Secretly cross dressing husband

[Sadface231]

Please can I have some advice. I've been with my DH 13 years. Near the start, I was reading something about cross dressing and I said to him, I am really not into that so if he is, never tell me as I won't be OK with it.

After a couple of years I went away with work. I happened to see his Amazon account and the day I left, he ordered some hold ups. I assumed they were for me (I did used to wear them sometimes including for sex at times) but he never gave them to me. I ended up asking him and he was all vague like he didn't know where they ended up, but I never saw them.

Then about a year ago I was in the cupboards in our bedroom and looked in a bag I didn't recognise. I nearly threw up. It had tights, knickers, nail polish in there. I managed to convince myself he had done it as a trap for me to stop me snooping around (as he told me his step dad thought he was gay so he badly hid gay porn in his room to freak him out). Probably stupid of me. Anyway a while later I looked again and there was also a little skirt and a long wig added to the collection. I feel so sick even writing it down. So obviously not just a trap.

We have since moved house and these things seem to have vanished. However he has 2 packs of hold ups in the bedroom. Just in his top drawer under one thing. I feel like he wants me to find them or why wouldn't he hide them better?

I feel like I don't want to have sex with him again. Which then leads to do I want to be married to him? We have 1 DC and I have 2 older DCs he brings up with me and a very happy family. He is my best friend. But I am very repulsed by what I found.

What does anyone think?

I would say if you know that your fetish/kink is one that is likely to turn off a lot of partners and cause relationship issues or you're going into a relationship with that secret then the person has done something wrong. It might seem unlucky or unfortunate to have a fetish that does have that effect on people but it doesn't give the person the right to deceive others.

You say you would think it was equally ridiculous if men were bothered by women doing that...good for you but you're in the minority and you will never change peoples visceral reactions to this and refuse to look at all of the nuances of why it does in fact bother people

Since when is it only morally acceptable to masturbate alone in a way out partner who isn't there and isn't involved would find sexy?

Doesn't necessarily have to be sexy, but people also know if their fetish/kink tends to be a problem for other people.

It IS the fault of the crossdresser if they have hid it from their partners. Deception isn't ok. and this is deception.

It's a nuanced situation because of someone else's feelings, not that he has done anything wrong by liking women's clothes.

Eh no, again even for the crossdresser it's more nuanced, very unlikely to be just that he likes womens clothes in this situation...

He knows the OP has a serious problem with it, but can't or won't stop himself from doing it....that's more than 'liking womens clothes". She knows he has kissed at least 2 men in the past. He had a download folder of pics of men etc.

I guess I just don't think it is deception, up until the point he actively lied, then obviously it is.

I just don't think that we have the right to know every intimate detail about our partners just because we are in a relationship. I don't think it is deceitful to not disclose every personal thing about yourself to someone unless you want to do so. I don't think we have a right to know all our partners sexual fantasies, or how they masturbate etc and I don't think it is deception to not tell someone.

It is a case that it is understandable that if someone had a deep sexual fantasy and then it turned out that your partner had such an ick about it that they told you that it would be a deal breaker if you had that fantasy and therefore you should never tell them because they would be completely repulsed about it, that someone would not disclose they had this fantasy and would lie about it if questioned. Why would you admit something to your partner you know people think you should be ashamed of (and you likely are ashamed of it yourself) that you know would mean they were repulsed by you? Tbh I sure wouldn't.

@Dolores87

I personally would never be in that situation in the first place because it is very important for my sexuality to be completely accepted and appreciated so I am open about my kinks early on.

Luckily for me I'm not into anything that tends to be a turn off for most people, but if I was then that doesn't give me the right to deceive people. I do have other things that I would feel are important to disclose to people because I think we owe partners honesty even if it means they decide the relationship isn't for them then.

There are men out there who are open straight away about crossdressing because they want a partner who accepts that part of them, because that is what it is...... 'a part of them'.....not just a meaningless kink.

God no. Who wants to know every single thing about their partner, their every waking thought, especially the less than impressive ones.

But when you're fully aware that your sexual fetish would be a dealbreaker, keeping it secret is deceptive.

That's not the same
A more equivalent scenario would be you finding porn on your partners phone, and him claiming his phone had been hacked. Then later finding he had lied.
It's extremely disrespectful to lie and as I've consistently said, knowing your partner can and will lie when caught is extremely damaging as the trust is gone.
It doesn't matter if the lie is porn, infidelity, cross dressing, gambling, drinking, drug use or whatever.
Blaming the person who caught them is victim blaming.

I live in a big city and all the women I see are not dressed with wigs, lingerie, high heels and flashy red lipstick, all the women I see are wearing pretty plain clothes (unless you're called Katie Price), I think dressing in drag has little to do with being a "woman". This said a guy dressed in drag (be it Ru Paul, the guys at the last gay parade or my cross dressing neighbour in the privacy of his own home) are not opressing no one by dressing flamboyantly as far as I'm aware. When I see my cross dressing neighbour walking down the street with a wig and high heels the last thing in my mind is "he's making fun of me, a woman" or "I'm not feminine enough walking in jeans, oh the pressure!". Maybe that's just me?

Or finding out your partner was watching gay porn or transgender porn, because then you're in a situation where you're questioning everything and don't know how deep it all goes or if you know your partner at all,

You know that's not the point at all
Very few people care if men want to dress in womens clothes.
Most women care:

1. when it gets bought into their sex life even though it makes them uncomfortable/isn't arousing for them
2. when the man they marries moves the goal posts,by claiming because they wear womens clothes they are now a woman
3. when their partner lies and gaslights when they are caught out
4. when their partner spends £££ of family funds secretly on their new hobby Or 5 ) when their partner starts being sexual with others in their cross dressing guise.

Well lying by omission is deception in my eyes and in the eyes of many others.

And often when men describe hiding these fetishes etc they will say it's because they know that the partner was likely to have a problem with, they know that they are being deceptive.

Lol, no. Women who object to sexism don't tend to do it on the basis that their clothes aren't feminine enough.

The only misogynistic thing I’m seeing in the OP’s story is a man who knowingly conned a woman into a marriage knowing her feelings about his sexual fetish. That was unfair and dishonest, but it could have happen with any other fetish the OP was not happy about. So the cross dressing fetish is not misogynistic -per se-, it’s the man who conned her. He could have found a woman who was happy or found his cross dressing antiques a turn on but he didn’t. He mislead her. We need to stop punishing sexual kinks and start punishing the people who engage on them with others in a non consensual way.

It's making a fetish out of women's clothing. I mean, that's degrading. Making a fetish out of nurse outfits diminishes nurses, making a fetish out of women- it's just grim objectification.

Thank you to those who understand where I am coming from.

I feel better for speaking to him about it all (the lying, cross dressing, foot fetish and elements of coercive control in the relationship). As I said before I needed to do it for my own self esteem. I don't know where I want to go from here but at least it is out in the open.

…And dressing as an American native Indian for a costume party is cultural appropriation and mocks all the pain they endured in the hands of white men, a man partying in a little tu-tu dress at the gay is fetishising children etc.. etc… Nobody is safe from political correctness.

You need to lighten up a bit and have more fun 🤩

Yes, laying out your stall (boundaries) can only be good for your self-esteem.

I'll bear that in mind @beatrix1234

You bear in mind that offensively appropriating minority cultures is , erm, offensive.

Funny that.

Well done. It's helpful to clarify what you feel and where the issue is, I think.

dressing as an American native Indian for a costume party is cultural appropriation and mocks all the pain they endured in the hands of white men

Christ. Yes. Yes it is. I can't believe you threw that in as an example of "political correctness" being over the top.

Dressing "as a woman" or "as an American native Indian" or "as" a generic person of any group is well dodgy because you aren't actually dressing "as" that person in any way people actually of the group would recognize, you are dressing "as" your idea of that group based on your perspective as someone who is not part of the group, or stereotypes/tropes reproduced by other people also not of the group, or a mixture of both.

It's cringe at best, and in the case that the group in question have suffered actual persecution, it's downright nasty.

No costume parties for you then.

LOL - I think I can just about manage to think up a costume that isn't based on a generic member of a marginalized group 😂

Pumpkin costume comes to mind, but you would be taking advantage of the fact they can't talk and let you know what they think of you dressing up as them. There goes another non-politically correct outfit.

LOL good effort at trying to find a comeback, but I'm pretty sure in reality you do understand the difference between reducing human beings to simplistic cultural tropes and ... checks notes ... pumpkins!

I'll end this silly discussion because I don't want to derail the OP's thread and I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to "reduce to pumpkins" what I believe is a serious matter for her. I have no issues in reducing human beings to "simplistic cultural tropes" (like you say). I don't have a problem with men in drag or someone dressed in a sexy firemen outfit, please don't go into a Halloween store this session because you're going to feel completely disturbed, but if you do: feel free to be outraged.

Ahem. You were the one who took it down the "can't even dress as an Indian, it's political correctness gone maaaaaad, if you don't care whether you offend a pumpkin then you are a hypocrit to care that you might offend a person" route.

I'm not going to continue your diversion by responding to silly little personal digs at me other to to say you are so very wrong all I can do is laugh at you. And to say, entirely genuinely, I hope your Halloween is half as much fine as mine will be 🎃👻

I will however respond to your minimising my actual point as it is serious, it is relevant to the OP's discomfort and it is the exact thing that you are minimising - that it is impossible to believe one can dress "as a " woman without having harmful and reductive ideas about womanhood.

You don't have a problem - that's fine, you do you. But please don't expect all women to be happy to be reduced to stereotypes just because you are.

I don't have a problem with men in drag or someone dressed in a sexy firemen outfit, please don't go into a Halloween store this session because you're going to feel completely disturbed, but if you do: feel free to be outraged.

Then why do men dress in stockings and er, lingerie (there's the word, eh!), put on nail polish & make up etc etc? Why do they not instead go and give the toilet a good scrub, or clean out the fridge shelves, hem their DC's school trousers, carry the milk back from the supermarket or mop the floor?

Do you understand the difference between the 'woman' that a fetishist is stroking himself over, and a real, actual woman? Because trust me, they don't.