TL:DR - told wife last week I dressed — amazing supportive reaction - 3 days later - sadness, sobbing, and a potential end to my dressing for good.

Last week I posted that I had “come out” as a CD to my wife, and that it was great. Response was basically, I love you, accept you, and want you to be you and happy. She specifically wanted to know if I was planning on doing it openly and whether thought I would ever want a permanent change.

I said no, I want to still be a good husband and dad, and I don’t want to make things awkward for anyone in the family. I explained that dressing calms me somehow, and that sometimes you just want to express something different or be someone else for a bit. I did not want to become a woman, I just wanted to know what it felt like to be fully immersed.

I told her I didn’t want to dress in front of the kids or anything, and didn’t plan on doing anything outside the bedroom or I’d go somewhere for the weekend type thing.

I had specifically mentioned my sleeveless bodysuits, which I have been wearing as undershirts for weeks. If you didn’t know it was a bodysuit, it would just look like a tight shirt from the waste up, but I had said to her that I knew she would know instantly, which is why ut now, I could wear them around the house, still with shorts or pants of course.

Friday and Saturday were great. I was in a better mood, wife and kids seemed in better moods, less stress, more laughing in the house, more affectionate toward my wife, and my wife even commented that it was nice to see me happy again. The internal turmoil behind dressing, keeping it secret, and the family issues that ‘triggered’ my dressing again had made me a pretty solemn and bitter person the last few months-years.

On Friday night, I had put solid black nail polish on just my toenails. Years ago, while with my wife but before kids, I did that multiple times. But I guess because I wore tennis shoes and socks most of the day, no one really noticed.

On Sunday, when my son saw them, his initial reaction was that it was weird and because we were on our way to the pool, people would see it and he would be embarrassed. No big deal, I didn’t have an issue taking it off before we left, so he would be comfortable at the pool. I could redo them later and give him some time.

Later that same day, my teen daughter is joking around with me and I asked her what she would think if I repainted them. Her basic response was “do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t affect me.” I joked back, we’ll see what happens at Halloween then, maybe I’ll go as a woman. She scoffed, I laughed, convo over.

An important thing to note here is that in the 2 days since I had told her, side from my bodysuit, I hadn’t put on a single piece of women’s clothing. I was just happy to have shared my truth, alleviating the stress of the secret, and had felt fully accepted.

Well, Sunday night after the kids were in their rooms, my wife says she needs to talk. Tells me that she is very happy that I’m happier, but that seeing me with my toes painted for the pool and trying to poke and prod my daughter to see if she would be ok with dressing was just too far too fast …… and if I continued down this road …… she didn’t know if she would want to still be married to me.

To be clear, her reaction was not bigoted, she made clear that if I went down that road, she would always love me, we’d remain friends and co-parents, but she has no desire to be married to a woman.

I have never felt such an instantaneous feeling of shock, sadness, and fear in my life. I think I literally felt my heart break. I tried to address her concerns and reiterated that I did not want to transition. I also explained that I had done my nails 2 days earlier, when I didn’t even know we might go to the pool. I acknowledged that my Halloween comment to my daughter probably was me ‘fishing’ to see what her reaction would be, and I agreed that was too much. But otherwise I was completely confused.

I didn’t know what to think. Understand, my wife and I, while in a boring sex rut recently, have always flew out freak flags high. From light bondage, to public sex, to even crossdressing in the bedroom. When we were in college, she even helped me shave my legs and chest once and did my makeup for a night in.

On Thursday, when I told her, I explained I wanted to dress in 2 ways, and maybe a 3rd. 1- I wanted to dress more in our bedroom, because I wanted us to go back to having fun exciting sex, rather than not having any because missionary doesn’t do it for me.
2- I am going on a cross country trip soon, and I wanted her blessing to go out to a lgbt bar completely dressed (2000 miles from home) 3 - if she was interested, sometime after I come back from my trip, I thought it might be fun to do a girls weekend somewhere, but only if she wanted to.

During the latest discussion, I asked her - if I had walked down here with black polish on my toes, without me telling you about dressing, would you have had the same reaction. She admitted she likely wouldn’t have.

So, after explaining that her larger concerns weren’t really an issue, and me agreeing that I would talk to her first before introducing anything new to the kids’ environment, she said she was ok with me continuing.

I was still in shock though. In the span of 4 days I went from being a bitter, reclusive, angry husband and dad, to a happy, engaged, joking husband and father, and then the rug was abruptly pulled out from under me. I described it to her as emotional whiplash.

I went upstairs closed the bedroom door and stripped off the bodysuit and panties I had under it. I tried to make sense of it all as I immediately felt I needed to go into damage control. I packed all my stuff and stored it in the closet. I deleted all of my prior posts here. I can’t imagine if she found those, even though I never posted anything obscene or even erotic.
I tried to sleep, but was awake most of the night.

Monday morning, I was looking forward to going to my office, and getting out of the house. I drove the 20 min to work, light tears in my eyes and down my cheeks the whole time. I sat in the garage, trying to compose myself and realized there was no way I could face anyone. I called my boss and said I needed to take a mental health day. He said sure, and simply asked “are you ok?” I lost it and barely got out “I will be, thanks” before hanging up and sobbing in a damn city parking garage.

I texted my wife I was taking the day off to process things. She asked if I wanted company. I said I appreciated the offer but I needed to be alone.

I went home, dressed up head to toe (except makeup) and just laid in my bed thinking and crying for hours, trying to decide what I wanted to do, what I should do, what is the right thing to do, etc. I still don’t know. I made sure to pack everything back up again, and store it away, before she got home from work.

My mood is now scared and apprehensive. I still feel a little better than I did a month ago, but in a way I feel even more alone. I feel completely lost and afraid to do anything new at all. I don’t even feel relaxed wearing the bodysuits anymore, as I don’t know what the reaction to anything could be.

If one comment about dressing as a woman for Halloween and seeing my toenails painted caused her to tell me that she doesn’t know if she’ll want to be married to me anymore, what will happen if I do wear a dress, or lingerie, or stockings?

I feel frozen, and the ground underneath me feels so unstable that I don’t even know if I’ll feel comfortable going through with my plan to dress up and go out when I’m on my trip.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such a disconnect with reality and an inability to even contemplate the potential outcomes of my various options.

Honestly, I wish I’d never told her now, and I’ll probable stop dressing completely out of fear of losing my family.