A Happy New Year to you all I hope it will be an even better dressed year and I hop this blog can help. This time I am getting back to serious matters for those that have the freedom to get out with the approval of their partner.
For years I was a closet dresser in a stressed marriage. Furtively hiding my guilty secret behind days dressed at a Mistress’ or  a dressing service and grasping moments at home when I was alone becoming Tara. Then with the forced discovery of Tara and my eventual separation from my wife I was unmasked and was theoretically allowed the ‘freedom’ I had been craving, or thought I had been craving, to do do as I pleased. IMG_0550I also had the great fortune to meet my current partner Susie who not only adores Trannies but has been running an upmarket dressing service called Chateau Femme for the last 10 years. What more could a girl want. Freedom to dress as I please, freedom to go out where I want and freedom to  mix with whom I like…perfect! But as with any positives there are some real negatives that can really weigh down this idyll.
A tranny by our nature is a fairly solitary being. We have two sides and have to constantly pander and manage these personae. As a result we become selfish because we have to make short-cuts and that can affect those around us. Most of us have come through the splendid isolation of privately preparing and dressing on our own. We rarely had (especially before the internet really took off) any real contact with others except via events such as the good old (but sadly gone) Philbeach Monday night parties. We had little resources to  help us and even fewer contacts that things such as Facebook and  TVChix allow us today.  The growth of the internet has been a boon for us, or should I say, particularly for today’s newbie tranny as many of us have already gone through the ringer before these wonderful inventions were able to help us. We spent a lot of time trying to develop the femme side and this would gobble up a hell of a lot of our spare time. Combine the frustrations of a ‘hobby’ you cannot participate in with the anxiety of being discovered with having to hide everything to do with the girl and then add all the things to do with your normal family life on top and you have the recipe for a pressure cooker that could blow unexpectedly. This constant stress is no good for anyone and one of the ways it is displayed is in us becoming very introspective and difficult to manage as we try to hide and juggle so many competing demands on our time.
Even  2 years on from being given my freedom I still find it difficult to open up despite the fact that I have a very receptive and eager listener. It is obvious I am hiding (more just not saying it) things from the past and it takes a long time to peel off the layers of guilt that have been heaped on these suppressed feelings by society’s mores. I accepted who I am a long time ago (after 4 large and expensive purges) but the historic practice to hide this ‘thing’ still persists and its something only a select few friends know even today. It’s like you were indoctrinated with a religion when you were young and now after clear reflection you still feel guilty by saying there is no God. And for others it is very new and very raw. It is a drive within that has to be sated from time to time and then hidden deep, deep away so that there are no outward signs are visible to others. Oh the shame of being discovered by unbelievers!
More importantly I am amazed how many new girls I meet who are in their early sixties who have only just discovered dressing in the last 2-3 years. It has been a joy to be part of their introduction. Susie says that about 30% of her newer girls are in the 60+ bracket. Many have decided it is something they have put off for far too long. Many  have discussed it with their wives of many years who seem to realise it is an itch that their husband has to scratch. It is also great to see how many wives in this bracket accompany their husband in this foible. Their relationship is based on love and understanding not the fact he loves wearing high heels and stockings.  But I digress.
One of the problems that occurs when a we obtains this freedom is that the tranny tends to get a much stronger grip on the relationship and it is the tranny who is suddenly deciding the agenda for the couple! We start deciding when to dress, we decide where to go, who to meet, where to shop and how much of our joint income is spent on this third person who really has no intrinsic benefit, to our partner. Now I know that for many this is the start of the TS route and that is very much a gender issue, but for the many of us that see this as a lifestyle choice it is a tough burden to place on our partners. This also applies when you are out and how you handle yourself in those circumstances as the tendency is that all the eyes, initially, are on you as you are different from the norm.
tumblr_l799glcJoy1qbreu6o1_400A case in point. Many of the bars Susie and I  go out to are overtly gay as they tend to be more understanding of trannys.  I dress, when out, in a more provocative fashion whilst Susie is more demure. The result I get chatted up regularly which she sees, quite rightly, as an affront to our relationship. ‘Hold on this is my bloke who is not gay, dressed as a girl being chatted up by another bloke and here I am sitting one the sidelines holding her coat…not on!’ Me in my selfish mode is loving all the attention.  Years of dressing in the closet with nobody to show off to and now I am the centre of the ring really appeals to my narcissistic and egocentric nature as Tara.
Now many of our gg partners because they love you also love the fact that you are embracing something that you quite obviously adore. But over time a multitude of small things such as these start to wear at the relationship as you partner feels she is not being heard and its all about you deciding what the two/three of you want to do. The relatively unnoticeable drops in the evenly balanced bucket that are slow but eventually the bucket spills over, and at the wrong moment something trivial can raise their ugly head and put strains on the partnership because previous things have gone unnoticed.
My advice  is regard yourself as being very, very lucky that you have this person (so many other trannys dream of this and are envious of your status). Be aware how demanding you can become Stop dictating the whole agenda and making up for lost time. Accept you cannot have it all your own way. Being femme is about being more sensitive so be more careful about the bounteous pleasures you can enjoy in your new roles together. Make it a point to chat regularly about your times out and find out what the general feelings between you are. It’s not a recipe for success but it’s a start.
Ironically I was talking about this with a another tranny recently and she said she saw it just in the nick of time. However after some good conversations together she said her wife does not come out with her as a couple as much as they used to and her total number of outings per year have reduced. The by-product has been an even stronger relationship. XXX