Chapter 16 — When Avoiding the Subject Becomes the Problem

For context this starts at chapter one a transcript from Anna a wife of a crossdresser Harriett and founders of Crossdressed UK in soul kink podcast owned by the lovely Emily .

Back to it the final chapter

Davina: Looking back, I think that gradual process probably mattered. Neither of us had to suddenly go from “this is completely hidden” to “everything is fine.”

We found our way through it in stages.

And perhaps that's the important thing for other couples: acceptance doesn't necessarily happen in one big moment. Sometimes it's a series of small steps, conversations, boundaries and compromises over many years.

Anna - I think some people do that, but I knew before we kind of started, you know, going through that process that we wouldn't, that would be the two options for us. We either made it work in a way that was comfortable and safe for both of us or we would end up, you know, not being compatible and splitting and I think if people kind of have that in their mind.

Emily - If you're open to that understanding, you know, trying to understand It really does change it. Your perception on so many different things. And yeah, I think just having that curiousness and kind of being like, you know, if I feel whatever I feel, that's okay, maybe need to think about that later, but, you know, just just being kind to yourself kind to your partner and just Don't put too much pressure on it.

Anna - I think that's huge. I think a lot of people we've spoken to it been like that first initial seeing them or something. Similar, you have to make a decision. Now that's going to affect the rest of your marriage. First time seeing them could be awful and they're embarrassed and you get the ick and it's just oh you know it doesn't mean that you never try it again. It's, kind of talking through, isn't it? And being like, how did that feel for you? Why does that kind of You know, and it just we have conversations that we would never have spoken about things like that before and we are much closer for it which is amazing.I think it is just having taken that pressure off, being curious and just sort of acknowledging that, however, you feel is how you feel. You don't have to try and fight it and kind of just do it slowly. You don't have to all of a sudden be like, okay, this is happening.

Davina - There is no timeline for this. Communication and taking things step by step are key. It took my wife eight years to get to where we are, whereas others I've chatted to and helped have reached a similar level of acceptance in six to eight weeks. Every couple is different.

I remember one couple I chatted to back in 2017. The wife came onto my forum/blog, and both she and the crossdresser started talking with me. They read some of what I'd written, we chatted, and I was essentially a sounding board for both of them while they tried to understand what this meant for their relationship.

Then one day she came home and said to him:

“Get dressed up.”

So he did.

She met him as his feminine self, helped with his makeup, changed and adjusted what he was wearing and then said:

“Come on, let's go.”

She took him out in the car and drove them to a shopping centre after dark, where they did some window shopping before heading home.

He was completely freaked out initially — understandably! — but what she had actually done was meet him as a T-girl and then take him out into the world with her.

I remember thinking at the time: wow.

They've gone on to become one of the couples I'm most proud to have been able to support. They're still married, still in love, and they've since been out together many more times with him presenting as a woman and them effectively enjoying a wife-and-wife night out.

We still keep in touch sporadically, and hearing how far they've come is incredibly rewarding.

Not because I “fixed” anything, they did that themselves. I was simply a sounding board while they worked out what was right for them.

And that's really the point: there isn't a prescribed timeline. Eight years for one couple, a few weeks for another. The important thing is that both people get the opportunity to talk, ask questions, set boundaries and gradually find what works for them.

Anna - So now we're gonna go out dressed together on girls nights out at the weekend. Yeah, it might for some people, but I think for most that would be, you know, that'd be quite a lot quite soon. 

Davina - It happened with the couple on my forum but Anna is right thats unusual acceptance is usually slow and guarded.

Emily -  I'm also recognising an assumption that because you were like, no no, I want to know my husband. I want to walk through the discomfort of whatever it brings up for me in order to be the most loving partner I can. And for your husband, my assumption is that he’s somebody who's very has been very generous with you, very loving and does that same sort of walking through his own discomfort, to hold you. Somebody said this recently, which is like, you know, like it's it's easy to be generous with your partner. Who's already been generous to you? You know, and so this feeling of generosity and not every couple actually knows how to do that with each other, because by the time that cross-dressing will have come up, like it could be that the generosity has already dried up in the relationship and there's already so many other things that don't have to do with cross-dressing that have been calcified for so long, but because it hasn’t been tended to and cared for and held each other in the discomfort with love and compassion and Care. it sounds like you guys had that beautiful tending to already. This was a process. You were willing to go through with an open heart. How does that sound? 

Anna - Absolutely. I mean, Harry's, amazing. And I've always said, I am so lucky to have found somebody like him and I still stood by that at the time when we were going through this sort of difficulty of me, finding out because, we have a loving relationship. He is very generous. We match each other's energy as well and we pick each other up when one of us is down and we bounce off each other and that's just, you know how we've always been. We've always been really compatible in every aspect of our relationship, so I think there was a little bit of sadness there as well. When it was, like, you kept this from me and I felt sad that he hadn't told me because it was like, you've been carrying that by yourself and actually, we could have done that together.

Davina - My wife and I are much the same. We've been married 25 years and together for 30+ years, and we're soulmates.

The reason I didn't tell her initially was that, to me, it was just occasional crossdressing.

At one point it had even stopped because we had a loving relationship always together and she’d wear lingerie and we were young we had a lot of sex.

Then, gradually, it crept back in when we moved in together. Still nothing particularly elaborate, mainly lingerie and I didn't see it as something I needed to tell her about because it was occasional and very personal.

Then came that night:

“Let me put makeup on you and dress you as a woman.”

That changed things.

Suddenly I wasn't just putting on a few items of women's clothing. I was seeing myself fully made up and dressed as a woman for the first time. And wow.

I looked like a woman.

I wanted to see that again.

That experience opened up a side of me that I hadn't really explored before and my understanding of myself started to evolve.

I didn't set out thinking, “I'm going to become Davina.” It happened gradually and, in many ways, accidentally. The name came from my wife I think as a reference we needed a code for me crossdressed and that code became Davina.

Looking back, I don't think I felt like I had been hiding some huge secret or bottling everything up. At the time, I genuinely didn't do it very often.

It was the transformation that changed things. Seeing myself as Davina made me realise there was much more to this side of me than I'd previously understood.

Anna - So, I can absolutely see why if somebody wasn't necessarily being Loved and secure and like that generosity as you say was. That would maybe be something that they wouldn't be willing to explore because You know, the relationship, maybe wasn't where mine and Harry's was at the time. However I will say not only is it was closer but it's almost shed a new light on our relationship. It almost was like a new beginning really and like a fresh dance. I actually think. Maybe people who have things have maybe gone a bit stale or things have just become forgotten about and, you know, you just get going through the motions and living everyday lives. You know, it actually brings something new and exciting to your relationship as well.

Davina - I think any relationship can reach a point where you're just going through the motions. Work, work, work.. both of you working, fulfilling your responsibilities, putting in the hours, sometimes even giving away your free time because you care about your job.

Then there's family life: routines, school, kids' activities, football training and matches, and sometimes even volunteering to coach a team rather than simply taking your own kids along.

Before you know it, life has disappeared into the routine.

You look back and realise you've spent years being busy, responsible and doing what needs to be done, but haven't necessarily made enough time for “me” and “us.”I think couples need to deliberately find ways of breaking that routine — time together, new experiences, nights out, nights in, weekends away together, doing something silly or simply having something that's just yours.

And if crossdressing is part of one partner's life, I think it can potentially become another element of that, if both partners are comfortable with it and there's room for it.

It could be dressing together, doing makeup, having a girls' night in, going shopping, helping choose outfits, or simply laughing about the whole ridiculousness of it.

It doesn't have to become the centre of the relationship. It can just become another shared experience.

Sometimes relationships don't need something huge to bring you closer. They just need something different to break the routine and give you both a reason to laugh, talk and enjoy each other's company again.

Anna - So I think, if people can get past that fear and work through it, it definitely can bring you so much, closer and bring so much more joy and excitement into your life. 

Davina - It can bring a husband and wife closer, a shared joke and massive trust.

Emily - And I'm also hearing like, it's an opportunity because I think about couples who have just been walking, the motions, right? Like, they've got kids, they've got got their, like, wake up at five, you know? And because they become sort of distant roommates. Those couples it's like by learning how to communicate because it asks a lot from the crossdresser, right? But it's like if you're the one who is instigating this, like you can use this as motivation to learn how to communicate authentically. Learn how to bring your vulnerability here and learn like how to request like Like, I love you. I want to bring you something vulnerable. Can you you be this with me and that takes an open heart and most men don't know how to do that in their masculine form?

Davina - Its so mundane going through the motions time goes way too fast, life disappears, stress grows and we all need some form of escape.

Anna - I think they do have more access to that in their feminine form. Yeah. And I think again, that was a process for both of us because, you know, it wasn't really, until this came out that we realised that we've been open with each other to a point. But we never fully been open with each other. Even though we were in this loving, Having a generous relationship from both sides. So it's still so much that, you know, we hadn't been open about. So that came easier for me. Obviously, as you said in Harry's male Form, he finds that difficult and his female Farm.

Davina - I think some of us men are taught to bottle things up. There are behaviours and emotions that can be seen as “feminine” that we might feel less comfortable expressing when we're in our male role.

We keep up the expectations and persona of the traditional man.

Be strong, be capable, don't show weakness, deal with things yourself.

But when I present as feminine, something changes.

I'm much more likely to open up, express emotions, talk about how I feel and allow myself to behave in ways that I might normally hold back.

It's almost as though stepping into Davina gives me permission to put some of those male expectations down for a while.

And perhaps that's part of why the experience feels so freeing. I'm not just changing my clothes.. I'm giving myself permission to access a different side of my personality.

Davina isn't a completely different person. She's me, with some of the emotional and feminine traits that I normally keep tucked away brought much closer to the surface.

And maybe that's another reason why becoming Davina can feel like such a release.

Anna - He found that easier but again, it still took a lot of almost unlearning isn't it, you're almost all learning. What what is considered, you know, your communication style, I suppose and saying things that I don't know, just without that fear of each other. I think that was what we kind of came down to you know we need to be absolutely brutally honest, not in a cruel way and not to be horrible to each other but just about genuinely how this is making us feel right now.

Davina - I think couples can sometimes dodge around difficult subjects because neither person wants to upset the other or say something they think might cause an argument. But sometimes it's better to just get everything out in the open.

I'm a crossdresser, and here's why I think I do it.

I'm much more capable of explaining that now than I was when I first came out to my wife. Back then, I hadn't even properly worked out the answer myself.

And I'd love my wife to be able to say:

“OK, I understand this is part of you. This is OK with me, this isn't, these are my fears and these are the things I'm uncomfortable with.”Then we can talk about each of those fears, reassure each other where we can, challenge assumptions where necessary and agree on boundaries that work for both of us.

It shouldn't just be “accept my crossdressing.”

It should be:

“Let's understand each other.”

If we can get to that point, then perhaps crossdressing can simply become another part of our lives, something we understand, talk about and, where we're both comfortable, maybe even enjoy together.

Honest communication doesn't mean we automatically agree on everything. It means neither of us has to guess what the other person is thinking.

Emily - And that's so hard to do. I think that's one of the reasons why I'm launching this outrageously her program. It's a cohort for crossdressers, it's four months but it's the idea of like crossdressers come into this flock where we're going to teach you like to learn how to express yourself, learn those skills to actually say, like, I feel this and I feel that because it's not taught to men, like it's just not taught to be able to do that with other men who are going through something so similar as you, which is so stigmatised.

Davina - I'm lucky that I have other T-girls I can chat to online, because I couldn't talk to my friends, colleagues or family about Davina. There's still a huge reluctance among many men to talk openly about feelings, vulnerability and the things going on inside our heads.

We're often taught from an early age to “man up,” get on with things and not show too much emotion or vulnerability.

So something like crossdressing becomes even harder to talk about. If you're already uncomfortable talking about your feelings, how do you suddenly sit down with your mates and say:

“By the way, sometimes I dress as a woman.” 😂

That's where online communities have been invaluable to me. I can talk to other T-girls who understand without having to explain every little thing.

For some of us, finding people we can actually talk to is part of the escape too.And perhaps that's why I've become so passionate about supporting others. I've had somewhere to talk, and I know how much difference that can make when you've spent years keeping something to yourself.

Emily - I think it's just so so special. And that is actually the transition I want to now go into because I'm dying to hear about cross-dressed UK because it seems like you guys have built and provided a space for so many people.

Anna - It started off really as a seed of an idea, obviously, you know, because life is life and I became unwell and then whilst that was happening, Harry got made redundant. Harry by background is a web and applications developer. So that is what he's done all his life and we have this sort of bit of an idea, we run a marketing and web design agency, aside from Crossdressed UK, but then we kind of had what almost started a bit of a joke. Like Can you imagine if there had been something out there at the time and then it kind of went from there. So, we created the website, And its nearly a year old now and I think what we'd originally intended was for it to be for crossdressers and their Partners but actually what we're finding is that we have so many different people coming to us that are maybe questioning or sit somewhere else on the gender diverse Spectrum.Who don't know where to go to because, you know,  if you're not non-binary and you're not trans or you're not sure where do you go, right? Do you know what I mean? And so we've, had people of all ages, really? We've had parents who are supporting teenagers going through this as well. Its just something that started off as a bit of a joke, has grown and Harry both say that our life is is so much richer for it and the people we've met have just been so amazing and and I think the idea behind it was we just didn't want anybody to go through what we did alone and to be able to search in for that information and finding horrible things or scary things or, you know, not being able to find Enough information. So that's where it sort of the idea came from. 

Davina - I started my original blog, “Why Do Men Crossdress?”, as an open-format blog. My aim was to try to explain crossdressing to anyone who was willing to read it, crossdressers themselves, wives and partners, and people who simply wanted to understand it.

At one point it grew into one of the top 10 crossdressing blogs in the world, which was incredible. Unfortunately, it was eventually hit by spam and effectively destroyed, so I started my Why Do Men Crossdress Forum instead.

I know the forum has helped and continues to help T-girls and their wives and partners. I still occasionally get messages from people who've found it useful, even though I rarely post there these days. I mainly keep an eye on it.

More recently, I've concentrated on my personal blog, “Why Do I Crossdress?” That's more about my own experiences and thoughts, but I hope it can still be a useful reference for T-girls, wives and partners trying to understand what's going on inside the head of a crossdresser.

That's probably the simplest way to describe me: Alpha by day, feminine escape when I can.

And strangely, writing about it, talking about it and helping other people understand it has become part of my own journey too.

If something I've experienced can help another crossdresser understand themselves, or help a wife understand her husband, then it makes all those years of confusion, guilt and questioning feel worthwhile.

Anna - And as I say, we've been to different events. We've met different people. I mean, One of the things that struck me recently is we've attended an event close to where we live, and it's a group of crossdressers and their partners and it's been going for years and people generally the majority of people in the group are 60 plus. There's people in that group that have never told a partner in the 70s. There was somebody there that told a partner who didn't accept it. Then they got another partner that did and then within a year, she passed away. Everyones journey is very differently. I think what we tend to find people are coming to our website when they are confused. They don't know who to turn to. They don't know where to get this advice from And that's yeah, they end up with us. And you know, we get people who reach out, we find people who maybe need more specialist support and, you know, we don't pretend to be mental health professionals or anything like that. We have a big resource directory and we've got quite a lot of links now with the different charities as well to be able to make sure people know where they can go to. But yeah, it was just about creating that community and so people didn't feel like they were alone for Crossdresser and for partners.

Davina - It's great what Harry and Anna have done and the resource they've put together. It's very much in line with my own thoughts about what's actually out there for us.

Where are the resources that explain what crossdressing is really about and reassure people that it isn't automatically something bad, weird or perverted?

So many of the assumptions surrounding crossdressing are simply myths, and there are many, many people in the same boat who need somewhere to find honest information, reassurance and advice.

That's why I think passing on your own experiences with the intention of helping others is such a positive thing to do.I've learned so much from other crossdressers, wives and partners over the years, and if I can pass some of that experience on to someone else and make their journey a little easier, then that's got to be a good thing.

Sometimes the person reading your words isn't looking for anything complicated — they're just looking for someone to say:

“You're not weird. You're not alone. And you can work through this.”

Emily - Oh, that is so inspiring. Yeah. Right before this I was just like zooming through your website. I was like oh my gosh! I need to interview this person. Oh my gosh. I need to talk about this person invite this person to the podcast. It's such a beautiful resource.I mean and it's just you can just feel the love. That was poured into it, as well. Yeah, well I, I just want to say and I like I feel so inspired by you. And I thank you do, so, much for all the work that you've done, and the way that you've taken, this is the thing that I love, most when we take the things that terrify us, and then we sit with them and we look at them, And then, eventually the thing that terrifies us becomes our greatest strength and like, something we're deeply passionate about that. That Heroes journey is just I, I am obsessed like I get off on it. It's like, oh, this is, I just want this everywhere for everyone. And so hearing your hero's journey is just like yeah. You're definitely a hero. I love it. Can you sharing the website? How do people find cross-dressed UK? 

Anna - Yeah. So we're CrossdressedUK and on socials we're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.

Davina - They're also on Discord, which I've joined, and I've already chatted with some of the other members.

I haven't seen Anna online yet to say hello, I have had a few comments back and forth with Harriett and submitted an article for CrossdressedUK on my book..  I also took part in a Wednesday night video meet the other evening while watching the football.

I wasn't dressed, so I didn't have my camera on and couldn't really talk verbally, but two T-girls were on camera, one in drab and one dressed with two others on the call. I mainly just typed this time.

But it was really nice simply chatting with other people. And interestingly, we didn't spend two hours talking about crossdressing!

We talked about things we'd done in life, our jobs, places we'd lived and worked, where we'd travelled and all the normal stuff you'd talk about with anyone you'd met online.

There was just this underlying connection that we were all crossdressers, so naturally the conversation occasionally came around to crossdressing, our experiences, labels and how we each see ourselves.

That's what I like about these communities.

We're not just “crossdressers talking about crossdressing.”

We're normal people talking to other normal people — with crossdressing being one part of our lives.

And sometimes that's exactly what you need: somewhere you can just chat, have a laugh and be yourself without having to explain or justify who you are.

Emily - Thank you so much Anna. And so many blessings on all of your very impactful work. 

Anna - Thank you, thanks for having me. 

Davina - I think you'll agree that, although this has turned into a very long series or chapter blog post, it's hopefully been worth reading and reflecting on.

I've tried to put my thoughts down honestly, from the crossdresser's point of view, and I hope some of what I've written helps someone whether they're a crossdresser trying to understand themselves or a wife/partner trying to understand them.

Maybe one day I'll even get invited onto Soul Kink to talk about it all! 😂 I took part in Kinks & Drinks last night with Ms Krista which was nice to hear her quote my name “Davina” and agreeing with things I’d typed into the chat. I’ve done a whole blog about this which again I’ll transcribe the fuller chats and blog about fuller.

I’d love to put together a podcast myself on crossdressing if i had the time. I also need to take my own advice and start talking to my wife about all this again.

Give her that book I’ve written.

Thanks for reading I hope some of this helps ❤️

Davina