Satisfaction as a cross dresser?

[Yvetteforfun]

Seriously boys and girls ( and those who are yet undecided) Some of these comments should be in Significant Others...No?  Whatever...  But, let's not rag too much on wives who have bad reactions to our decision to "transition" long after we've entered a relationship with them under different presumptions.  This is NOT what they originally signed up for (usually) is it...? ...Poor girls assumed they were marrying a guy..  Hello!!  Now their guy is a girl...!!!  Most I think didn't sign up for that...  So, love 'em or leave 'em...   Some of these "negotiations" seem absurd...  If you have another woman in your life..who you are madly in love with..(namely YOU) Let the wife go... Stop trying to fill round holes with square pegs...   But, then we want EVERYTHING don't we...  :-)

[Dena]

The SO section of the site is reserved for SO's to work out their problems. In that area they are allowed freedom to express themselves and are protected from TG members. TG members may post in that area when assisting SO's with issues but we watch carefully to ensure that comments by TG members are helpful.

There is a thread you might be interested in that was started by a wife who latter discovered that she was TG as well. You will find the thread here.

[Johnni Gyrl]

I had a conversation on-line with someone who went all the way M2F, including bottom surgery. She was giving me some advice and told me that if someone is a true transgender, then cross-dressing will never be enough. That's turned out to be true in my case, I want more, to live daily as a woman and dress 24/7 without hiding anything. I've taken the first steps and a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

That said, I know there are many out there who wish to keep "the best of both worlds" and I totally respect that. I just know it's a balancing act that only worked for so long for me and something had to give. I didn't want the cross-dressing to be kept hidden forever like something shameful, not did I want to be discovered accidentally or outed by anyone else except me. I feel I've taken control of my life now, it's not a runaway CD train anymore, I now have the chance to reinvent myself. I'm slowly coming out now, one garment at a time.

Good luck to all on this journey, whether you decide to transition or not.

[amandam]

I'm also wondering if that is my best future, Elise. Maybe I could transition under the right circumstances. But, is wanting family and not having to change your whole life really that bad of a choice?

[Alexa Ares]

Amandam - no its not at all.  It's very difficult to cut off your whole life. It may not make you happier as the loss of family could be devastating. . I would try to keep things in your life and be able to express yourself within this if at all possible.

We all have to find our own way with this.
I CDed a bit and then tried to avoid it as it made me too aware. It wasn't so much fun, more or was an awakening if someone I am and not something at the time I wanted to deal with.

If someone can be okay as a CD that's great. If it's not enough and to avoid the Crushing feelings of dysphoria you need more,  you do what you need to do.....
With wives its a real balancing act. My wife is okay with facial work and some body work, but not hormones. Sex is a big thing for us and I am okay to be a non hormonal trans for the foreseeable future. . .
Being in a closet about identity didn't work for me.  Life without my kids and wife won't either.

[Stella Stanhope]

Is it satisfying to dress with no thought of body changes? Is it hard to integrate being happy with being a male and yet liking to indulge in feminine pursuits?

Good question. For me, my situation has been a bit different to most crossdressers because I had a delayed puberty and then have had/enjoyed a very long period of maturation, whereby the usual boy-to-man changes have come in over decades rather than years. As of 2018, my body has finally caught up with what a male should like in their 30s (and added some extra ageing as a bitter cherry on top). I now am bulky, whereas just two years ago I had a size 8-10 figure with very little typical male fat distribution and this gave me a quite a feminine body shape even without female fat distribution or the illusion of it. The lack of male fat/padding on my stomach, sides and upper back made me look pretty convincing. My face has always been very male however with regard to skin and fat distribution ( though it's currently still shaped like a 20 something, but I guess that'll be the next thing to fill-in so that you'd never tell that I was fairly androgynous once upon a time). Apart from that remaining virtue, my face now matches my body, which is very much not feminine. It's made it almost impossible to wear anything that isn't the standard middle-age man wardrobe, let alone doing things or being seen to do things that are feminine.  It's wiped all that out.

The answer to your question is that these final changes have been pretty quick and pretty distressing, and so I now feel disgust while crossdressing just as I was accepting of it and feeling that I had at least one natural advantage over other MTFs and crossdressers. I now look like Buffalo Bill. I've gone up three dress sizes on my upper torso due to all the meat that has appeared around my shoulders and upper back in the last 12 months. So no, I have no satisfaction at all now. I used to have mainly issues with my manly face, though my hair was thick and my figure genuinely petite. But now I am properly balding, bulky and still with the male face, its obliterated the confidence I had spent a good six to seven years building up. This (among generally feeling like my life is slipping away as I near middle-age) has kickstarted the drive to do something about it through HRT to get some answers and maybe, maybe, possibly feel good about how I look.