What do you do?

[Nicole Pearce]

This is something I've always wondered about-

You fall in love with this young macho guy. He’s perfect. He’s kind, gentle, strong, sincere, and loving. Almost too perfect. You decide to marry. You are both extremely happy. However, one thing you don’t know about him is there lies within him something that can and will change your lives. It is however, dormant. He is able to keep it hidden- well hidden. Remember, he is strong and is able to battle this feeling. This small, inconvenient, yet persistent feeling.

You continue with your life and have children. Beautiful, wonderful children. The dormant feeling is now starting to fester. He shares this feeling- it scares you, but you poo-poo it as just a faze. It will pass-you hope. Your children grow up and go to college. Soon it will be just the two of you.

It gets stronger. He doesn’t know what to do. He is helpless. It is like a cancer. It begins to take over his entire person. He is irritable. He is confused, and doesn’t know what to do or who to turn to. He knows he feels better when allowed to indulge himself a particular way. He can not help it. He looks for times when he can feel better. Never enough time. He has been pre-wired, and this condition takes him over. You don’t know what to do. You love him- he loves you! He doesn’t want anything to change, but he is powerless to do anything. He looks to you for support. You can’t give it to him. He is scared. You are scared. It is so foreign- this ‘condition’. Is it real? He says it is. Do I believe him? I need to, he is my husband and I love him. But it’s so weird. I’ve seen shows about his. Those people are weird. But I know my husband isn’t weird-is he? What do I do???

I believe this is the dilemma that couples face. From this perspective, I find it so difficult why most women walk away from their husbands. What is this about? I understand it’s not what she signed up for, but in reality, neither did he. Will they be happier apart? If this condition is what’s coming between them (and granted, it is a huge thing) isn’t love stronger?

Comments anyone?-especially the SO’s? This really gets me…

Nicole

[DonnaT]

As you mentioned, we are wired this way, and as such it is an integral part of who we are.

Women are also wired certain ways, with particular likes and dislikes. Some of these may also be hard-wired. who's to say for sure.

You ask:

Isn't love stronger?

In the scenario you posted, the CD put aside his CDing, for love. However, after a spell the desire overcame the love. So which was stronger?

Additionally, the wife is having her own delima. She loves him, but not this part of him she's never actually seen before.

If she really loves him, she tries to understand.

So, maybe she tries to understand, maybe for years and years. However, like the CD's need becoming more powerful than the love, her particular likes/dislikes may become more powerful than the love.

Even if there is no love lost, she may come to the conclusion she'll never be able to understand, or she may decide she can no longer accept/tolerate his CDing, for her own well being (mentally and/or physically).

So, even though love is a powerful emotion, it can be overpowered by other needs.

If she doesn't at least try to understand (different from tolerance and acceptance), then, IMO, her love for him wasn't as strong as his for her. At least he tried to bury it for years and years, out of love.

[Georgia(SO)]

Nicole - I want to reply to you when I have some time to think over what I want to say. Probably won't be till tomorrow or maybe even Sunday, as I'm swamped with work right now. Just wanted you to know that I'm not ignoring you - just cogitating a while...

georgia (so)

[Jeannie]

I just have to say what my personal opinion is about your posts and most of the posts about wives and partners. Don't get mad because it's just my opinion as I see it.
What is love? Who knows. It might last for a while but your whole life? Not a chance. Familiarity breeds contempt. In my mind ,if you think a heterosexual woman will accept or tolerate you, its a pipe dream. You'll just go back and forth with heavy duty discussions and limits and everything else and get absolutely nowhere. I can understand where there coming from. They married a man and don't want to see them dressed as a woman. It creeps them out. Simple. Move on or your spend your life trying to convince them to accept you. It will be a life long counseling session. If that is what you want,knock yourself out ladies. The only person that has to accept you is you. The best partner is a bi sexual dominant woman for ladies like us. Trust me. Like the line from the Porsche adds say "Accept no substitutes." Live your life as yourself or someone else will do it for you. Hugs


Love
Jeannie

[Georgia(SO)]

Dear Nicole,

Marriages fail for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes one party clearly did something wrong and unforgiveable (i.e. cheating, physically and/or emotionally abusive, etc.). More often, it is a situation where neither party is doing anything wrong, but it just doesn't work together either. Marriages that don't work when one party changes religions, when one party wants kids and the other doesn't, when one party wants to move to the big city and the other doesn't are situations in which neither party is *wrong*, but it isn't going to work together either. Marriages that trip over CDing and TG issues are like that. Nobody is wrong, but it isn't working either.

Bottom line is that the vast majority of people don't enter marriages planning on a divorce. (Some may, but it's pretty much a sham of a marriage then and that's not what we're talking about here...). People leave a lifelong committment solely because something within the marriage makes them feel so bad about themselves that going it alone is better than staying. You don't leave a cheating spouse because they cheated. You leave because when they cheated, it made you feel so bad you are not willing to stay and go forward.

Now why the need to CD makes the SOs feel bad is as much a mystery as why it makes ya'll feel good. But the bottom line is that it does make many SOs feel bad about themselves.

The other part of the answer to your question is in your question itself. You said,

It gets stronger. He doesn’t know what to do. He is helpless. It is like a cancer. It begins to take over his entire person.

(emphasis mine).

This means that this person standing before your wife is not the same person she thought she knew. It means that the man she loved is gone, replaced by someone else in his skin. The analogy to a couple where one wants kids and the other doesn't is appropos here. Say you start out the marriage assuming that ya'll will have kids. And over the years, one of you decides you really don't want kids, you really don't want to even be around kids. Or the person who became significantly more religious than they had originally been. Or the person who decided that they just couldn't live without the bright lights.

None of these decisions are wrong - nobody is hurting anybody on purpose, nobody is shirking their responsibilities to the family. It just doesn't work anymore.

I'm sorry that this happens. It's happened to me in marriages that had nothing to do with CDing. It seems to me that it is important to your own self-health to recognize that the separation is due to ya'll wanting different things in your life, not the CDing per se. I think you will drive yourself insane if you pin it all on your need for panties.

gotta get busy,
hugs,
-g(so)

[Darth_Wolfenbarg]

I just have to say what my personal opinion is about your posts and most of the posts about wives and partners. Don't get mad because it's just my opinion as I see it.
What is love? Who knows. It might last for a while but your whole life? Not a chance. Familiarity breeds contempt. In my mind ,if you think a heterosexual woman will accept or tolerate you, its a pipe dream. You'll just go back and forth with heavy duty discussions and limits and everything else and get absolutely nowhere. I can understand where there coming from. They married a man and don't want to see them dressed as a woman. It creeps them out. Simple. Move on or your spend your life trying to convince them to accept you. It will be a life long counseling session. If that is what you want,knock yourself out ladies. The only person that has to accept you is you. The best partner is a bi sexual dominant woman for ladies like us. Trust me. Like the line from the Porsche adds say "Accept no substitutes." Live your life as yourself or someone else will do it for you. Hugs


Love
Jeannie

I don't wish to bash your opinion, I find it very interesting, but some points I want to say based on this.

What is love? Love is a connection. The mistake a lot of people make (mainly people my age) is that love is the gooey lovey dovey feelings that are abound. The nice euphoric, magical hoohah. It is nice, but only a byproduct of love. Love is just a connection like to a friend, only bound to more strength. With this connection like I said before comes feelings. Some are good, some are bad. It comes with compassion and understanding, but also fear, greed, and anger. The feelings become dormant, but that doesn't mean the connection will always fade. It is just likely in a lot of cases. Love CAN last a lifetime.

I agree with most of your points on hetero women being unable to accept. Just as men do with women, men are held to a standard. When they can't hold that standard that girls need and sometimes dream of then it is just off. Wrong. Weird. I don't agree that only dominant bisexual women will be the only ones capable of understanding though. That sounds a lot like a generalization. That would be another standard you'd hold a bisexual woman to also.

Anyone is capable of understanding, it just takes a lot of work. If that weren't true then I wouldn't ever associate with most of the people I do.

[Virginia]

Hi Nicole.
Well, I will say this. If you can find a film called "What the (bleep) Do We Know!" I would highly recommend it! It deals with quantum mechanics and quantum physics. There is a section in it that breaks us "humans" down to our very basic components. The section on love is explained - in my understanding - (and if you find the movie take notes, lots and lots of notes and if it interests you, prepare to watch it more than once! or you will never get it! I have seen it at least eight times and learn new stuff each time) - anyway, what science has determined "WE ARE EMOTIONS!" The hypothalamus is the center of our chemical factory and it can create some 22 different chemical compounds to parallel each emotion that we can interact with. In our brain we wire aspects together relative to the particular emotion that is chemically supported by the hypothalmus, but once we start down the road to negativity about anything, love of a person, for example, those synapses in the brain are told to start breaking those many wired connections with that person and, as each synapse is broken, we begin to "love that person less and less." This is how we work - it is scientific fact.
One other statement in the film that had me stop and really do an in-depth introspection, and I found the answer for me. You? It may be different, a struggle, or impossible! "Have you ever seen yourself through the eyes of someone you have become?" If a crossdresser can truly do that - WOW! - it is one hellofan awakening!
Best of luck, and keep in touch with your sisters here!
Love,
Virginia

[Anita]

That's a strong post, Nicole, and it has gotten some strong answers.

Georgia (SO) wrote:
Marriages that don't work when one party changes religions, when one party wants kids and the other doesn't, when one party wants to move to the big city and the other doesn't are situations in which neither party is *wrong*, but it isn't going to work together either. Marriages that trip over CDing and TG issues are like that. Nobody is wrong, but it isn't working either.

This is what I have observed over the years; people change, and some changes are not easy to adjust to graduallly, or even adjust to at all. Amd I have had some break-throughs in staying together with someone when we both were able to really see that the other person was not "wrong" in what they wanted. In those cases, the ability to stay in there with that attitude led to compromises or solutions that worked.

But this kind of insight can only help so much, and utimately, it can't get past the kids/no kids kind of situations. Those are not the kind of needs you can just set aside, or compromise on.

CDing isn't quite as cut-and-dried an issue, but it's close to it. In some sense, the CD wants the "child" that they created--this other person that they have become. I know this doesn't apply to every CD here--some feel that they are the same person, just different clothing. But I don't think I'm generalizing if I say that a majority of us feel there's a "she" inside, and she is different from our male personalities, (from a slight bit to a whole lot).

Maybe that is the reason that the alcoholic friends that I knew found it hard to give up alcohol abuse. The alcohol allowed a different personality to come through them, and maybe they loved those parts of themselves.
Alcohol was the only "tool" they had to unlock those parts.
I did not like those new personalities, but I wasn't in their shoes. What caused fear and anger in me was wonderfully liberating for them.

I hated the alcohol in their hands the same way that SOs might hate the clothes on their men. And I liked to drink alcohol myself, but it didn't mean the same thing when I did it--I didn't change personalities, and I never let it get in the way of the job I had to do. My partners weren't affected by my relationship with drinking.

Not an exact analogy, but I do think there is something very creative about finding a "new" person inside. Men never experience giving birth to children--maybe for some of us this is the way we try to experience the same feelings.

Nicole, I wish you continued support from here, and wherever you can find it in your community. Church, therapy, or close family--I just hope something is there for you to fall back on.

[Georgia(SO)]

Anita,

Wow. You summed up what it feels like to watch my guy become his own girl. Never mind that people will howl that alcoholism is a bad thing and CDing is not. That's not the point. I also realize that this is not the appropriate analogy for many CDs.

But, my sweetie *does* change personalities when he dresses - or he dresses when *she* comes to the fore. (chicken and egg). Not always, but certainly often enough that it is noticeable. He'll be the first one to tell you she's a bitch and not particularly pleasant to be around. So, yeah, it's a little hard to be thrilled when *she* shows up.

And much as an alcoholic has to get control of that person within him/her that shows up when they drink, my sweetie is trying to get hold of this girl inside of him and making sure she is not rude to me. We could talk for days about what makes the inner person nasty when the outer person (for lack of a better terminology) is really nice, just as you can talk for days about why some people are mean drunks, why some are crying drunks, and why some just have a good time and don't change significantly no matter how wasted they are.

It is incredibly difficult to be in a marriage that is falling apart for no apparent fault - no one to blame, no specific act that you can say is at fault. Been there, done that. I wish Nicole and others going through this the peace that only time will bring.

-georgia(so)

[Nicole Pearce]

Thanks for the replies you gals have given me. You are all so insightful and willing to help. it just amazes me how much caring for complete strangers is on this board.

Viginia- I have a copy of 'What the bleep..' and yes it is an exceptional film. I need to watch it again as you said and pay particular attention to the love part. Thanks for suggesting it-

Also- UPDATE- I am away at my sister in laws to have some Nicole time, and while I was away, my wife told my other 2 children about Nicole. I don't know the particulars yet, as I have not talked to them, but my wife emailed me and said as hard as it was for them, they still love me and assured her things will work out. I can't wait to give them the biggest hug of there lives and tell them how much I love them. I know they will have tons of questions for me- especially my 15 year old daughter. We have a great relationship, but she cried really hard when she found out, but then told my wife she was going to research it and find out more. My wife assured her that I will be able to tell her all she needs to know, but I wasn't surprised at her reaction. She is very special (as are all my kids).
I will keep you all posted. I won't see them until Thursday.

Thanks again for all your support. Big hugs to all of you!!

Nicole

[DonnaT]

Wow! Did your wife inform you beforehand that whe was going to tell the kids?

You know, your daughter may be interested in this thread.

http://crossdressers-haven.com/forums/v ... php?t=4371

[Aileen]

I hope that a compromise can be: she puts up with it, but does not want to see it. In that case, I hope that the crossdresser would respect her wishes and not do anything to throw it in her face. Regardless of how much he wishes he could share it with her, he should realize how lucky he is and leave it alone.

[Nicole Pearce]

Donna-
My wife told me a week ago that she WANTED to tell them (and I agreed) but I didn/t know when it was going to be. So it was somewhat of a surprise, but I knew it was coming. I guess it went ok (with much emotion as you can imagine) and I've emailed my kids telling them I love them and hope they are doing ok, but i haven't heard from them yet. I am kind of scared, but I know we will be ok.

I did read the thread from Jennifer Mu as it was happening. Not quite the same, as my daughter didn't walk in on me and therefore won't hopefully react like she did. Time will tell- I'll keep you posted!

Nicole

[DonnaT]

I did read the thread from Jennifer Mu as it was happening. Not quite the same, as my daughter didn't walk in on me and therefore won't hopefully react like she did. Time will tell- I'll keep you posted!

I know. I mentioned it because there are a lot of good questions from a teenager, and good information/advice in the thread.

[Nicole Pearce]

Donna-
I thought that's what you meant- I'm just not sure what I want her to read in that thread and what I don't. Jennifer was so negative for so long. She did come around, but the whole family deal was huge. I'll check it out again for specifics. Thanks Donna~

Nicole