A reader asked, “Could you discuss the fear of telling your wife that you are a crossdresser, especially when you and your wife are conservatives?”
A healthier way to frame the conversation—particularly in conservative marriages—is to avoid presenting crossdressing as “this is who I really am.” A more accurate and less threatening approach is: “This is one part of me that I’ve struggled to talk about, and I want to be honest because I respect our marriage.”
Several points often matter deeply in conservative relationships. You are not asking to leave the marriage, not rejecting your masculinity or your role as a husband, not demanding instant acceptance and you are choosing honesty over secrecy.
It’s important to remember that silence may protect a marriage in the short term, but secrecy often damages it in the long term. Even conservative wives frequently care more about trust, stability, and being included than about strict ideological purity.
If you’re not ready to tell her yet, that doesn’t make you weak or dishonest—it means you’re cautious. Still, it’s worth asking yourself a few questions:
- What am I afraid she will assume?
- Are those assumptions actually true?
- What would I want her to understand first if I did tell her?
The answers often point toward a calmer, more intentional conversation when the time comes.
Being conservative does not mean being incapable of compassion or nuance. Many conservative wives struggle at first—not because they stop loving their husband, but because they need time to reconcile something unexpected with the man they trust. The fear you’re feeling is understandable. It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It means you care deeply about your marriage and the values you share.
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| Wearing Cynthia Rowley |
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| Matteo Cetinski femulating Jelena Rozga on Croatian television’s Your Face Sounds Familiar. Click here to view this femulation on YouTube. |
Here's an interesting twist about my wearing dresses around my wife. She accepted that. Several years ago when I didn't have any winter dresses, there was a cold snap. I showed up at the breakfast table wearing a man's plaid shirt and jeans.
ReplyDeleteShe blurted out, "Why are you wearing that f*cking shirt?"
John
Wonderful - Your wife has an appreciation for clothes and places little measure on what society states to be the norm.
DeleteMy wife, now deceased, dressed plainer than I did at the time. I was the one who wore dresses and she wore pants. And, as I mentioned before, she raided my purse for lipstick when she forgot hers.
DeleteJohn
That Boy starring Thomas Marlo?
ReplyDeleteAs a kid who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's revealing yourself as a cross dresser came with great peril. The word on the street was a cross dresser was a homosexual, but described in more vulgar terms. Anyone remember President Eisenhower hunted down gays and lesbians like a rabid dog? Try to find any material at the library? Forget it, even the Kinsey Report was kept behind the head librarian's desk! When my wife and I had "The Talk" she said, if she had known she would not have married me. I asked her, if she remembered the time she and her cousin tore apart the cross dresser who was tossed out and divorced by his wife? Nope! Now a woman can research cross dressing on the internet. There are website where a wife can read the angst that arises in husbands on this issue. Even if the wife ends up tolerating her husband's needs, she becomes part of the secret. Society will probably say behind her back, "What's wrong with her? Why doesn't she divorce him?" Does the political climate coming from the government ease a guy's mind?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to repeat this whenever I get a chance.About 15 years ago a Dept head @ the U of California wrote an article in the WSJ "caught between male and female"
ReplyDeleteHe claimed that there are 2 points during pregnancy where the mother releases "stuff". The 1st release forms the male or female body. later on the brain is formed and in this case it is a misfire (more or less a female brain).
B/4 you poo poo this consider all the other instances of ill formed brains such as psychos who have the part of the brain for empathy missing.
Too many of us have fear and guilt. If you buy in to this view you will recognize that you have nothing to be ashamed about i.e. it is what it is--emily
Mother Nature isn't perfect.. She has created life across a diverse physical and mental spectrum. This diversity is a survival mechanism that has enabled humans to flourish regardless of the environment. If the diversity didn't exist, we'd all be identical cookie-cutter clones.
ReplyDeleteHow is it that society can accept diversity in certain forms, tall and short people etc, or those with a spread of mentalities as long as they remain within certain limits? High IQ is a plus, as are creative abilities such as musicianship, artistry, literary skills - but our particular eccentricity is still largely rejected.
I decided against telling my wife of 30+ years because I know she could not accept the female part of my personaility. (Could I accept her if she told me that she felt herself to be a man? Would I like to see her in mens' clothes? No to both)
As Stana often says - and so it goes.
"That Boy " reminds me of the TV show "The Ugliest Girl in Town" from around 1968. The premise was that an American hippie, gets mistaken for a woman in some pictures and a modeling agency in England hires him not knowing he is a male. Timmy Blair goes to England, as female Timmie Blair to pursue a modeling career and a woman from England he met previously.
ReplyDeleteThe femulating is pretty bad and the show did not last long.
"The Ugliest Girl in Town" was so bad that I watched it once and never again. My "That Boy!" is a parody of "That Girl!" starring Marlo Thomas, which I watched religiously just to see what Marlo was wearing (and wishing that I was wearing her outfit, too).
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