"What does acceptance mean to you?" (CD's and SO

[Love (SO)]

[Beauty]

Hi Love,

My oh my. :: fanning self :: That was a very impressive post. I hope your post inspires other SOs to speak their minds.

1. What do you want from your partner?
Love

2. What do you expect her to do?
Nothing she doesn't want to do.

3. Why is your partner's participation required for you?
It's not required for me (any more, but at first it was. I used her participation as justification that it was ok)

4. Why do you feel she should be "pushed/forced"?
She shouldn't

5. Do you participate with things that are important to your SO? (things that she wants you to participate with her)
I do my best, but my best isn't good enough sometimes, but I do try to be attentive to her needs as much as I can.

Beauty

[DonnaT]

1. What do you want from your partner?
To love me now for the same reason's she loved me when we decided to marry. To not use the amount of hair on my body to change that love. Nor the type of clothes on my body to change that love. I didn't fall in love with her for the way she looked. Heck, she was in the army and wore fatigues when I first met her. There was a deeper connection, in the soul. I haven't fallen out of love for her regardless of the whether or not she accepts my CDing. I haven't fallen out of love for her because her appearance has changed. The characteristics I had when we married are no different today. She would brag how good and thoughtful a husband I was. I haven't changed. I don't act feminine when I'm dressed. I don't even know how, because I had no feminine role models. My love for her is unconditional, and I would like the same in return.

2. What do you expect her to do?
Can't think of anything I expect her to do.

3. Why is your partner's participation required for you?
I don't require it. I would appreciate her participation because we spend so much time apart with work and hobbies. We try to spend time together as circumstances permit, and that time clearly will include my CDing occasionally. I can't CD at work, or at a club meeting, or while working on my wood working hobbies. So that leaves little time to CD. And she does participate sometimes, and I appreciate it.

4. Why do you feel she should be "pushed/forced"?
I admit pushing for more. I would like to go out shopping enfemme. She's known this for 29 years. We've not done it yet. So, do I wait, and wait until I am too old to enjoy it myself? I would like for her to go with me when I do get to do this, but she doesn't have to. She likes for me to with her when she shops, but I don't have to. She enjoys the sopping more if I am with her. And it is more time together. So just like she enjoys my participation, I'd enjoy hers as well.

5. Do you participate with things that are important to your SO? (things that she wants you to participate with her)
Yes. She's been into all kinds of crafts. There was basket making. We went to the Longenberger Basket Co. in Ohio more than once on vacation.
Now it is quilting. I bought her a very expensive Bernina sewing machine. Took her to KY on vacation so she could participate in a quilting expo and take classes and visit with her sister who is also a quilter and also came to KY. We've been no numerous quilt shows and craft shows. We go all over to by material and other supplies.

Likewise, I am a woodturner and a woodcarver. We've gone to shows in NC, WV, PA, MD.

We can havve fun doing things together, and I would like to make this need to CD fun also. But there is 'block', whether it is a fear that she'll be percieved to be a lesbian, or be embarrassed if I am clocked as a CD, or whatever. So it may never be fun for her, but since she doesn't try to have fun with it, we may never know if it could have been.

[Sally]

Hello Love,

To answer your questions first.

The thing I want most from my wife is for her to just continue being the caring, loving companion she has always been.

I don't expect her to do anything she doesn't wish to do. She always listens to what I have to say regarding my gender issues and she always gives her honest opinions on what she believes and what she can accept and what she can't. We talk often about it all together but not as much as we did once, because it's just become another part of our everyday life and we know what to expect of each other now.

I don't expect her to actively participate in what I do or where I go in regard to meetings etc, I'm perfectly content to have her consent to be myself around the house and when I venture outside the home, without her active participation.

I would never try to push her or force her into anything she didn't want to do or couldn't accept. It's something neither of us have ever done in over 30 years of marriage.

We do and have always done most things together in our day to day lives. I've mostly worked from home so I suppose that has given us more of an opportunity than most to interact together on a daily basis. My wife is an avid gardner and spends the greater part of her time in her large garden, she has around 1000 succulents and small shrubs in pots as well as her in ground gardens. It's something we enjoy together, although my preference is more to vegetable gardening than flowers and shrubs.

I might add that what is most enjoyable and necessary in our lives is time together. I think what has proved this to both of us is the fact we can sit together in a room and not speak for a length of time and there has never been any uncomfortable silences. The mere fact we are both in that same room together is all that's needed. We all need a companion but to have a loving companion is one good reason to wake up happy every day.

I am also strongly of the opinion that if a person hasn't declared their crossdressing or gender issues before they enter into a marriage contract then they cannot take issue with their wife if she is unable to accept or live with her hubbys crossdressing or gender conflicts, as it wasn't part of the original contract.

I might add at this stage that I have rarely experienced cases where crossdressing has been the reason for a marriage breakup, where the marriage is strong and solid, but I have quite often seen crossdressing used as an excuse for the wife walking away in cases where the marriage was already on shakey ground. I am a believer that women mostly build bridges they don't destroy them. Having said that, I would also venture to say that if the role was reversed, a far greater percentage of men than women, wouldn't be able to continue on in a marriage where an issue as big as crossdressing emerged after the marriage was consumated.

I suppose this next statement may be open to controversy, but on the subject regarding 'if it were just about the clothes' which you commented on, I would make the following comments from looking back over all my experience in the TG world with people from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Naturally it's impossible to ever get any where near accurate figures, but from my experience the only people who can say with any surety that it's just about the clothes, are people who use the clothes of the opposite sex for sexual reasons only.

I've copped my fair share of ridicule and angst from people over the years for saying these things, but so be it, if we don't say what we truly think then we are only being dishonest to ourselves.
I would venture to suggest that men who go to all the extremes and take the time, trouble and spend such sums of money to buy clothing and accessories to make their appearance as a woman as believeable as possible, do have issues deeper than just the clothes.

I'm in no way suggesting that these millions of men are or ever will be transsexuals, but they are somewhere along the 'line' a bit further than they know or care to admit. I also think it's dangerous for someone who comes out and admits to his wife that he crossdresses, but states that it will never go further than what it is at that stage. It's something which has been proved a million times over that none of us really know the extent of it or where it'll lead to or where it'll end. I also believe we cannot expect our wives to understand why we have the need to do what we each do, even if she says she can accept it, she still won't be able to understand it. I've made a life long study of it all and I still don't understand it and never will, although from the medical evidence I've seen unfold over the last 20 years and is continuing to unfold, I'm a firm believer the 'secret' will be revealed by the medical scientists eventually, maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually.

As human beings we are born choice makers and its' everyones right to choose a partner who is compatible and who meets the expectations of each other. When these expectations or compatibilities are altered along the way then I believe it's everyone's right to choose whether they can live with the changed situation or not and to place too high expectations on what anyone can accept is being unreasonable.

Having said all I have, I'd like to finish by saying that I'm a firm believer that we can become slaves to our conditioning which begins from the day we are born. We do have freedom of choice with most of our lives and sometimes we have to 'unlearn' some of our habitual responses to life's challenges. We learn to adopt a pose of compliance at a very early age, but as we grow older we learn that there are things in life attached to people which we once never knew and sometimes we have to step outside the boundaries to find out if we can accept this or that or live with this or that.

It's easy to want to cling to the ideas that everything has to be one way, but we know as we grow older that things aren't always one way or the other, there are variations in between and if we don't expand our vision then we will never see things as they truly are, thereby we can never begin to accept them.

Sometimes we see a person in a way which is unappealing to us and it's not just that we cannot understand why they are as they are, it's also the fact that we don't have access to their complete prior history. We may be unaware of how many insults and angry stares they have had to endure in the past so we are unaware of why they act as they do in keeping some things a secret, as one more straw can always 'break the camels back'.

I do think that those of us who keep our secret from our wives until after the marriage just make life so much more difficult further down the track, because in most cases, sometime in our life the strain will get too much and we have to take the risk and reveal ourselves. I think also by doing this we cause ourselves to miss out on so much pleasure in life, as most of us will confirm that what we do is pleasurable and fulfilling for us. We not only cheat our wives but we also cheat ourself of something which is a necessary part of our make up and personality, but the fear which we harbour at being ridiculed and abused for stepping outside 'the box' is one of the main reasons why we try to live with it all as a secret for far too long.

Our wishes, desires and needs are all parts of the defining attributes of our individuality, but so many people, and not just CD's, never 'make their dreams come true'.
Of course there is no single strategy for getting what we want, which will work for every one or in every single case.
I think the first step is knowing what we really want and although on the surface it may seem ridiculously obvious, most of us are caught up in hectic lives which inhibits our ability to take a step back and honestly ask ourself the obvious question.
What we want may not always be what our partner wants, so do we just focus on our personal desires and clarify our intent or do we sift through all the vast array of feelings within ourself and look around us to find the things which need urgent attention so that we can move to a lasting sustainable situation which is acceptable to all parties involved.

I try to focus on ways of getting along, rather than perpetuating reasons why we can't. I think we all also need to be reasonable about our fellow man and woman, to support their human needs, and to accept them as they really are, not only as we would like. Men and women have been afraid of each other for too long, and we haven't confided in each other enough over the years, so that we really understand each other. We've kept a lot of secrets, about our needs and desires, often without knowing that we were doing it. In many ways, we all want the same things, but men and women have greatly different approaches to life as a rule, and they require something different from life to be happy. It's important that we honor the differences which set us apart, rather than expecting women to be more like men, or men more like women. It's also important to honor desires that are fundamental to both sexes. If we rob our wife of 'her man' then we can't reasonably expect her to be over the moon about it. The role of our cultures should be to establish an ideal and to make it appealing, not to enforce anything.

Looking back over my life, I wish I had been honest and upfront with my wife before we married, even though my telling her about my gender issues didn't really effect major changes in our life. I'm not sure who was the most disappointed that I'd lived with the lie for so long, her or me. I often think about all the times I dwelled on my thoughts and tried to predetermine what her reactions would be when I eventually told her and the comment she made which cut the deepest into me was when she said,"Didn't you trust me enough to reveal it to me initially?"

I guess inside me I really did know what her reaction would be but the thoughts which I conjured up of the possibilities kept me from telling her for so long.
If we take the time to feel our heart's reaction to our thoughts, we learn far more about true virtue, and true love than any amount of brain-based reasoning alone can tell us. It's only when we marry our heads with our hearts that love's highest expression can come out.


My Kind Regards.

Sally.

[Jassmine(SO)]

Hey Love

For me acceptance means I have zero problems with Ahzz's CDing, I feel no guilt if I don't feel like participating, nor do I do anything just to make him happy. I set no limits on him, so he doesn't feel a need to push anything on me. I just let Ahzz be Ahzz

*Hugs & Love*

[Oregon (SO)]

Love !!! what an awesome post. Every guy who feels his wife is not accepting shoudl read this.

Anyway, I wanted to comment because even as a straight woman who was looking (back when I was single) for a cd partner, I had plenty of guys tell me that I was not 'accepting' and difficult and even I few who said "you think you are something special, but honey you are not!"

What were my parameters for boundaries and such? Most important was being monogomous and faithful. I wanted someone who enjoyed his male and femme self equally. A guy who worked through any guilt or shame assoiacted to dressing. A guy who would not put crossdressing before his family. A guy who would not risk loosing his job/income just so he could crossdress. A guy who stayed a male, no hormones, chemicals, or surgeries altering his male body. A guy who would not spend hours and hours chatting online, making friends with people who were unsavory in the community, and putting us in harms way either at home or when out. A guy who could be intimate either way, but not exclusivly dressed up. A guy who would not hide any aspect of this from me and continue open lines of communication about his feelings.

This was just in relation in the the cd stuff, won't bore you with other things like ..must be a cat lover! h aha!

But, I had plenty of guys say I asked to much and I was too restrictive and I sounded like a tyrant and wanted to be in charge. I also had guys think dating me would be the equivalent of talking to a therpists. Guys wanting me to make them feel better and fix them. yikes!

Even now I know cd's who literally have to go out dressed every weekend, rain/sleet/snow , this guy has to go out every Sat. night. Even if his wife id very ill or there is a blizzard! Would not want to be married to that guy.

I know a guy who just had a trachael shave, which absolutely altered his male appearance quiet a bit. That would be a little too much for me.

I know a guy who literrally has a whole host of friends and almsot lives a second life in another city as a woman about twice a month. his wife knows and accepts and has not tried to stop him. I don't think he is unfaithful, but to know your guy has another life completely separate from mine would freak me out.


and the besxt story I like to use as an example of acceptance gone awry...

I know a cd who was so trusting online he wound up making friends with this wacky crossdresser who used to show up at his house in the broad daylight, wearing a micro minoi skirt/ 5" heels and crooked wig, drunk and stoned out of his mind wanting to hang out in the front yard in the lawn chairs, in his nice little surburban home. Guy showed up one day while the family was having a birthday party for their 10 yr old, guy is basically half hanging out of his skirt, untucked, disheaveled and neighbors almost called the cops for exposure in front of minors. Would not want to be married to the husband that allowed this fellow to freak out his family and anyone within 10 feet.

Twist to the story is how the drunk cd trashed this guys wife by saying how 'non-accepting' she was.

So, I obviously have my limitations.

I hope this gives some insight to where common sense and carte blanc can get really out of control.

hugs
kathy in canada

So, I think it would be great if we could all try to explain, "what does acceptance mean to you"

I'm only asking that you try to answer the questions that apply to you and your partner's relationship.......... I know everyone is different ... but I'm sure we will see many similarities in how we feel
Just as many of you (CD's) need to dress to be true to who you are ....... some of us (SO's) need to have the man we married to be true to who we are just the same ....... we each need to meet in the middle too much of anything is never good

SO's:
1. What do you want from your partner?
2. How do you show your partner that you accept them?
a. What do you do?
b. what do you say?
3. What makes you feel the most uncomfortable? (that you do only to make your partner happy)

CD's
1. What do you want from your partner?
2. What do you expect her to do?
3. Why is your partner's participation required for you?
3. Why do you feel she should be "pushed/forced"?
4. Do you participate with things that are important to your SO? (things that she wants you to participate with her)

Thanks for taking the time to read,

Love (SO)

[Dixie Darling]

OK, I know that this was primarily for the SO's but there IS a section for the CDs to respond to also. So in the hope that it might help someone else, here are my views and answers.

Dixie -- http://www.geocities.com/senorita_cd

1. What do you want from your partner?

Basically all I want from her would be for her to accept the WHOLE person that I am. I can't CHANGE that and I don't feel that I should be required to do so. I've heard it jokingly said that when a couple gets married HE marries hoping that his wife will never change, and the wife marries hoping that her husband WILL. Although that was meant to be funny by whoever it was that said it originally, there's a lot of truth in it for a lot of folks. Crossdressers have a very UNIQUE need that is, at best, difficult for a wife to understand at all (and how COULD they since we don't even understand it ourselves?), and hence is impossible for some to cope with. If they could only understand that this isn't something that we asked for, and that it's something that we were born with, it seems that understanding JUST that would be a big help and a relief for most of us. At the very least we wouldn't be expected to have the ability to turn it on and off like a light switch.

2. What do you expect her to do?

Just understand that crossdressing is a NEED that I have and in no shape, form, or fashion is it a substitute for her or her love. Nor is it a substitute for normal sexual relations. I've found that a LOT of GGs seem to believe that this is the case and it's simply not true. It CAN be an enhancement, but only if it's 100% agreeable between the couple. Neither should expect the other to accept something along those lines that they're not comfortable with.

3. Why is your partner's participation required for you?

In a nutshell, I DON'T expect her participation if she has no desire to do so. I respect the fact that participating, or even SEEING me dressed could be upsetting for her and I have no intentions of forcing such upon her. I could be quite satisfied with just dressing alone - WITH HER KNOWLEDGE - and not having to be worried about being belittled or poked fun at (in a serious manner) about it. I don't think that's too much to ask, but in my current situation it seems as though that's just what the case is.

4. Why do you feel she should be "pushed/forced"?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Pushing or forcing someone into ANYTHING is the quickest way I know of to turn them against whatever it is that they're being forced into.

5. Do you participate with things that are important to your SO? (things that she wants you to participate with her)

Most definitely, and even though it might not be something I care the first iota about, I still do it simply because I know it's something that SHE wants to do that brings her happiness and/or pleasure.

[Joanna_S]

1. I want her to love and respect me as much as I love and respect her.
It would be a dream come true if she could somehow "love" my feminine side the way she loves me as a man.

2. I expect her to show me her acceptance when I´m dressed at home. Say something nice about my looks, or somehow show me that she loves me although I´m dressed.

3. She doesn´t have to participate if it makes her uncomfortable. She has bought me make-up and some jewellery but we´ve always discussed about it beforehand.

4. I don´t feel that she should be pushed and I try my best not to make her feel pushed. I´ve sometimes told her that I´d like to keep my toe nails painted and sleep sometimes in my nightgown but she doesn´t want me to do neither and I respect her opinion.

5. I´m happy to participate if she wants me to.

I think we´ve been able to find a balance between our everyday life and my crossdressing. In our case the key for success has been our ability to really listen what the other is saying. Both of us have also been willing to make concessions to each other. Neither of us makes the rules. We make them together.

Joanna