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Always Asked
by
Julie Freeman
I
generally attend a meeting for significant others about every three
months, usually because they are held at my home. Invariably a
wife who is new to crossdressing attends and without fail two questions
are asked. "Is my husband gay?" and "Does he want to be a
woman?" These certainly were the first two questions that crossed
my mind several years ago when I first became aware of my husband's
crossdressing.
Why do we think this? Like most of society, for us the only
crossdressers we ever saw were drag queens, some of whom are quite open
about their homosexuality. Who else dressed like a woman?
And we certainly were not aware of the difference between crossdressers
and drag queens, a distinction that the gender community keeps trying
to make over and over.
We wives are also aware that there are gay men who do marry for a
variety of reasons and even raise children. Some may never reveal
their preference to their wives; others may leave the relationship
after several years realizing that they cannot change and hope to find
a satisfactory lifestyle elsewhere.
So it is certainly not exceptional to ask this question. There is
the fear of being left for the gay lifestyle, the fear of not really
being loved, and the fear of not being significant enough for the
crossdressers in our lives.
Those of us who have come to understand crossdressing better can
reassure wives and significant others somewhat. We know of the
studies that have found that there is a greater percentage of gays
among the "straight" population than among the crossdressing
population, gays who for whatever reason have chosen to remain
closeted. We have learned that crossdressers mainly crossdress
for "gender" reasons, not "sexual" reasons.
So it is likely that a wife or partner's husband is heterosexual, who
now wishes to include her in this part of his life. Certainly he
is not telling her this hoping she will file for divorce although
unfortunately not all couples are able to cope with crossdressing and
sometimes break ups are inevitable.
The second most asked question is harder to answer. There are
many crossdressers who believe they are transsexual, may always have
been so, and now want to journey down that path and are informing their
partners of this desire. For these wives, there are no easy
answers. Some may wish to remain in the relationship,
particularly if the husband states that he still loves her, that he has
no desire to start a new relationship. Others may leave because
the husband openly states that after surgery he will be looking for a
man to have a relationship with.
Only through continued discussions with their husbands can these wives
and partners find out what their choices will be. We can only
counsel both to keep the lines of communication open, to get guidance
from helping professionals, to read the appropriate literature, and not
make any sudden, rash decisions which may result in unnecessary
heartache and despair.
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