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?

You are not a failure, nor is him.

There may be multiple reasons for him to be cross dress, from being just a fetish to him being wondering his gender identity.

It is what it is, and that is painful for you and a kind of deal breaker.

You both need an open heart conversation and take it from there.

There is not just a simple answer as it may be as other PP pointed the tip of an iceberg.

I was the person who described him that way.I have found that some men start off quite reasonable and then start pushing boundaries and can onlyreach sexual satisfaction by dressing up/making the woman wear certain clothes or some other kink. It becomes all for them

@loislovesstewie Absolutely. Many women whose husbands started this way describe that. I know a woman it happened to. It's very coercive and can have a wide range of effects on family life.

Thank you for all the posts. I've decided to speak to him about it and see what he says.

In the past he has had times of getting so angry with me and refusing to speak to me for several days. Other times I've tried to speak to him about things he has literally sat and stared at the wall and refused to speak or even change his facial expression. Some important things I wanted to discuss, I just never got any answer or explanation.

None of this has happened for several years. He has been more level with his mental health and has not got angry with me. But I think this is partly because I started letting things go rather than risk him behaving like that.

So I'm scared of raising it in case it sets him off either angry or upsetting his mental health. He is a self harmer (most recently with laxatives - many years ago by cutting). But i am going to raise it anyway and see what happens.

Good luck OP.
I fear this is the beginning of the end for your relationship.

Remember you have choices.

And this is “your best friend?”, wowzers, I don’t want to know who your best enemy is. You’re stepping on eggshells around this man OP, you’re afraid of him and it sounds a cohercive relationship with him giving you the silent treatment every time he wants it his way. He clearly doesn’t want to discuss his cross dressing with you, which in a way makes sense as you’ve been quite judgemental about cross dressing.

You wouldn't have just been honest then and allowed them to leave? Wow.

Actually now that I think about it you're totally right, if the man I was about to marry told me he absolutely loathed what is an important part of my sexual identity I would have probably told him "This is not going to work out Joe, please find someone else". So why did the OP's husband decided to stay? I don't know but it's an interesting question. Did he find his fetish shameful too and decided his wife was right? He has continued crossdressing thoughout his marriage so maybe he gets on by "shameful stuff" and "secrecy"? Or maybe he just brushed her off and thought "Fu-k you I'll do what I want you like it or not?" Maybe he was truly in love and thought his fetish will just "go away"? I don't know this man so have no idea why he decided to pursue a marriage with this level of sexual incompatibility. Whatever his reasons it does sound misleading on his part and I'm starting to understand why his wife is loyally pissed off.

I'll help you out there. It's because he's an abusive controlling and narcissistic man.

Be careful OP. When you call them out or try to leave, men like this are at their most dangerous.

As others have said, you can end your marriage because it’s not working for you or making you happy.

It does sound like the marriage is not sustainable. Hopefully you can end it without communicating that you’re repulsed by him though. It sounds likely that he already knows that people (his stepdad, you) are repulsed by who he really is. I can’t imagine how awful that must feel to be repulsive to one’s nearest and dearest because of things that aren’t really his “fault”. Something like that is a compulsion, not a habit

The artist Grayson Perry is just as talented just as intelligent when he is dressed as a female doll as when in a suit or his work overalls. What have I missed here that has made @Sadface231 husband such a monster.

Because lots of women, and I am one, would not want to live with or have sex with a man who wanted to dress as a woman . It really is that simple, it does nothing for me.

Lies and deceit that's what you've missed. The OP made it clear she wouldn't want to be with someone who cross dressed and her husband lied by omission and married her anyway.
You've also missed attraction, she's not attracted to men who want to dress up as women.

Thank you@itsmyp4rty , As OP says they have had a good or fairly good sex life so he doesn't bring the other clothes into the bedroom so in some ways she has not suffered. I accept of course that she has been deceived but not by by something that is as bad as infidelity.
@Sadface231 clearly dislikes what she has described, but her husband has not become a demanding monster has he. Or do you think he has?
The OP has not posted for a while.

I didn't post for a while because I had learned a lot from the replies I got and thought the thread was finished.

Thank you to everyone who has understood where I am coming from and provided useful feedback and support.

I haven't said anything to him yet but I will be doing. I need to do this for my own self esteem now. I'm tired of pushing everything down and pretending it's all fine and putting myself last.

And while I can admire Grayson Perry's artistic talent, I wouldn't want to have sex with him.

Some kinks can be pretty much completely separated from the person and don't have to have an impact on one's sex life if the kink is not your thing. But others can change your view of that person and especially whether or not you still find them attractive. For many women, myself included and, it seems, the OP, transvestism often falls into the second category. For some men, it's a simple sensory thing of "women's lingerie feels so much nicer than men's underwear" and it goes no further. But the OP's DH has moved on to clothing and a wig, which is a different level again (and is a sign it's escalating, which is a red flag).

I find men dressing as women a huge turn off because generally they either want to be "a sissy slut" which leaves me cold, or it often speaks to how they view womanhood, consciously or subconsciously: submissive, 'other', the most humiliating thing a man can think of to be. I don't want to be with a man who sees women in that way, and I would lose respect for him. I'm not bi or a lesbian so when I have sex I want it to be with a man, not someone pretending to be or who I know is dreaming of being a woman. Nothing seals my fanny up faster than a middle-aged bloke in stockings, a cheap wig and a boob tube. And it would pervade how I thought of him out of bed too; once I'd lost respect for him, once I'd seen him in a way that looked (to me) not just unattractive but a mocking facsimile of how men think women dress to be sexy, I'd never again be able to see him the way I once had, so it would be over for me.

I appreciate some women are fine with this kink, and that's their prerogative. But that's why I would struggle with it, and I know I'm not alone. And that's not even getting into the coercive and often abusive side of it which the transwidows here know only too well; I'm fortunate not to have experienced that, just "the ick" part.

@SoundTheSirens , I have only known one cross dressing man, he preferred the feel of the more delicate fabrics and textiles that I wear. Very tactile and amusing, no abuse or violence at all.
I was surprised at the vehemence in some of the posts this morning.

If you saw the cheap nasty awful wig, knickers and tiny short skirt that I saw in that bag... it was not about delicate fabrics and textiles, I can tell you that much.

Ignore the posters trying to shame you.

It is absolutely fine to feel the way you do. Many women would draw the line at their husbands cross dressing, even in private, for sexual kicks.

@Sadface231 Well done for planning to discuss it. He doesn't sound good husband material overall.

Please keep us updated. x

To give a better comparison:
I really can't see any of my male partners being fine in the knowledge of me keeping a hold-all of Gillette Man paraphernalia, Old spice aftershave, bald-cap & a fake moustache, Amazon load of boxers and string vests. Plus the risk of walking in on me hump-shagging a pillow in said string vest and chequered boxers round my ankles.

That⬆️ is the POV of a trans-widow.

P. S.
I shall not be kink-shamed. You can of course participate and call "you go, big boy!" from the corner of the room. That would be perfect 👍

I spoke to my husband about it. He wanted to know why I had been being distant anyway. So I told him.

He said the hold ups were for me to wear but he hadn't dared ask me. He said the bag of clothes were from when he was with his ex partner who used to make him do that. I said that I had looked twice, months apart, and there was more stuff the second time I looked. So essentially he knows I don't believe him. I also told him I hate the foot fetish.

He said he will throw away the hold ups and stop the foot thing. I said I still don't want to have sex with him so I don't know where to go from here. He wasn't angry or anything I feared. He was just really sad. I'm sad too as he really is my best friend.

At least you have moved forward albeit you both feel sad. You did have to bring it up and you've been clear about what you don't want and are not into. Do you believe him about the clothes?

Oops, sorry. I see you said you didn't because of the time gap etc

I think I already said this but when I first went away for work, the very first day I left he ordered hold ups off amazon. He now still claims they were for me and he never got round to asking me to wear them. I just don't believe him.

Re the time gap, he said maybe he found other bits scattered among his things and put them all together in one place so he could later dispose of them all in one go. I just said I don't believe him.

He is very apologetic.