Acknowledging the Inner Girl

"I will never be free, there will always be something stuck inside of me" --Matthew Sweet--

The anticipated talk happened right on schedule, but it didn't go the way I expected. She repeated her question about the mystery credit charge. I told her the story, including being drawn in by my newly shiny nail. Her response was that I was a sucker, and I paid too much. Not a broadside about changing into a woman. She said that there are recipes online that will do the same thing as the lotion. Well, I thought, if you were to share these things with me, perhaps I wouldn't be making impulse buys.

She went on to mention again how the bare legs were a sign of disrespect toward her and her desires. She feels that she has been forced to pretend that she is okay with it, that she has to be fake. I began to withdraw at this point. I said something about her not understanding how powerful and unpleasant the dysphoric feelings are. Then I went off to take a shower. A moment later, she followed me, handed me a tube of cucumber-melon body wash, and said, "Here, go girly." I was speechless, so we just hugged.

In the evening, she called me at work. She asked if my head was screwed back on right. I told her not really. I told her I had something I wanted to say, but had to struggle to say it. When she says that she feels forced to be fake, to pretend, what I hear is that I need to be fake, to pretend that all is right with me, which I've done for over twenty years. I need to pretend that I like myself and feel desirable in my man suit. She didn't argue with me.

She said that she was concerned that her go girly statement might have sounded snotty, and she didn't mean it that way. I assured her that it was exactly the right thing to say and do. It was tender, and touching, and I was greatly moved by it. I felt for the first time that maybe she did have an inkling what dysphoria was like. She asked why I didn't wear any jewelry, as that is an obvious and acceptable way to diminish my discomfort. She even suggested piercing an ear, though she didn't seem to understand why only doing one would make little sense for me. She seemed to consider the idea of piercing both. Holy cow, who was I talking to? I've waited over a year to have this conversation.

She has often said that she doesn't want to do anything that would make me think that she condones my crossgender behavior. She is convinced that she would be enabling me, and opening the door to losing me to the dark side. What I always suspected was that a little compassion and playfulness from her would calm the urges. After her words and actions, I feel much more committed to staying put and making this work. A little acceptance goes a long way toward strengthening the bonds. Is this the first crack in her steely anti-Leslie veneer, or a soft-hearted fluke? Time will tell.

Busted

Those of us who are veteran crossdressers have had to hone special skills. I developed an outstanding eye for detail, having to cover up evidence of borrowing clothes and makeup. Nothing intensifies your focus more than getting caught in a mistake. Once, in my teen years, I left a pair of heels outside my mother's closet. She wanted an explanation, and really looked like she knew something was up, but she let me off the hook with my lame story about digging around for Christmas presents. The event was never mentioned again, but I never forgot, or committed that error again!

Still, we all slip up from time to time. For Valentine's Day, I went to Victoria's Secret to find a slinky something for my wife. I was just one of the many men wandering into the store that week, though having a lot more intimate personal knowledge of the choices that would be presented to me. I was very proud of the fact that I resisted the urge to buy myself something while I had a legitimate excuse to be in there.

But as I left the store, bag in hand, I was confronted by a salesman at a kiosk. Brilliant marketing, really. He was selling nail kits (buffing block, cuticle oil, mineral hand lotion, a nice nail file). He pulled me aside and began buffing my thumbnail, demonstrating his product. He really couldn't lose. Edgy guys coming out of VS are vulnerable to another impulse buy. And on the off chance that the guy was in VS for himself, they might be even more likely to bite.

He put a beautiful sheen on my nail, and I was hooked. My first impulse was to buy for my wife, maybe use some nail care as foreplay. Then, my lesser instincts took over. I wanted this for myself. I can't get away with painting my nails, much as I desire to, but this was a great way to get closer to that fantasy. So I bought the kit.

Today, the credit card bill came. I saw that VS was on there, but I didn't notice the kiosk purchase. My wife did, and she called me at work to ask what it was. I made like I couldn't talk just then. Panic, you know. I imagine this will come up again Tuesday, but I'm uncertain how I'll answer. The foreplay answer is sorta legit, but it is unlike anything I've ever done, so it may well sound like a convenient lie.

Truly, I don't want to lose possession of this item. My dysphoria has been intense for two weeks now, and seems to be worsening. I'm trying to make due with little details that make me feel more feminine: wearing a camisole, taking care of my nails, plucking my eyebrows. I can see the difference, but the world and my wife likely won't. I'd like to share all this with her, but when we start talking about these things, she stiffens up and begins to act agitated. I get pretty reliable signals when I'm saying something she doesn't care to hear.

I want to share with her my realization that I now understand how risky my behavior was last year, that I was endangering my career, and thus my family. She had a right to be outraged. I want to share my conclusion that I will probably never transition, though I'm not sure she would believe it. So much would have to change for that to ever be feasible. Very long odds. Could be an interesting discussion. Or it could be an ugly dud.

Eighteen Days

"You will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not"
"Father and Son" Cat Stevens

I'm counting the days now. I'm on a short timeline till the day I have to start regrowing the hair on my legs. I made my wife a promise, and I intend to keep my word. My wife has made a valiant attempt to live with my bare legs, but intimacy has fallen off markedly in recent weeks. When you have to drink to go to bed with your husband, it's time to reassess.

To review, I signed a six-month contract with my wife in October, at the suggestion of her therapist. The stipulations were all at my expense, but I signed it, thinking that I really wasn't losing anything of importance. The agreement called for no public crossdressing, no public blogging, no trysts with people I met on the internet(!), no emotional affairs on the internet. Largely ridiculous, I thought. A few weeks later, I shaved my legs for the first time, something I desperately needed to do. My wife, extremely upset, declared that this constituted public crossdressing. I wouldn't've signed if I had interpreted it that way. If covered bare legs are tantamount to public crossdressing, then I've been walking around naked my entire life underneath my clothes. It's a wonder I don't have an arrest record.

I promised that my aberrant behavior (shaving my legs, I mean) would end after my March support meeting. Four hairless months for me, eight hirsute months for her. Seems generous to me. Yesterday, I told her how much having smooth legs has eased my dysphoric feelings. I don't think she cared. She just wants to feel like a man is in bed next to her.

I've now also broken the public blogging prohibition, and with a profile pic! Talk about public crossdressing! It was a bad contract in many ways, and I certainly did nothing to prove my integrity. My therapist has wondered if there will be a new document presented when this one expires. She has even suggested that we create one ourselves, one that at least makes sense to me, one in which the provisions are actually relevant to my situation and needs. I like the idea of getting out in front of the issue, but I would just as soon be trusted to do the right thing without a contract. I'm just not sure we're at that point in our marriage anymore.

The Shy Imposter Returns

All my life, I have suffered from social anxiety. Shyness, they called it. It's much more pernicious than shyness. Shyness is an unfortunate euphemism. It brings to mind a skittish cat.

I'm thinking more of irrational terror, shaking peoples' hands and forcing a smile, while inside you're on a dead run away from the scene. You're unable to craft the simplest of sentences. What do you ask them? What do you volunteer? Why is it so quiet? Eye contact! I need to make eye contact. Look sincere, dammit! Uh, uh, how 'bout them Cats? OK, hands in pockets, starting to shake a little. Alright, that was good, they're carrying the ball a little now. Oh, uh, nice to meet you too. Eye contact again. And....out!

Parting is no great sorrow.

A roomful of strangers, with no known commonalities. Mingling at a party. My worst nightmare. How do people do it? If I knew, I'd be in sales. I put on a brave face, but I'm screaming inside.

I suspect that it's related to the gender identity issues, at least for me. I've always felt like an imposter, with friends, family, strangers, even my wife. The expectations of who I should be don't much resemble the confused person I am within. The shame, the fear of rejection, they keep a lid on honest expression. What if I give away some tidbit that causes them to see my secret shame? Not worth the risk. Even after I revealed my secret to my wife twenty years ago, it still festered as a secret between us. Did she have a clue how very often I crossdressed, and to what extent? Or did she assume that it was minimal? The subject was never broached by either of us.

In the last year, I've begun to come out of my shell. I have managed some real social feats at my support meetings: starting conversations with new members, making small talk with acquaintances. No big deal, you think. If we jumped straight into politics, or music, or...I don't know, penile aversion, I would be fine. I can talk circles around a real subject. It's getting to that point that is excruciating. But I've been getting better, feeling like the real me, especially at meetings, but even in day-to-day life.

So here I am now, with a new blog, in a new community, and the old fears are resurfacing. So many new people. I know we share a common bond, but I am not in a position to transition any time soon, barring my wife giving up on me. It seems that everyone here is well on their way, far ahead of my self-apparent stagnation. I feel out of place, even in a community of transgendered souls. Why is that? I'm looking at a lot of blogs, inspired by several, leaving my face there as a follower. I want to comment, but I feel frozen in my inaction. What could I possibly have to contribute? These are things I'm just going to have to deal with, I guess. If I come across as standoffish, don't believe it. Inside, I am desperate to connect. It just might take me a little longer.

Gotta Lotta 'Splainin' To Do

First off, I finally have a profile pic, a milestone for me. I have been resolutely anonymous till now, and I'm still not showing a lot of my cards, but at least I have a face. Thanks to all for the tech help. The obvious solution is the one you just don't see. When I think of you all now, and ask "What have you done for me lately?", I'll have a ready answer.

I have brought over a bunch of blogs from my Yahoo 360 homepage. These represent the first journaling I had ever done. I am fifteen years out of college, and writing is something I always loathed. Yet, I found myself compelled to lay down my story for the world. Writing is now one of my favorite activities.

When I began blogging, my intent was to create something funny and a little poignant. I managed to stay on this track for a couple weeks. Then I made a left turn into darker territory as my marriage began foundering. These pieces are from March 2008, and include a couple of bio entries, if you would like to know the back story. I am bringing these over so that I can spend less time giving background info in my current posts. Leaping into a new community after establishing myself elsewhere requires some backtracking on my part. It's not right to mention things out of context.

I hope this doesn't feel like overkill. Having a new venue is exciting for me, and I'm prone to overdoing things when I get the adrenalin going. Enough 'splainin'! Next time I'll actually have something to say, I promise.

Confessions of a Technophobe

Okay, I have to cop to a great deal of frustration. I have been trying for two nights to put up a profile photo, because, after a year of anonymity, I have pictures that I like and a desire to have a public face. I tried once to post a photo on Yahoo, but Flickr professed incompatibility with the archaic Yahoo software. I can't store my photos on my own computer. I have a wife and three kids: one doesn't want to see anything like that, the others are blissfully ignorant of their father's sartorial quirkiness.

I have repeatedly put URLs into my profile. I have edited photos down to a miniscule size hoping that I would gain acceptance. The help documents at Flickr and Blogger have been read and re-read, and I genuinely believe I am following the instructions. But confidence in one's abilities is the hallmark of incompetence. I'm beginning to think that the ref is gonna call this fight. "Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

If anyone knows any tricks to make this work, you will have my undying gratitude.

Conflicted

(Note: This is a new home for a blog I have been writing for nearly a year on Yahoo 360. Most of what you will see here will be crossposts, and I may well endeavor to bring some of my favorite older entries into the mix. Thanks to Lori for laying down the gauntlet and getting my ass in gear.)

A lot of mixed emotions tonight. Saturday was support meeting night, my one night a month when I get to be full-on Leslie, and not just a haphazardly crossdressing mope in the basement at 3am. So there's a lot of joy in going to see my friends, and in stretching my legs, gender-wise.

I wore the same dress that I wore last month. Why, you ask, would any self-respecting woman wear the same thing twice in a row? Well, it's far and away my favorite and most flattering outfit, something that I worked up to wearing for many months. Last month, I had hoped to have my picture taken in it, but there were no cameras to be had at the meeting. So, with promises from my best friends, I re-created the magic of the last meeting. I feel so good in that dress. A person can garner so much self-confidence simply by taking pleasure in their appearance.

Tina came through with the camera, and I will have photos with her and Shandy soon. But it doesn't end there. Tina and Shandy had intended to coerce me into following them to a motel room for more fun and photos. Nothing lurid, just time together, which has never happened outside a meeting. And I wanted to go so badly. Tina is quite the corruptress. The event was wrong for me on so many levels, especially the ways that it violates the covenant between the wife and me. Let's see, public crossdressing, pictures of me crossdressing, spending time with people that my wife wouldn't trust to tell her she was on fire. And I very nearly went anyway.

But, ultimately, I couldn't see an hour of forbidden fun being the thing that finally undoes my marriage. It just wasn't worth the risk. My conscience, speaking with my wife's voice, just kept talking me down off the ledge. My superego can benchpress five ids without breaking a sweat. The devil on my shoulder never had a chance.

And then, I came home, ten minutes early even, and my wife is falling asleep in the bed. Previous meeting nights she has expected to go out when I return, drink some alcohol, and then share some quality bed time. But not tonight. It would have been a perfect night to be with my friends, but I chose my sleeping wife instead. I'm not sure if that makes me a loser or a hero, but I know how I would judge it at this moment.

I don't for a minute want to insinuate that Tina and Shandy shouldn't have tempted me. In fact, I hope they do it again. It's just going to have to be something that I do with the very real knowledge that it could be a dealbreaker for a very long and twisted marriage. I will have to go in with a plan, and an alibi, and the name of a good divorce lawyer, just in case. I nearly started to cry at one moment, as I felt like I was being torn in half by my dilemma. Maybe this makes me a masochist, but it was an exquisite pain, one that made me feel alive, even as I was denying its power.

I have to figure a way to make this double life thing work. We all deserve to pursue our dreams, don't we? Don't we?

Same Issues, Different Day

We had our talk today, which is why I was holding back tears as Pittsburgh punted the first time. We've come full circle.

She hates that I have shaved legs, but to her credit, she has tried to live with it for a couple months. She has held her tongue, though I could read her mind a few times. She tells me that she hates the pricklyness of my upper legs (smooth just isn't going to happen for me, I fear). And the rest of my legs are "freaking" her out. She says that it's getting in the way of her desire to be intimate with me. Her therapist thought that maybe this is because she feels disrespected by me and my unilateral choice to go bare. I told her how happy it had made me, how I had left my arms and eyebrows untouched since my last meeting. I told her what a difference it had made in my outlook.

I hate to get caught up in self-pity, but that's where I find myself. I am really trying not to spin downward. I told her that I perceive my choice as: 1) being comfortable in my own skin, or 2) wearing the bear suit so she can be comfortable with me. Whereupon, she began to cry. She's not doing it to elicit sympathy. She just lets these feelings build to the breaking point before discussing things, much like I do. But I still resent it, and I harbor doubts about our future. If, God forbid, she lost a breast, I'd like to believe it would make no difference in my attraction to her. Doesn't this seem minor in comparison? Why does this have to be a 600-pound gorilla in our marriage? Can't she just let it go till my self-imposed early March deadline, let me wring the last bits of joy out of it? I've made every effort not to be in her face with this, but she can't seem to shake her distaste for it, and the underlying truths it represents to her.