Coming Out To People

  You want to be honest. You love her and want to share your enjoyment with her. It's sexy and you dream of sleeping together in matching nighties. She'll help you with your make-up, getting your seams straight and advise you on style and shopping. And finally you'll get more chances to dress being able to do it at home. Strong reasons, aren't they? And if it works for you, then you are very fortunate. I assume in all of this you value your wife and that for one reason or another you want to stay with her. But what does she get out of it? That is the most important issue. She gets competition for her knickers and tights. What are the neighbours going to say? If you have children, how is that situation going to be dealt with? If they are very young, they can be packed off to bed but once they get older you are going to have to explain. And the explaination had better be good, not to mention how good you look. Children can devastating, as anyone who's been 'read' in the street will testify. But there is a whole range of other reasons that will make a wife, at the very least, uncomfortable with the knowledge that her man wants to dress as a woman. Let's put to one side her first reaction that you're gay and a pervert or the creepy feeling she may get if you've been borrowing her clothes. Now, some women may be turned on by that - but others will feel that it is an invasion of their privacy. Should she tell her mother? Should she tell her friends? If she does then unless she has already committed herself to you she will probably be persuaded by their reaction, which is entirely outside your or her control. So your partner knows, now its her turn. She's not going to be over the moon at first. If she is an experimenter, in bed, then you stand a chance. But you'd better make sure that your performance is the very best if you want to repeat it. It may be that searching up your skirt and into your knickers may prove intriguing to her. But be prepared for her to burst into laughter if she's never seen the female 'you' before. Women can be devastatingly scornful of our efforts. What is the right answer? Only you know your partner. Only you know your circumstances. It's only you that can make the decision. But once made, you cannot go back. So if there's any doubt, don't do it. But that's not a reason for doing nothing. You can drop hints. Fancy dress parties can be a chance to find out how interesting you may be to your wife, en femme. But the path has to be very delicately trodden. One wrong step will be disastrous. Even if you get past first base there is still the danger of you getting far more out of it than your partner. If she gets fed up with it, beware! But what have other people done? There are successful relationships based on the man living at least part-time as a woman. Equally there are marriages that have been torn apart, very messily, by telling. You've all read about certain public figures whose former wives have branded them as perverts. But in a number of cases the wife seems to have accepted the situation or even actively participated, for a time. But something went wrong and now they're all over the front pages. I told my wife of twenty plus years and the first reaction was shock. The second was to call me a pervert, the third was to ask if I had borrowed her clothes (we're different sizes) and finally wondered whether she had been carrying on a lesbian relationship all those years. Almost three years later there's an unspoken, undiscussed truce between us. She doesn't want to know, but she doesn't want me to do it. I'm grateful that I never told her that I regard myself as TS rather than TV, but that's another matter. Why haven't I faced it out? Life is complicated and anyway I do love her, so if she won't accept it and I don't want to lose her, what do I do? I have no answer for myself. I know it worries her and it sure as hell gets on my nerves, but I can't face hurting her and I can't live without my female side. My natural fatalism tells me that it'll all blow up in my face, but in the meantime I'm having the best of both worlds. The price for that is stress, but am I wrong? I feel guilty but what is the alternative? Remember, what will work for someone else won't necessarily work for you. There's only one certain solution, that's to give it all up. I've tried, we've all tried at one time or another. And what does that do to us? Make us dissatisfied and perhaps resentful towards our partner. That can break up the relationship just as easily. The decision is yours, but think it through and don't count on your partner being predictable, that's one thing of which I'm absolutely sure, a man can never second guess a woman! Don't try. If you confess, you take your life in your hands. Good Luck, whatever you decide.