Cross dressing - wise words needed

[Understatedhyperbole]

Looking for some wise words here and anyone with experience.

I have just found out that my partner of 3 years is a Cross-dresser. He does not yet know that I know, although I did voice my suspicions a year ago when something weird came up on internet history, and he very much denied it.

A bit of background. We both have teenage boys and don’t live together - but do have a blended family as we live near/share schools and clubs etc. My boys adore him and he’s been more of a father to them in the last 2 years than their own (we introduced each other gradually) -I adore his boys too, and am very to close to one of them who has special needs.

Our sex life has always been really good - although, if I’m honest I would like him to be a bit more dominant - however that’s never been a massive issue and he always leaves me very satisfied. He is kind and considerate and great fun to be around. We both enjoy a shared hobby and have similar interests, work in similar fields. Up until a few days ago I would have said I love him to bits and that he was my best friend.

So on to the issue.

Firstly, I don’t think I can get past this. He is a big bloke and the idea of him in make-up/heels etc turns my stomach. However, can this be contained? Is this something he can do in his own time, so to speak and keep out of our relationship? I have no idea about this - will it just grow and grow once it’s acknowledged?

Secondly, obviously he has lied to me. I understand why - the shame must be huge and the fear of losing what we have. However, he has lied to me for years - my last partner had an affair for years and this has brought it all back. I don’t think this is fixable - but I’m just so sad at everything we will lose.

I really want advice from anyone that’s been in the same situation. My head is telling me there is no way forward here, but my heart wants there to be a way to deal with this.

They say David Beckham admitted to wearing Victoria's lingerie for fun

However most men do not look like David Beckham

I'm sorry you've been betrayed OP.

My (now) exh and I were together 24 years. About three years into our relationship I suspected he'd been wearing my clothes. He vehemently denied it, said I was crazy and that we should break up if I didn't believe him. We were living in another country at the time, and he was very adamant that it wasn't true so I stayed.

What followed was many years of gaslighting, emotional abuse and once children came along the same treatment for them. A few years ago I stumbled on proof that he was indeed a cross dresser with other fetishes.

While cross dressing is not something that turns me on by far the worst bit of it all was the lies and manipulation. My ex is a pathological liar and once my eyes were opened and my confidence grew a gap widened between us and as he lost control of me he lost interest and dropped me about a year ago.

I absolutely loathe hearing about 'being open minded' and 'if he's a good guy in other ways you should see past it' all from people smug in the knowledge THEIR partner wouldn't do it. Pisces me off no end.

pisses

When you was snooping what was the reason OP? Was something not quite right?

I can understand how he didn’t tell you about CD. It’s embarrassing let’s be honest and the stigma is huge.

It must be awful I don’t think you should continue with him because of the children and you don’t live together... so you don’t know the full extent to what he does when your not with him.

I think there are two separate issues here - the cross dressing and the deceit. And it's the deceit that's the worst for you which I get, especially with your last relationship history.
He should have told you about it when you discussed it. Even if he knew if was a deal breaker for you he should have given you right to have the full facts before choosing whether (or not) to be in a relationship with him.
An ex boyf once "failed" to tell me about the two kids he had from a previous marriage, I just knew about the three he had with his second wife. When I found out it wasn't the fact he had five kids that ended it - It was the fact he'd not been honest.

I couldn't accept this. It is absolutely your right to end this relationship. You don't have to be all "woke" and accepting of this. It is not close-minded to not want a relationship with a cross-dresser. I can't believe some posters are trying to make you feel bad about this. Good luck OP.

Have a read of this op. Plenty more on Graham’s site. I see youve had a link posted already. This explains the motivation behind trans / cross dressing and the widespread gaslighting. grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-elephant-in-the-room

Makes me laugh too; if a bloke was on a forum saying his (female) partner was wearing a prosthetic penis and testicles under men's clothing (and had been on fetish sites etc.) .. would men be upbraiding them for their narrow mindedness and judgement of her for finding it weird/a turn off. (And she'd lied to him when asked about cross dressing before).

The fuck they would!

Brilliant! And absolutely true.

@Thingsdogetbetter

Oops... You'd obviously need to get over the feeling he lied by omission. People have secrets and this on doesn't actually affect you unless he does want to be out (not everyone does).

1. Discuss it with him and say you don't want it to encroach on your relationship.

It's just clothes and make up. It is more often a stress relief to move away from demands of masculinity rather than sexual or a desire to be female. Remember, lots of male reality stars wear make up. And even Harry Styles wears dresses.

Very sensible response.

[quote Justa47]@Understatedhyperbole

Talk to him but he will be ashamed and embarrassed so you will need to make it safe and get past that etc.

That’s if you want too[/quote]
OP it really isn't your responsibility to make this ok or 'safe' for him. You can put the doormat away and do what's right for you.

Sensible =/= minimising. It's not just clothes and make up is it? He's bought expensive female prosthetic body parts

It's just clothes and make up. It is more often a stress relief to move away from demands of masculinity rather than sexual or a desire to be female. Remember, lots of male reality stars wear make up. And even Harry Styles wears dresses.

Can people genuinely not tell the difference between men like Adam Ant/Bowie/Beckham in a sarong and men who dress up in dresses/lingerie/heels (sometimes their wives or even worse, daughters) because they like to have wank in them?

There is a gaping chasm between fashion choices and a sexual fetish that starts out private but usually becomes all encompassing, it does none any good to pretend one is the only ever the other.

Absolutely agree @MegtheShark - he’s not a gender non conforming man wearing eyeliner, he’s buying female body parts to wank in. It’s a sexual fetish, not a style expression. She is entitled not to participate in his fetish.

I think there is a lot of confusion about cross-dressing / trans whatever and obviously gender norms are a massive political football - but the idea that this is about him occasionally wearing eyeliner is just so insulting. Thank you to the posters who acknowledge that.

I am in no doubt that this is a sexual fetish. It’s tied in with sub/dom/ kink culture for him and is all about sexual pleasure not fashion choices. He told me about the sub/dom bit in a ‘when I was younger I was much more into the scene’ type way - there has been no indication (in our sex life at least) that this was anything more than a slight preference now.

Some odd things that have happened are now starting to make sense. There is a web of lies attached to living with a secret like this. As I keep saying - the deceit is the worst part. I feel like I am a bit player in his life - a pawn or a shield rather than a cherished and respected partner.

Anyway - thank you for all your replies. I am going to talk to him but for various reasons I can’t do that until next week. I don’t see any hope of the relationship continuing but I do really hope we can come out of this with mutual respect and love intact as I care for him deeply and all our children - but it’s really going to depend on how he reacts and if he genuinely is the kind and decent man I believe him to be.

Understated. That's a big decision, but it sounds like it's absolutely the right one for you. Wishing you all the best for an "onwards and upwards" future, and hoping your DP does indeed turn out to be a decent man when it comes to handling hte break up.

@Understatedhyperbole just wanted to reiterate my admiration for you.

Glad you’re not rising to some of the ridiculousness on the thread.

Best of luck for your talk.

From my experience ( I commented earlier), the urges get more and more frequent as the men get older. They buy, purge, buy, purge....... and then find that they can't actually get turned on unless they are wearing female clothing. I read a book about a cross dressers after my ex husband came out and the author said that he had to at least have a pair of knickers hanging off his ankle to even be able to get an erection.

The lies and deceit are horrendous. I was made to feel that our bad sex life was my fault, when in fact it was HIS issues.

The strange thing was, that despite my ex professing to not finding me attractive towards the end of our marriage, he said he modelled his femme side on me??!?!? He bought wigs that were the same style, length and colour as my hair, wore all my clothes and copied my make-up. He rarely touched my boobs during sex (I've since found out that other men are hugely attracted to my boobs!) yet he wanted prosthetic boobs to wear under MY bras that he stole!

OP, it' such a difficult situation and as I said in my earlier post, it literally broke me and I'm not sure I'll ever really recover.

Some of the stories on here are hard to read, and from women who sound so lovely.

Just a further comment. I've noticed recently this word "kink" is used a lot these days. I think the old word was actually "perversion". Kink sounds so much more harmless and fun. Perhaps the change of wording is to remove some of the 'shame' attached to the old word. But I don't like word 'kink' because though some kinks may be harmless or minimal enough to be barely worth mentioning, some are distasteful to most people or even debasing or violent, but are being increasingly 'normalised'.

Sorry, I didn't want to derail your thread OP, I just wanted to make an observation.

@chocolatepie2012

From my experience ( I commented earlier), the urges get more and more frequent as the men get older. They buy, purge, buy, purge....... and then find that they can't actually get turned on unless they are wearing female clothing. I read a book about a cross dressers after my ex husband came out and the author said that he had to at least have a pair of knickers hanging off his ankle to even be able to get an erection.

The lies and deceit are horrendous. I was made to feel that our bad sex life was my fault, when in fact it was HIS issues.

The strange thing was, that despite my ex professing to not finding me attractive towards the end of our marriage, he said he modelled his femme side on me??!?!? He bought wigs that were the same style, length and colour as my hair, wore all my clothes and copied my make-up. He rarely touched my boobs during sex (I've since found out that other men are hugely attracted to my boobs!) yet he wanted prosthetic boobs to wear under MY bras that he stole!

OP, it' such a difficult situation and as I said in my earlier post, it literally broke me and I'm not sure I'll ever really recover.

I'm so sorry you went through this @chocolatepie2012

Sounds utterly horrific.

It's even worse when some people start trying to make out that the men themselves are the victims, with no acknowledgement of the wicked lies, deceit and gaslightling these men unleash on their partners. Plus the precious years of womens' lives that they selfishly steal when the women could have spent these happy with someone else

@FarAwayFromYou

Some of the stories on here are hard to read, and from women who sound so lovely.

Just a further comment. I've noticed recently this word "kink" is used a lot these days. I think the old word was actually "perversion". Kink sounds so much more harmless and fun. Perhaps the change of wording is to remove some of the 'shame' attached to the old word. But I don't like word 'kink' because though some kinks may be harmless or minimal enough to be barely worth mentioning, some are distasteful to most people or even debasing or violent, but are being increasingly 'normalised'.

Sorry, I didn't want to derail your thread OP, I just wanted to make an observation.

Completely agree, I've noticed this too. It's actually been a very recent change because "perversions" was the word accurately used for a very long time. The stealthy change into labelling what are actually perversions, as "kinks", has overall been terrible for women and the vulnerable as it's been used to gaslight a lot of them into accepting behaviour which is degrading or behaviour that crosses their boundaries. I've never understood why every kind of sexual fantasy should be automatically be accepted/encouraged purely because someone has an urge for it.

@Clymene

Sensible =/= minimising. It's not just clothes and make up is it? He's bought expensive female prosthetic body parts

I'm not saying I'd be happy with this. The rationale side says try and understand but the emotional side would win and I'd be out of there. Feminine men or feminisation of me is a huge turn off to me

You're allowed to not be ok with this. You knowing, and telling him you know, even if you don't want to be involved is still implied consent for him to continue, and the risk is it then sneaks in to your relationship. If you ever end up living together- this comes with that, whether you ever see it or not. I couldn't live with it, or with someone who is into it.

A friends husband did this. At first it was just in private but now he is full on trans and having all the surgery etc. Marriage broke down, no contact with DC. A lot of bitterness

It's even worse when some people start trying to make out that the men themselves are the victims, with no acknowledgement of the wicked lies, deceit and gaslightling these men unleash on their partners. Plus the precious years of womens' lives that they selfishly steal when the women could have spent these happy with someone else

A thousand times this!

Yes. As My username suggests I have NC for this.but been around for ages.

DH told me when I first met him that he cross dressed. I didn't think I could get past it at first and felt like you do now. But I told him I respect him telling me and listened and talked to him. He talked, he cried a bit and the key thing is that we kept talking. I asked him not to hide it any more as I love him and eventually, it has become a non-issue.

My advice would be to decide whether you are invested enough to try. If not, leave now.

If yes, talk to him. Don't bury it. It will eat away at the foundation of the relationship. Talk. Listen. Show interest. He will deflect, deny, admit, talk, try to make it easier for you. Honestly, brutal if necessary is your friend.

I wouldn't say it's made my relationship better but once I got my head round it, now it's a non-issue. You might feel shocked, angry, scared, or bewildered but this doesn't need to be a dealbreaker.