Love your blog and would like to ask you about crossdressing and relationships.
I am happily married to a woman I love, but she does not approve of my desire to crossdress. She has only seen me “dressed” once and made plain her distaste. She later said that she just doesn’t understand why I am a transvestite and asked if I wanted to date men. I assured her I have no such interest in men and consequently have only crossdressed when she is away visiting her friend.
Can you suggest any way in which I could try to make her understand my need to wear women’s clothes and make up? I don’t want us to split up but just wish she could sympathise to some degree.
The hard thing about offering my perspective is that sometimes it’s not a reassuring one. But at the very least it is an honest one.
I don’t feel it is realistic to expect our partners to understand this side of us. Which is fair, even I don’t understand this side of me and I’m the one who has this side of me.
There are no magic words that will help someone understand something, especially when it comes to gender identity. My cisgender friends in my male life couldn’t possibly relate to someone who was identified as male at birth wanting to wear a bra or lipstick. To them, they wake up and put on pants and boxer shorts and don’t think twice about whether or not their attire syncs up with their gender identity. I don’t think they give any consideration to gender identity.
But you get it. I get it. I imagine most people reading this can relate to us.
But do I understand WHY I am like this? Oh god no.
I do understand, and my wife does as well, that this is who I am. I have accepted who I am, and my wife has as well. I can’t change who I am, and my wife knows that. Her husband and Hannah are one and the same.
Of course, I am making this sound very simple and easy but please remember that this took years of patience and communication. Knowing HOW to communicate with my wife, whether about gender identity or anything else, took a lot of therapy. Therapy didn’t help me understand why I am who I am, but helped me find the words to talk to my wife about who I am.
And a reminder, my wife is different from your wife. Our relationship is different from your relationship. We communicate in a different way than the two of you do. We learned this throughout our relationship. What works for one couple may not work for another, especially when it comes to discussing gender identity.
I might be reading between the lines of your question, but I am assuming your wife doesn’t want you to crossdress. If so, then she has already given you her decision. Repeatedly bringing the topic up may not be effective when it comes to her accepting this side of you.
Her thoughts do not make her a bad person. Our partners are under no obligation to accept this side of ourselves. It’s a lot to ask of them.
Her asking whether or not you wanted to date men is a very normal question and concern our partners have. We are taught that gender identity is entwined with sexual identity. The idea that someone who wears a dress wants to be with a man is ingrained in our psyche.
Disconnecting sexual identity and gender identity from each other is one of the first things that we do when it comes to coming out to someone.
Communication in any relationship is key. And that is a cliche but it’s still true. If you are feeling something, and you are struggling to find the words to express how you feel, then perhaps chatting with a therapist might help. It helped me.
But please keep in mind that our partners are under no obligation to accept this side of us. You may communicate exactly how you feel in the most perfect way possible, but it doesn’t mean that the conversation will go how you would like it to.
More of my thoughts about gender identity and crossdressing in relationships can be read here.
Love, Hannah
Have a question for me? Oh yes you do. Ask me here!
Hannah McKnight 
/if the writer is on the younger side the unanswered question is why did you marry her while keeping this important aspect of your life hidden? If so-why are you now crying for help after being dishonest?
(older folks get a pass as things were so different back when they got married)
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If your wife has said she doesn’t want you to do this it’s quite unlikely she ever will accept it. Tolerate it maybe but accept it’s not likely
As most women who marry a man they married a man not a women, and while you may not want to be female as Hannah points out in todays world what we wear for most still goes along with our gender identity.
My ex never fully accepted my dressing but did tolerate it for a time but eventually she just felt she could no longer be with me.
Not completely because of my clothing choices but it was a part
Tread lightly my friend would be my advice
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I developed crossdressing after getting married. I didn’t even try to get her to accept it.
He knew her personality and behavior well and knew it would be a huge drama and endless exhaustion for both of them.
I opted for an alternative. At first I did everything secretly.
Then I got divorced and continued with my feminine personality.
I am intensely happy being a man with a feminine soul and I am free to express myself.
Translated from Portuguese by Google.
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I’m trying to be understanding, but am struggling. I recently found out that my boyfriend likes to crossdress. We’ve been together for almost three years and have the most amazing relationship. A while back, out of the blue, he told me that he wanted to try wearing women’s underwear. I was pretty shocked to say the least, and could probably have reacted a bit better. I questioned his sexuality, which caused us to argue, and stupidly asked him if he wanted to be a girl, which added to our argument further. Things settled down and I was reassured somewhat by his explanations that he just wanted to explore something different with me. Soon after he bought some women’s panties for himself. The first time I saw him wearing them felt a bit odd to me. Seeing my masculine boyfriend in feminine underwear wasn’t something I’d ever contemplated before, or expected. But it wasn’t really such a big deal either. It did seem a bit strange, but it didn’t make me feel any different about him, in fact I found it strangely attractive. He started wearing panties more often, and I kinda got used to it. Then he started wearing other lingerie in addition to the panties. He got himself a bra, which he said came as part of a matching set, and, a short while later, a garter belt and some stockings. The panties was one thing, but this all felt a bit too much for me. Other things followed too. He got a corset and some stiletto heels and ‘surprised’ me with the whole ensemble and his ‘new look’. I’m a bit shaken by the way this has developed. I’m not sure that I can be ok about his apparent eagerness to crossdress. I’ve told him how I feel and he’s backed off with most of it at the moment. I’m struggling with the thought that he is into all of this as much as he is, and am wondering how far it could all go. Will he eventually want to wear a dress, makeup, etc? He says that he won’t, but I’m concerned because of the way things have developed so quickly so far. I’m pretty open minded and understanding about most things, but, as much as I love him, I’m not sure I can handle having a partner who is a crossdresser or a transvestite. It’s just not how I see or want my life ahead to be.
HELP, please!!!
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This is a lot to chat about through comments but I assure you that your feelings are normal and you are not alone in how what you’re thinking and feeling. I write a lot about relationships here and it may help:
https://hannahmcknight.org/tag/marriage/
Additionally, please feel free to email me if you’d like to chat.
Love, Hannah
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For some couples the” hobby” of cross dressing is spent during me time for the CDer . Giving the space of privacy is respected, while you adapt to the knowledge that his items are in the house.
Others have fun with it and work on the presentation. Seeing something he might like and buying as a gift is heart warming.
Your reaction every cross dressers fear. Love your spouse and respect their creativity.
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Hi Hannah, thank you for your reply. I wasn’t expecting that, I guess I just needed to vent because I haven’t spoken to anyone else about this. I’ve read most of your blogs that discuss relationships, as well as articles elsewhere, and have found some of the content helpful. But it does seem that there isn’t a great deal of input from the wives, girlfriends or partners of men who crossdress, most of it is from those men themselves. I’d like to think that I could be more supportive or understanding, but I’m just not feeling it at the moment. I’m sure that other women have accepted this kind of thing, so why shouldn’t I? My boyfriend has told me that he’s thrown away most of the things he’d bought, and doesn’t want the subject to be an issue between us. Now, not only am I struggling with the thought that he might be a crossdresser, but I’m also feeling bad that I’ve stopped him doing something that he enjoys, something that makes him happy.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to reply.
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I think it’s hard for a lot of partners to talk about this, for reasons I am sure you can identify and relate to, so there’s not a lot of resources out there for people in your situation. It’s not uncommon for partners to feel pressure that they SHOULD accept this side of their significant other and they feel guilty that they struggle with it. For people like myself and your boyfriend, there is a certain joy of accepting this aspect of ourselves and we’ve had the time to process this, struggle with this, and finally accept and embrace who we are. When we come out, we feel mostly happiness and excitement, but for our partners it is coming out of the blue (or pink).
This is your journey too. It’s not linear. You will be frustrated one day, sad another, and apathetic on another. You wull have days where you will think you can get onboard, and others when you cry.
The reality is that this part of your boyfriend will likely never go away, even if he gets rid of his panties. This is likely who he is and this part of himself likely makes him very happy. The truth is that the two of you will likely need to learn how to navigate this together (and this is mostly on him, his gender identity is his responsbility and he needs to be empathetic to your feelings) if you are committed to each other.
At the very least, it’s good he came out during the boyfriend/girlfriend stage. Too many of us wait until marriage to have The Talk. If this part of him is a deal-breaker (and it’s really okay if it is, you don’t HAVE to live with this), then you can decide that now before marriage (if you are heading in that direction).
Love, Hannah
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