One of the most frequent questions I’m asked on comments at Crossdresser Heaven or through private email is:
How Do I Tell My Wife I Crossdress?
I can feel the fear and uncertainty as I read the words of husbands, some of whom are to the point of despair. How will my wife react when she finds out her husband is a crossdresser? Will she leave me? What’s the best way to tell her I crossdress?
When answering I try and share some advice based on my experience, the experience of others I know and from resources I’ve read. Unfortunately there is no “one size fits all” answer. Each person is unique, the dynamics of each couple are unique. When one wife hears of her husband’s crossdressing she may feel revolted, another may look forward to going out with her new girlfriend – and in case you feel I’m exaggerating on the latter point, I encourage you to read My Husband Betty.
All this is to say, I share this advice from my heart with the best intentions. I encourage you to carefully consider your unique relationship as you decide whether and how you will share your crossdressing with your wife.
Telling Your Wife You Crossdress – A Case Study
Peggy and Melanie (aka Mel) are probably the most famous crossdressing couple. Peggy’s book My Husband Wears My Clothes is one of the most well-known and widely read books on crossdressing from a wife’s perspective. I thought it might be valuable to start with how Mel first told Peggy that he was a crossdresser. Watch Peggy and Mel’s story in the video below:
Mel did a few things right when he told Peggy:
- He was sincere and vulnerable. Mel poured his heart out, sharing his life story about how he’d been dealing with crossdressing since a young age. This is not the time to get defensive, to try and justify yourself or force your wife to understand.
- He emphasized again that he loved her. When hearing their husband is a crossdresser many women wonder if they’re still loved – is he gay? Can he still love me and wear woman’s clothes?
- He gave her time. Initially it was a few hours as Peggy read and digested his letter, but the journey to shared understanding happened over time without being rushed.
- He shared what he knew about crossdressing. We’re more fortunate today, there are many resources to draw on, but even then many women – especially the older generation – have no understanding, or only a vague misunderstanding of crossdressing (read the myths of crossdressing).
I think part of the reason Peggy and Mel are still happily married is because he shared his secret in such a loving, vulnerable and caring way.
Peggy has commented that, “Crossdressers make really good husbands once you get past the shock of breaking away from the expected”
Telling Your Wife You’re a Crossdresser:
Vanessa Tells Her Wife She’s a Crossdresser
Telling my wife-to-be was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I feared that I would lose her, that the person I love most in the world would leave me and not look back. I had tried many times before then to quit crossdressing, each time without success. I knew that my desire to crossdress wouldn’t go away with the wedding vows, and that living a lie to save my marriage would eventually end up tearing me – tearing us – apart. Knowing didn’t make it any easier.
A few months before we were to get married I wrote my fiance a letter and laid my heart bare. I told her how much I loved her, how much I feared hurting her – losing her. I shared the agony of my decision to tell her, my experience since I was a young child. I shared my attempts to break free from crossdressing, my confusion, heartache and my eventual acceptance of who I was. I let her know that I love her, that we can talk through it at her pace, that this doesn’t change anything about how I feel about her. I told her that I wasn’t gay, that I had no desire for a sex change (completely true at the time). Along with the letter I enclosed a copy of Peggy’s book – My Husband Wears My Clothes.
Talking through it in the early days with my fiance was at many times an emotionally taxing experience. My wife and I still have long, sometimes passionate, sometimes difficult conversations about crossdressing. Yet I still consider that one of the great blessings in my life is the advice I got from friends to tell her before we were married. This gives her a chance to work through it in her own time, without feeling trapped by marriage, without resenting you for tricking her into marriage and then telling her you’re a crossdresser.
I’m almost certain that if I hadn’t told her then that we would no longer be together today. It’s still important for me to remember to go at her pace, not to rush her into it, and to respect her desire for some space and time to think.
Have you shared your crossdressing with those you love?
Please comment and let us know how you did it, what worked and what didn’t. I know that others who read this website will find your comments and thoughts a blessing.
Ladies – has your husband shared his crossdressing with you? What did he do well and where did he totally blow it?
If you’re here to learn more about crossdressing – perhaps your husband or boyfriend is a crossdresser – I wrote an article a few months ago entitled “I married a crossdresser“. Perhaps with time, love and understanding from your husband you may realize as Peggy did, “I realized that, perhaps it was the feminine side I’d fallen in love with anyway”.
EDITOR NOTE: Crossdresser Heaven has a program exclusively for Significant Others. You’ll be able to discuss issues in private with other SOs. Explore our Significant Other Program and contact JaneS if you are interested or would like further information. We would love to welcome you.
More Articles by Vanessa Law
- 7 Essential Tips to Crossdressing
- Win a Free Makeup Prize Bundle from Jecca Blac
- A Few Changes in Our Family
- I Want to Live Like That
- Hope in Despair, Light through the Darkness
i told my wife about my crossdressing on dec 3 2010. it has been a month and a half now and my marriage is in shambles she says she cant accept it. and that she needs time. we have been married for 3 yrs and together for six. she hates me right now both for lying about it and not being up front. i have told her that i was afraid to lose her and that is true i love her with all my heart and. as of right now im am away from home and it did not come… Read more »
I’m so sorry to hear love. Given my pending divorce I don’t feel in much of a position to give advice, but I’ll share some thoughts which may help. Give her time, try to understand her point of view. Let her vent, and cry and shout. Feel her pain for a while. This time now is about her. It may be that the trauma will slowly pass for her and you can have longer discussions about how to move forward. It may be that this is the end. All I can say is to approach this time with love in… Read more »
I have been married for 30 years raised 3 good kids into adulthood.Have had a tremendusly loving marriage but for a few quirks.I love my wife and kids but if they found out I cross dress and love being with men it would be over.There has been a lot of relatives in the family that turned gay or died of aids and some girls act as if boys I say do what makes you happy and have a good relation ship with your mate.My wife found in the back seet of my pickup a small carry case with stockings panties… Read more »
between the age of 13 to 15 a family friend molested me, at times he would dress me as a little girl. And i would wear my Mom’s clothes off and on after. When I got married i would wear my wife’s clothes when she was out, One day after being married for about 4 yrs out of the blue she said “I’d like to dress you as a girl", I thought I died and gone to heaven. She proceeded to have me shave, and dressed me top to bottom, makeup and all. It lasted about a year then life… Read more »
I loved this story
I got a whole lot out of this mainly that I should be bold and tell my wife of 30 some years that I consider myself to be a woman and love to cross dress in long drives and have been out in public with a skirt on.The thing stopping me is the fact is she doesn’t like anything to do with gay lesbian transsexual or any thing like that say’s it is discusting I do love her and she found a bag of womans cloths once in my pickup but i said they weren’t mine.Allthough I believe she suspects… Read more »
My wife knows that I like wearing lingerie for erotic fun. We’ve had fun in the past a couple of times and she’s assured me that she’s open to it and willing to participate but I seem to be resisting the opportunity, which is frustrating for us both. I can’t seem to get past the fear that she is just tolerating this fetish and that I will look rediculous in her eyes or something. I’m trying to think of a way to make it fun – for us both – and haven’t come up with a great plan yet. We… Read more »
Hi Tom. I am the partner to Maxine Doos. If your wife has said that she’s open to the opportunity and willing to participate then you should relax and accept her giving you the opportunity. As a woman and what has been great fun for Maxine & I is that we do lots of shopping together. We compliment and know each others tastes well. Suggest a shopping experience, buy one another kinky outfits, the rest will come naturally. I hope this helps you feel more relaxed.
This is a really tough spot. I was in an extremely similar situation. Married to an active Mormon woman, I had a secret pantyhose fetish that I’d harbored since I was a kid. I tried bringing it up to her once, and it was difficult. I’ve since then had a lot of success with opening up about it, though. I have written about it more: http://www.HowDoITellMyWife.com Good luck, my friends!
I told my wife that I crossdress when I first met her. She seemed kind of into it then. She even let me dress for her once or twice. But then things changed and she no longer wanted me to crossdress ever again. I was confused, and had no idea what to do. So I secretly started to wear panties, and when she caught me I told her it was because I ran out of male underwear. She didn’t like it, but also didn’t tell me to stop. How can I tell her that crossdressing is who I am, and… Read more »
Yeah that’s kind of strange on her end why she stopped becoming accepting of it out of nowhere. You have to let her know that CD is apart of your life and she’s gonna have to accept it. What you can do is just push the envelope a bit and stop hiding it from her and just start CDing regularly around her where it forces her to become accepting of it. I can’t speak on the state of your marriage but since CDing is a huge part of your life it could be a deal breaker in the long-term. If… Read more »
My wife has known about my crossdressing since before we were married, but then and now, she does not participate in my dressing, and does not encourage me in any manner. I would even be willing to her seeing other men, if that was a need she desired. She just has totally lost interest in sex altogether, so I get my thrills on my own. I have a strong nylon clad foot and shoe fetish, but my wife doesn’t have a clue. One of my biggest fantasies is for her to come home from work after a long day on… Read more »
I have been dressing since I was around 6. It has always been taboo in my family. Men are men women are women. any deviation is a sin. So I dressed when I could, with what I could. After my years in service I could no longer deny who I truly was. a mans man, that loved to dress and became a total fem when I did so. I did the whole mans man thing. Wife, kids, oilfield work. But I had to tell my wife. I began by “playing around one day and in front of her put on… Read more »
I am so sorry that I have never had the “nerve" to tell my wife. We are now in our early seventies, which means that we probably don’t have many years ahead of us. I have “hinted" that I like wearing panties and she comes back with…."oh, don’t be silly" or something to that effect. I commented one day that I am not joking, I really DO love wearing panties and she just dismissed it as me just joking. We are both from the days that “men are men and women are women" and that’s all there is to it.… Read more »
Thank you for the encouragement to others hon. It’s such a true statement, one that could change the course of your life – please all share your intimate desires with the person you’ll spend the rest of your life with. You owe it to her, and you owe it to yourself!
Hi my femme name is erica. I started when I was 12. I always loved watching my sister dress and she laughted at me and called me her sister and asked me f I wanted to try a pair of her panties on I said yes I have always dreamed about it I told her I always wanted to be a girl. so she dressed me up in her things. I told her I love feeling like a girl and then her boyfriend walked in and told me I looked good. I then told him my thing got hard and… Read more »