It is so hard that my partner, who runs a dressing service, and I on many occasions have to support a TV who is not disclosing their alternate self to their partner. We know that it’s horrible for them for all the skullduggery and it makes us feel guilty for endorsing this deception. But the Tranny needs support and an ear to listen otherwise they would burst with all the pent-up emotion they find hard to share with others. We can help both parties in such a situation but naturally with Chateau Femme dressing service it is normally the TV that calls us first.
It does amaze me that in such so-called liberal, modern and enlightened times the subject of men dressing as women is still such a strong taboo. It has been around for thousands of years but still forces such a serious divide in a relationship that we have to hide it for risk of offending the one we love. More importantly it is so difficult for us men to open up to our partner as in many cases we are meant to be the strong (and to a certain extent silent) one in the relationship. This is particularly relevant to people over the age of 45 who were brought up in times of ‘older fashioned’ values and our friends and relations of a similar age group frown on such activities. Today’s younger generation seems to have a more open attitude or are at least are more accepting of the wide variety of alternative lifestyles to their own. The internet has a lot to answer for!
Opening up to your partner, or worse being discovered by your partner and having to answer the third degree interrogation you are going to go through, is not something I would wish on anyone. Certainly I was never prepared for it when It happened (primarily because I did not understand why I did what I did) and blustered my way into a divorce. I just could not express  why I had to do it and how it made me feel. I thank my current girlfriend for helping me come to terms with this.

couple discussing

You Must Talk About It

I have talked in previous posts about being prepared for the moment when you are discovered, but in reality this just allows you time to think things through and what your responses might be to the questions that are fired at you. It will never prepare you for the raw emotion that this kind of thing drags into the relationship and if, as in my case, it is already faltering then it can, and in many cases does, tip it over the edge.
We have to put alongside all of this the societal pressures driven by an essentially homophobic conservative media that propagates the ‘wrongness’ (if that’s a word) of what we do because we are not ‘normal’. The result is once again a part of society that has to hide itself from general view despite the fact that it is an entirely legal thing to do. Bit like being a Millwall supporter! ‘I have to do it even though it’s not right’ you say to yourself. Result stress and frustration. Not a very happy cocktail.
Even when you have discussed this between you and your partner it is going to take a long, long time for trust to return to your relationship. E£specially when this bombshell arrives after a long and seemingly good relationship. I
f you are a caring person you just don’t want to dump all of what you feel in one hit. Its better to drip it in a bit at a time. If you have been hiding it from your partner for a long time your relationship is never going to be the same again. However if the bond between you is strong enough then this is a new beginning, a way to bring some freshness and vigour to your lives and a new perspective. The dynamics may have changed but the love can still remain. Don’t look at it as starting again more a development you have to deal with. Life is not one smooth line its a series of intersections where you decide your direction.
Being quite a private person in general I still feel embarrassed about talking about being a Tranny. I have been conditioned by both society and myself about that for so so long. The guilt still remains even though I know I am over-thinking it all the time. I still worry what people are thinking and whether I am embarrassing them. It’s just s big guilt trip from time to time.
 It gets easier as time goes. You gradually open up to others, you show your partner what you have bought and very occasionally tell them that you would like to dress that evening. But there is also a huge amount of guilt at the back of my mind as to what I did and the fact that society still frowns on it. I am also loathe to become a ‘Trannybore’ who feels they have to tell everyone everything about being a Tranny (except in this Blog), when in reality it is just too much for them and the bulk of them do not want that depth of information. You are just dumping your need to tell others about being a Tranny purely because they have offered a sympathetic ear. They would like to have a conversation not a bloody monologue.
Accepting you is one thing a reasonably easy step, understanding you is completely different. How can the bald-headed, grey haired man with a paunch be the same as the blonde tight waisted short skirted Tranny sitting in front of me! How ridiculous, what the hell is he/she on about? Where do I as a female stand in this new relationship? What are they thinking?
Just as I, Tara, personally don’t get the adult baby thing so why should I expect others to get the Tranny thing. Acceptance is good enough I don’t want appreciation…well not that much!. But what would I think if an adult baby walked into my local restaurant and started acting up as they do? After all I am a guy who likes to wear a frock! Oh the duplicity of my thoughts. And so it is for everybody else.
To be honest from my personal experience I find it is only strong, open-minded women who are confident in their own sexuality and gender that can really accept a Tranny into a relationship. They can deal with the duality. The ones who are worried about who this person is, how it will affect their roles in the relationship and what friends family and neighbours might say have greater problems. They are more concerned with their status in society. They may accept it a little but deep down they worry about what others will think of them going out with a Tranny.
It’s really hard to look at this from a totally rational point of view. He is putting on clothes (and other items) that a woman wears. OK I can do that but what about the fake boobs does he want to be a woman or to attract men? Some crossdressers, I have heard,  are gay is that what my man is? Will he want to dress even more if I let him? Is this different person to the man I married? Where does this leave our relationship sexually? Just because both of you have come to terms with it, and that has probably taken you a fair bit of time, doesn’t mean that she is going to understand you over night.
Even when many have come out to their partner it is rarely fully acceptable and the partner endeavours to put limits on what the TV can do and when. However this fails to understand the depth of the drive to dress. I say this is a need not a want and on the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs this is very very high. We are talking about letting a part of your true inner self out, not a quick fix of wearing stockings!
So now we are only allowed to dress once a month well it may seem a start, but even that will have limits because we are visiting Aunty Jenny’s and you can’t have shaved legs in shorts. You definitely cannot have shaved eyebrows and please hide those clothes somewhere else. You look to compensate but once a month is suddenly not enough for the newly liberated girl. Suddenly business trips away, nights out with the lads, working late at he office all increase. The trust is broken again. This is a very deep-seated part of your personality that has to be sated by hook or by crook, and sometimes you do feel like the latter afterwards. You need consent that this is part of your life and is not just managed by her terms.

Mature Tranny

Is this so bad?

I find it very difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced their femme side. My girlfriend asked me the other day after almost 5 years of being together ‘so you feel like a women then don’t you? And that was from a woman who runs one of the leading dressing services in the UK. I said funnily enough I don’t. There is no term in English (He or She) for the Third Person because it is not a gender, note the use of person not sex which I see bandied about. I don’t feel specifically male or female and I don’t feel like some androgynous in-between. I am just a man who enjoys the whole aspect of feeling quite sexy (please not sexual) when he dresses in non-male clothes. It gives me a huge buzz and allows an aspect of my personality out, which is normally hidden.
Through the whole aspect of dressing you are releasing an inner person that in normal daily life is suppressed. In a fraught, to a large extent macho, male world dressing gives me an intense sense of focused relaxation where I live in the moment, I am quite selfish and get very frustrated if people impinge on my Tara time. There is also an element of sexy escapism. I have never felt sexy as a man but dressed I can identify with that emotion. I have found that one of the key elements of felling sexy is that you look at yourself in the mirror and you fancy the look you are putting out. My partner says she felt the same at Seventeen years old!
This brings out your other side, a different you, not a woman. It can be mistaken for an alternative person, but it’s not really its just the hidden side emerging that makes you whole and for a period of time we give over to the dark, no, pretty side! For some its a genuine form of escapism for others it’s an enhancement to their life. Whatever the reason this makes you a more complete person and your partner has to understand that trying to tame this once the cat is out of the bag is going to be very difficult. What is difficult for them is that this is not necessarily the person they know and it is such a mind fuck to understand who their partner really has become in their eyes.
Once you tell your partner your life is never going to be the same. Repeat never going to be the same. Unless you are at the start of a relationship telling them is basically going to be a break of their trust in you. This has to be healed.

Mature Blue

Why is this wrong?

I have talked to many wives who have found their husband dressed and the hardest thing for them is the bond between them has been broken. They now regard everything you do with much more suspicion than before. They will be hurt and possibly be appalled by you. They may be vengeful, they may want the distance in the bedroom or in the house. They may want a divorce or trial separation. Above all they are not just going to shrug their shoulders and say ah well! Do not delude yourself it will be alright with little or no effort on your part! You have to work at it of you want the relationship to survive. I am not going to try to tell you how to get round this. I am no role model. I messed up big time.
You may need some counselling or mediation which is good but a nightmare to open up again to a third-party. Your biggest problem is that you have become so used to hiding your feelings, activities and actions that it is now second nature to you. Overcoming the reticence to talk about this ‘shameful’ hobby is not easy because you have run effectively two lives.
My problem is that being a man I like putting things into boxes and I like the two lives syndrome. I enjoy taking Tara out of the box changing my mindset and then putting her back to be enjoyed another day. Its something special not everyday. Yes she is constantly at the back of the mind day in day out but purely just ticking over ready to rise up when I can fully dress. This is when the true mindset emerges. But to Mr Box Man this is part of the fun. The Change. I don’t think my girlfriend really understands the buzz I get from this transfer. I like to take my time over it and love the whole experience of planning it. However if I did it all the time then there would be diminishing returns for me.
I understand that for others the drive is even stronger and to them it becomes an essential part of their daily life. It gives them a form and identity that is so much better than their dull ‘grey man’. In many, particularly those of more mature years, it also gives them some new sense of purpose. To many it gives them a sexual release that they cannot get elsewhere. Others like me just like the buzz of it all.
No two Trannies are identical in what their dressing does to them and how they go about it. What it is, is a great voyage of discovery that is essentially theirs and theirs alone. Bringing it into a relationship will change things forever but it has to be done for your own sanity. XXX