I’ve been posting on this site now for over three and a half years, but I never felt ready to start my own blog. I didn't have a sense of whether I was going anywhere with this, how long I'd be here, or if I could even come up with stuff to post regularly. Can't have Danielle stepping into the void, looking around hands on shapely hips, and saying, "Hey! Where are you!"
Well it looks like the time has come.
After over 40 years together, it became clear that my wife and I could not make this work. I moved out 5 weeks ago. We love each other, and get along really well when cooking, doing outdoor activities, traveling, etc.. Our sex life was satisfying. We are kindred souls…except this one thing. She only wants a man in her life and I’d been stressing her out. We will divorce. How did this happen?
I've worked with several therapists to try to sort myself out. I don't see any red flags looking back to childhood, adolescence or adulthood up until about 15 years ago, in my early 50's. Many of you "always knew" you were in the wrong gendered body. I didn't.
So starting 15 years ago, when my wife was away I’d sometimes wear her bras and fashion some “poor-man’s” breast forms. It started as a sexual thing, but eventually just became satisfying in a comforting, non-sexual way.
As these things so often develop, for Halloween in 2015, my wife dressed me as a witch in some of her black clothing including a skirt. We went to a neighborhood party. She still thinks I looked great as a witch.
The next year I proposed we both crossdress, me as female (seriously this time) and her as male. I found I could wear our daughter’s high school prom dress. This time we went to a public event at the local Fine Arts Center. It was fun for both of us. She enjoyed treating me like a woman, opening doors, etc. I was a striking figure at 6’2” in a white formal dress and got a lot of attention, although I did a horrible makeup job.
Shortly after this I came out to her, telling her I like to crossdress. She allowed me to dress from time to time and even helped me discover which of her dresses fit me. For her this was all in fun. For me it was quietly getting more and more serious.
First it was once or twice a week, usually for a workout — trail running or weights at the YMCA. Then 3 or 4 workouts a week. Then sometimes more. I tried to tamp it down, but I just couldn’t seem to control it. My wife wanted warning prior to my dressing femme, but due to a combination of shame and inconvenience I sometimes dressed anyway. This surprised her sometimes and she says she experienced PTSD from the shocking. She got more and more stressed, couldn’t sleep, digestive upset. We had several years of relationship counseling, particularly with a highly effective “Attachment” counselor. But finally this past August I shocked her one last time and it became clear we couldn’t continue.
Now that I’m in my own place, I dress as I feel, almost always femme. I’ve embarked upon full electrolysis. And I’ve begun HRT. It’s a new world, and although somewhat lonely (especially in the pandemic), it suits me. I’ll post more soon.
With thanks for the title of this blog to the late Jan Morris, from her 1974 memoir, Conundrum. More completely, the quote is:
"To myself I had been a woman all along, and I was not going to change the truth of me, only discard the falsity. But I was about to change my form and apparency...It is one of the most drastic of all human changes, unknown until our own times, and even now experienced by very few; but it seemed only natural to me, and I embarked upon it only with a sense of thankfulness, like a lost traveler finding the right road at last.”
