Ok that title is a bit of a paraphrase – here’s the full question I received:
I’m still figuring out crossdressing with the support of my wife. The biggest challenge for me is how do you balance your feminine and masculine side? And did you ever feel guilty for being a married crossdresser, like you’re letting your wife and/or yourself down? If so how do you combat those moments?
GREAT question!
How do I balance the masculine and feminine side? I don’t really know, to be honest – the way I stay most sane, I think, is that I accept that they both exist. For a long time, I tried burying it away and pretending it wasn’t real, but it would come back strongly. Now that I’ve just accepted it, I feel like it’s *much* easier to deal with. Things like allowing yourself to be emotional, or like things that some might consider girly and try to not care what other people think about it. I wear earrings all the time (I think it looks good in guy-mode, actually – it’s hardly subversive these days), and generally wear nail polish in guy-mode too (ok that’s still a bit counter-culture, but no one seems to care, or notice most of the time). But it’s more than that – it’s just being able to accept that this is who you are.
Feeling guilty? Yeah. Absolutely. My wife knew about it all a long time before we got married, but I think I spent the first 2-3 years of our marriage apologising for it! Every so often now, I still feel like “what have I lumbered her with?” but we do well. Honestly, she’s been so supportive throughout – that alone has been incredibly helpful.
But as for how to combat those moments? It’s hard. There have been lots of moments in my life where I thought “This is terrible. Why am I like this?”. When I was younger and religious (I’m not now) I used to feel guilt for letting God down, but after a while, I reasoned that if he was our creator, then why should I feel guilty, since he specifically made me that way. Later, when I came to not believing in God, I suppose it was a little easier, except now the burden was on me! But then I reasoned that, well, this thing isn’t going away, and I’m not hurting anyone, so why not figure out what I want and what I can do? As I got better at it (learned what kinds of clothes I like and what looked good, figured out makeup, bought a decent wig) I felt less and less bad about it, because when I would dress up and look in the mirror, I didn’t see something that made me sad, I saw something that made me finally happy with how far I’d come. It’s not to say that when I look in the mirror in guy-mode that I’m unhappy – quite the opposite. I suppose it’s akin to trying to learn how to paint, and then one day, you look at your creation and feel pride for it. It’s that.
I think I rambled a lot in answering that final question, lol, but I suppose it comes down to accepting who you are, figuring out what you want, and then working towards it. It’s not an easy task, but it definitely works :)
I hope that was helpful!
So true. I enjoyed reading your commit.
Interesting blog. Thanks. I’ll be back!
My wife was aware of my crossdressing before we were married. She does not encourage me, or participate in any way. I keep my legs smooth shaven, and so wish my wife would encourage, or even order me to wear sheer nylons on a regular basis. I would enjoy her in a dominant nature, even teasing me about my crossdressing, and calling me her feminine, “husband bitch”. I’ve never told her of these feelings and fantasies, as I doubt’ she be accepting and open and understanding. Maybe too little, too late.