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?

The only thing I can see from this thread that there’s a lot of very judgemental people out there, who honestly gives a fuck what someone is doing SECRETLY, PRIVATELY for their own pleasure?

You seem very stuck in this mindset that individual pleasure is acceptable, but only in the ways you think it is.

Please explain to me, what the difference is between me using a vibrator at home alone, and the OP’s husband wearing different clothes while at home alone? Both for sexual pleasure, both in private, neither involves anybody else.

So just answer that for me, what’s the difference?

No sorry I'm not engaging with you.

For all I know you are getting kicks out of this.

OP is not happy and is repulsed. That is enough unless consent in a relationship is not your thing.

So she ends the relationship. That’s great! People should end relationships that aren’t working for them.

No consent issues, though, that I can see. He’s explored something in private and hasn’t involved the OP.

I'm not sure what you expected him to do.

There's no shame in it.

That’s the best reply you could have given, because all that shows is that you can’t even defend your own skewed moral code.

I never said OP wasn’t allowed to not be happy with this, in fact if you read back over my replies I have said if she’s not attracted to him/if this fetish is not for her then that’s fine and she should leave.

My issue is with the insinuation that what he is doing is repulsive.

Also, what the fuck do you mean “unless consent in a relationship is not your thing”? The OP’s partner hasn’t even brought this up to her, nevermind asked her to participate in any kind of sexual activity around it. Of course OP doesn’t have to stay with or have sex with this person, but there’s no “consent” issue around a man cross dressing in the privacy of his own home.

She made a similar comment about consent to me too. Even though consent isn’t really relevant here as the OP doesn’t need to consent to her husband wearing whatever he likes to masturbate alone…

You said you weren't into that so "if you are, don't tell me" which js what he js doing.

You should have said "if you are into that, tell me, as its a non negotiable for me".

It would be a line under the marriage for me, but it sounds like he is just doing what he was told - not to tell you, not not to do it.

Exactly my point. I think @lifeturnsonadime would probably be a lot happier if they had a bit of solo happiness of their own in their life 🤣

God forbid anyone wants a bit of private individual pleasure

I don’t think anyone is doing that. And your idea of consent seems to be a bit askew.

The OPs husband does not need her consent to masturbate in the way he wants, as it doesn’t involve her and he isn’t imposing anything on her.

The OP does not need her husbands consent to find his kink unappealing and want to end the relationship.

Same situation..ive found out too with my DH...not sure how to bring up the convo.

I also know nothing about cross dressing, so no idea if it could indicate he is gay or anything. Im a bit stumped as he is a stereotypical bloke even working as a builder ect so ive been taken by surprise...

No idea how i feel about it as i dont know anything about it..

(as he told me his step dad thought he was gay so he badly hid gay porn in his room to freak him out)
yeah ... right..... think your DH is in the closet

I’m not from Reddit either, and I was pointing out that these threads are often hijacked by trans widows because I’ve seen it happen multiple times. A poster comes on here with a valid concern about her relationship (partner wearing lingerie for sexual kicks) and all of a sudden there are dozens of aggressive posts INSISTING that the only outcome is that her partner will start living as a woman and forcing her to go along with it.

I absolutely believe that the OP is allowed to be repulsed by the idea of her partner in woman’s lingerie. We all have our turn ons and turn offs, and the OP cannot help her visceral reaction to it.

However, her partner’s sexual kink is likely to be just that, rather than an indication that he’s about to come out as a woman, or that he’s cheating on her. Wearing women’s knickers is a very, very common male kink. I bet loads of your partners have done it and you just don’t know about it.

If the OP doesn’t want to continue her relationship because she can’t stomach it then that’s not unreasonable, but let’s not pretend it’s an automatic indication that he’s a cheater or about to reveal that he’s now a woman.

please don’t listen to the scare tactics of the trans widows.

This would be, in fact, the shared experience of women who have been abused by men who escalated from crossdressing. Talking about their abuse. In a desire to protect other women.

I wonder if you're this prejudiced on the relationships board against women who have been physically abused.

The sad fact is that paraphilias cluster. So anyone who has one kink, such as cross dressing, is very likely to have more.

You already knew he had a foot fetish, now you've discovered he's into cross dressing. Statistically he is likely to have other paraphilias too.

You don't have to put up with a man who gives you the ick. You deserve to have a partner that you actively enjoy having sex with.

I've taken particular interest in crossdressing threads of late (including all the Trans Widows threads and beyond), due to recently having become friends with someone who has this kink (and a multitude of others, many of which would be too much for mumsnet to handle I think. In that case there is definitely no desire to actually to live as or 'transition' to a women (and I am gender critical myself); but some of the other kinks make cross-dressing look pretty tame).

While most of the kinks are not my personal cup of tea, the guy in question is otherwise just the loveliest person: Kind, funny, intelligent, reliable, attractive (if you met him in a normal day-to-day context, you'd never guess) - can't fault him. He's always been honest up front about the nature of his sex life - quite a few of our mutual friends are into the kink scene - although I'm not particularly. So anyway, I guess I was interested in the psychology behind it.

With a lot of the threads, you read them and think, 'the cross-dressing is the least of your issues really, the man in question is clearly just a total knob and the relationship sounds toxic'.

...And then there are threads like this one (and a few others I've seen) where the poster says things like "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", and then in the next sentence that they are repulsed by him for something that's not really hurting anyone, and I just think: The poor guy!

So he took on your kids from a previous relationship, he's otherwise a good partner, he's never asked you to involve yourself in this kink, he seems happy with your current sex life, you can't even accuse him of lying to you by omission as you specifically told him never to tell you!

...By all means leave him if this is not something you can accept, but can't help thinking that it sounds like your loss! The value of having you as a "best friend" sounds a bit flimsy too tbh. I mean, even if he's bisexual and has kissed guys in the past, if he's never cheated on you, I don't see why that should be a problem. I wouldn't want any of my friends to feel judged on who they are - only on how they've treated me.

Agreeing with some previous posters, there is no consent issue here.

I'm not sure the pps have read all of OPs posts, especially not the one where she says when at counselling she recognised signs of coercive control in her DH.

No matter what though the bottom line is the OP is entitled to leave her marriage for any reason. Any reason.

All of these posts trying to shame her into accepting her husbands kinks have a clear agenda.

This has nothing to do with prejudice. I was merely sharing MY experience of seeing first hand how trans widows took an opportunity to share their experiences but then insist that their outcome was the only outcome, and then to browbeat and abuse the OP when she said that her situation differed from theirs in significant aspects. The trans widows in question were blinkered and bullying and unable to accept that their experiences, whilst terrible, could not be considered as the ONLY possible outcome for the OP. The threads were deeply unpleasant.

I’m not sure why you’re bringing physical abuse into this. No one in this thread is discussing physical abuse. We’re discussing sexual predilections that cause no physical harm.

Let’s face it, if there was no shame in it, he probably wouldn’t be getting off on doing it.

Just bloody talk to him. You can't keep guessing and second guessing and then blaming yourself.
You have a good enough relationship where you respect each other, no?
Talk to him. Let him be honest. And take it from there.
Don't give a shit about what anyone else will think or that you've been divorced before or whatever.
Just be respectful enough to talk directly and openly, regardless of how betrayed you may or may not feel

Me personally, I'd hate this. But I love my DP. I'd probably take a few days to let it sink in then just have a conversation and say look I'm not mad I just want honesty so I can understand and we can work together to find a way to move forward.

You are presuming he went into this marriage with all of the facts at his disposal and chose to keep them all hidden. He did not necessarily know that it was such a big part of him, he didn't know how his life played out. We don't really know how this evolved in his mind and so OP needs an honest, non judgmental conversation with her husband. If it starts off as a kink shaming exercise then it's not going to get anywhere.

People change, circumstances change, trauma becomes more apparent as you are forced to remove coping influences (i.e. alcohol). I'm not denying finding sexual incompatibility in a marriage is shocking, and problematic, but I am suggesting that OP needs to talk, openly, to her husband about this.

The result could well still be a split but at least it's done with all of the facts rather than based on overthinking.

Thank you for all the comments. The supportive ones were greatly appreciated. The others were useful for different perspectives.

I'm trying to work up to a conversation. All I can see ahead is catastrophe!

Yes, I think this is the issue. He is taking the OP literally, which is fair enough under the circumstances, and thinking/hoping all is fine so long as he hides it from her.

OP, I have every sympathy with you because cross-dressing is a major turn-off of mine also, probably the #1 bedroom dealbreaker for me. The sexiest, most gorgeous man in the world would instantly become one human-shaped lump of ick that I'd never want to see naked again if he turned out to like wearing women's lingerie or other feminine clothing.

The difference is that I've always been very upfront about asking any man with whom I've started a relationship to be honest with me if they have, or develop any such desires, because I would want to be able to make the informed decision to walk away, ideally before getting in too deep. If they then hid it as your husband has done they'd be lying to me by omission, which would make it doubly clear they were the wrong man for me.

If you have a visceral reaction to this particular kink or fetish - and avoiding sex with him now would suggest you do - then you really have only two options available to you: 1) continue to pretend you don't know, continue to lose respect for him and sacrifice your own happiness for his, or 2) have an honest conversation with him, telling him you know what he's hiding and that it's a dealbreaker for you so you want to explore an amicable split. I know which of those is the choice I would make, but I'm not you.

(It's not appropriate to ask him to give up his proclivities and even if he offered to do so to prevent your marriage ending, he's vanishingly unlikely to be able to stick to it.)

[Edited to correct 'to' to 'too'.]

Trying to shame a woman into accepting her husband's fetishes is disgraceful.

Fetishes and paraphilias do not sit easily alongside normal human sexual relationships, which are about mutual pleasure and respect.

Someone who is aroused by fetishes isn't participating in a respectful and responsive way to their partner and it's ok to be repulsed by their mechanistic self pleasuring.