This seems to be a popular topic at the moment and so it got me thinking how this affects us as crossdressers. In a nutshell cognitive dissonance is used to describe the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes feelings of unease or discomfort.

I think the classic is 'I am a crossdresser' and 'Crossdressing is wrong'. This is a conflict that many of us have to resolve in our own minds before we can progress. We are bought up from a young age thinking that crossdressing is wrong, we hide behind our armour fearing discovery. At the same time we accept that we are crossdressers so this conflict goes on.

Normally to resolve the dissonance we can change the thought, change the behaviour or add another thought. It is difficult o change the fact that we are a crossdresser, however, we can change the though that crossdressing is wrong. I addition by adding thoughts that crossdressing benefits us in someway ( it reduces stress) can also help to reduce the dissonance.

For our wives and partners I think that the normal dissonance is that they are relaxed about men crossdressing as long as it is not their husband. This can cause a lot of conflict for our wives. To stop this it means that they must either stop their husband from crossdressing or need to find a way to change that thought or introduce other thoughts to countenance the negative thoughts. I think we all know that stopping a man from crossdressing is very difficult. If you add that fact that women are quite often relaxed about crossdressers it really only leaves the alternatives which are understanding and eductions.

I think that many of the accepting wives here have learnt to overcome the negative thoughts and introduced positive thoughts as a way of overcoming the dissonance.

I think that it would be useful to other crossdressers to understand what thoughts these wives have introduced. What processes they went through to come to terms with their husbands crossdressing. Do they agree that many women are OK with crossdressing? Casual observation from crossdressers out in public is that women are very accepting and even protective.

Are there any other conflicts that arise from our crossdressing. Be keen to understand and learn more.

Katie x