Crossdressers-Haven.com

I would be interested in finding out if anyone else has experienced any simular feelings of being held hostage by their wife because of their crossdressing.

I am married to a woman who is accepting of my crossdressing or should I say tolorant. She has told me "It doesn't turn me on But, it doesn't turn me off either."

My problem is my wife is a compulsive shopper. She frequents thrift stores at least 5 times a week. Her interest changes from week to week. One week she is interested in lamps and will bring home about 5. The next week it might be exercise equipment and so on...

I see her as a horder but she says she is just a pack rat. I don't know the difference.

Here's where the problem comes in. I have 1 closet, 2 chest of drawers, and one side of drawers of a pedistal bed being 6 drawers. This is all the storage space I have for my feminine clothes or you could say for my hobby. I don't have a problem with that! When I run out of space I get rid of something. When I buy something I'm excited to come home and try it on. I make it a point to enjoy everything in my collection.

Now, my wife on the other hand brings everything home that she buys and just dumps it with no more interest. I live in a house jammed full of junk. When I try to confront her about what she is doing that's when she throughs the guilt trip on me. I'm a man that owns hundreds if not thousands of articals of feminine clothing; to the outside world what I do is probably just as hard to understand, if not more! than what she is doing. I find myself feeling embarressed and drop the subject. Life goes on and our house becomes more and more cluttered.

Our children are very aware of what she is doing and I don't dought that they are even aware of what I'm doing. They try to comfront her about it but, she becomes very defensive. I then seem to find myself protecting her in fear of everything comming out in the open. I worry about her feeling so threatend that she just might break and tell everybody about my compulsion. Sometimes I even think she looks at this as a competition. I buy a new nightgown, she buys 3 more pieces of junk. This would be and imbarressment I don't think I could handle it if she brought up my crossdressing and hobb of collecting feminine clothes

If I wasn't a crossdresser I would never have let this situation in our house get this bad.

Where's Dear Abby or Dr. Ruth when you need them. LOL!!

A tough situation Mary.

I told my wife she could tell whomever she wished. I feel no embarrassment, because what I do is a part of who I am. I was born this way.

If you can't be that open, then maybe what you need to do is start getting rid of the clutter, a little at a time (or have a yard sale). If she notices something missing, even though she's never touched it again since she bought it several years ago, then she's definitely a hoarder. As well as a compulsive shopper. A bad combination.

A hoarder can't get rid of something, but a pack rat can, but prefers not to because, for example, he/she may find a use for it.

I'm a pack rat.

Your wife probably needs professional counseling. She will probably say you do too. You don't, but agree with her to go anyway, as a way to get her into counseling.

The term "You never know it may be useful one day" causes howls of consternation in our household. I have tried to get everyone to adobt a policy of if I havn't used / worn it in a year then it can go. Certainly I have managed that with all my clothes.
However sometimes this does get stretched to 2 years.

No its not happened here. My wife is the one who wants to keep Susan hidden. I make it easy on her feelings by not playing close to home. I have told a few of my GG friends here who accepted Susan with pleasure. I am not bothered any more who knows. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

Your situation is painful to read about, Mary. I have lived with that condition enough to know that solving it can take a lot of time and patience. Counseling might not be a bad idea at all. It can't just be you against her on something this emotional--you've already tried that.

Mary I would say that your wife is a symbol of today's "effluent" society and I don't mean affluent.
It is the attitude "F---" the world, let us just keep consuming.

I have a a feeling that my wife feels I choose well when it come to my femme wear. She has bought me a nightie and passed over some tops. she liked my choice of summer dress. I don't think she would like me to go out in it

I'm sorry if my earlier post might seem a little flippant, I am like Susan in that it is my wife who is more frightened of my being outed than me. However I can see how your situation must be very difficult. I often hear the term "Baby Steps" here talking about someone coming out, or coming to terms with their cross dress, maybe for you too baby steps could help with your wife. Maybe try and get agree to clear out just one area of the house, or one of the "collections", maybe to purge something that you both use.

Ultimately though you will have to try to find a way of talking without confrontation, I feel for you and do hope that you find a way out.

I find myself in total agreement with Donna. I wonder what would happen if your wife did not have the leverage of your "hobby" to keep you "hostage"?

I wonder how many of us allow our selves to be controlled for fear of being exposed?

Most of the things we worry about never happen.

I know that I have a habit of jumping to nonexistent conclusions and I read more things into situations than exist in reality.

As you stated, her justification is your cross dressing.

A very sticky situation when you mix in love, marriage and family. What I see is that she is punishing you for having (what she views as) a socially unacceptable hobby that, irregardless of what she says, she can't deal with. That is why she tries to make you feel guilty. In lieu of productive communication, counseling is the answer.

Was she a compulsive shopper when you met her, before she knew of your hobby? If so, she is using what she considers a flaw in your make up to justify compulsive behavior. Counseling!

I wish you both happiness!

Andrea

I was in a very similiar situation of "being held hostage." She was not a hoarder or a pack rat (it was about money of course), but did try to manipulate me with the threat of exposing, or the accusation of being immoral, or by trying to make me feel guilty about my crossdressing. Well, I'm an ornery old cuss and it just didn't work. So she went around telling everyone she could about it, some cared, most did not. And we are now in the process of getting a divorce. So probably you don't want to follow my advice. But I'm just not willing to tolerate that sort of BS, and I figure if she was the sort of person who wanted to play those games, then she really isn't the sort of person I care to spend my time with.
So I would tell her, "all this junk is going, and you can either go with it or stay, I don't care." But probably you should not listen to me

If your wife is really a compulsive hoarder, odds are if you weren't a crossdresser she would find some other form of emotional blackmail, although perhaps a less effective one.

Hostage taking is fairly common in marriages where one (or both) of the partners has emotional problems, which is what compulsive hoarding is. And if all opportunities for emotional blackmail were eliminated, you might find that your wife persisted in this behavior anyway.

Absaroka, I believe you are exactly correct. It's my opinion that people have the problems that they have, and all marriages have problems, and one can either pretend that the problems are the fault of their spouse, or they can deal with it. I don't know of too many that deal with it.
But if a person didn't crossdress, their spouse would just blame everything on some other "fault" of theirs, be it smoking, drinking, watching too much football, working too much, having too much money, having too little money, having too much hair, having too little hair, having black hair, having green hair, having big feet, having smelly feet, not having two feet, only having two feet, or something.....
I, on the other hand, demand absolute honesty in everything, consequently I am divorced. Honesty and being right are the two things that women absolutely will not tolerate.