew that at the time he married you. I went through something very similar, and the effect of it is that you are shaken to your very core, while he has known about his own urges for a very long time. You're playing catch up and trying to incorporate what he's told you into your past with him while also having to deal with him in the present.
I went through something very similar to you in the sense of your husband's changing ideas about "who he feels he is." My now-ex's views about himself changed over time, and although after an initial declaration he was planning to take cross-sex hormones, have his testicles removed, and transition, he drew back, said he would live in the closet, wouldn't do anything permanent, but wouldn't rule out changing his mind in the future. I liken this to "waiting for the other shoe to drop," because it meant I could never relax, as I never knew when or if he would change his mind. It's no way to live.
At the same time my now-ex, was telling me he didn't see himself doing anything "permanent" (at least not in the foreseeable future), he, like your husband, was ramping up his cross-dressing. From saying he would wear lingerie in the bedroom only or women's clothes when I wasn't at home, he started wearing women's loungewear in the mornings while he had his coffee and read the paper. When I confronted him about this, he claimed he was "trying to get me used to it," meaning he was attempting to manipulate me into accepting more. One thing I learned, both from my experience as well as from what other women who have been in our shoes have said, is that ever more "expression" leads to ever more of it--it's like an addiction in that way.
I second the reading recommendations Jupiter 1 gave you (I probably was the one who recommended them to her). Learning more about autogynephilia might help you understand the outlines and motivations of your husband. They helped me a lot.
I'd also like to say that if you don't have an individual therapist apart from your couple's therapist, it sounds as if you might benefit from one. You need a safe place to be able to say exactly what you are feeling without fearing its effect on your husband, or encountering pushback--gentle or overt--from your marriage counselor.
One last thing: I also feared that I was going to get pounced on for my feelings. I was a women's studies director, and I was afraid I was going to put myself at odds with and lose my intellectual and social "home" in feminism. Luckily I discovered that there were many women, women like us, with cross-dressing, trans-identified husbands, many feminists, including academics and journalists, who would not condemn me for my thoughts and fears. Your feelings and fears are legitimate and normal.
Last edited by OutofHisCloset (April 14, 2025 10:44 am)
