This week, I helped my friend who lost her husband go through his computer photos, looking for ones to print out for the wake. I can't tell you what feelings came up when we came across one particular folder titled "Unusual Ones". It was obvious what type of photos the folder contained. My friend was aware that her husband looked at pictures, so she wasn't upset, but it really brought up negative feelings in me. Memories from finding certain photos from one year ago. .... I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am that I found out about William BEFORE his passing. So grateful I've had the opportunity to work through the anger and the hurt. If something had happened to William, I WOULD have found his stash of clothes, toys, photos - and I would have hated him. And I would have never been able to get past it. So, I'm writing about this to say that if any of you out there have NOT told your spouse - and you don't intend to, then please...please...at the very least, do whatever you need to do to ensure that she will NEVER find out. Not even after you are gone. I can't imagine what that would do to a wife who has just lost her husband. Please, don't do that to someone who loves you.
Now, that bit of sadness aside... I wanted to make one more statement. It seems to me that sometimes this piece of our success gets overlooked...
William and I are doing great, but it's not because I've accepted him and everything that comes along with AGP. It's because I have done that to the maximum degree that I could - AND because William has worked every bit as hard as I have to make our marriage work. He has really made the effort to understand MY perspective in all of this. He has learned to open up and communicate his feelings with me. He and I have actively negotiated exactly what components of his desires we will incorporate into our relationship - and what we will not. And he has been willing to compromise. He understands that there are times when I still struggle with our situation. He has been understanding when we come up against those few things that, for one reason or another, I am not willing or able to do. And he honors my request that he NOT do anything solo.
So...giving credit where credit is due. This marriage has worked because of BOTH of us, not because of just one of us. Negotiation and compromise are part of every successful marriages - and ours is no different.
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BRAVO Susanne and BRAVO William. Compromise is the key to marriage. Having struggle and kept secret my own passions for such a long time, it was only after thousands of pages of letters between my wife and I (an excellent none hurtful opening of our hearts) that we live the marriage we always longed for.
ReplyDeleteThere will always be things about our individuality and persona that perhaps conflict with our partners, but if true love is there, nothing will destroy it.
Please do not stop writing however. I know that raising two small children takes time, but I would hope that you continue none the less in allowing all of us who have followed your blog, to peer into the window of your life and gain strength and understanding in our own.
Hurrah for you and William.
My boyfriend went from wearing my pants to full makeup dressing and boobs etc within a week ,his fantasies are always him acting the woman in a sexual way ,he barely touches me and i feel totally a sexual where he is concerned ,im glad you have worked things out with your partner ,i am totally fine with the dressing up ,what im not fine with is him taking my role as it were in the bedroom ,and fantasing about sleeping with men ,he rarely achieves an erection ,he told me he was impotant ,i think im just the wrong sex help!!!
ReplyDeleteFor Anonymous: I probably have more questions than answers for you, truthfully. I am not the expert in AGP by ANY stretch! But regardless of what happens, know you are not alone! Unfortunately, there are no easy answers for you. Part of the reason I started blogging was because of the LACK of information out there. Compound that with the idea that since AGP is a "spectrum", there are an infinite number of places that your boyfriend could fall - and where he falls on that spectrum can change the entire path that you and your partner will choose to travel.
ReplyDeleteDoes he struggle achieving an erection when he is fantasizing? or just with "straight sex"? Does he find women sexually exciting or only men? And the big one...what does HE think about this? Is your boyfriend willing to talk about this with you? How about with a counselor? All of these questions are ones you should ask to help you determine your next step...
God Bless - and feel free to email me privately if you would prefer.
Thankyou Susanne for your rapid response,i have just replied to your advice but have lost what i sent ,im not very pc savy!How do i contact you by private email to respond to your advice and questions ? Many thanks
ReplyDeleteMy email address is su.wi.journey@gmx.com.
ReplyDeleteThere should also be a link to my email from my profile.
Susanne
Hi Susanne,
ReplyDeleteIt seems I missed the last two of your blogs (I commented under the "One Year Later" post :-)
now...I'm finished with reading (until you write something again)...silly me.
Anyway, thank you for everything. Your blog helped me big time at gathering enough courage to tell my girlfriend more about my "psychology" (I don't cross dress, but I would have rather been a girl).
I wish you and your family all the best in the world!
With kind regards,
ilas
@ilas: I'm happy you found my blog helpful! Good luck and God Bless! Susanne
ReplyDeleteMore :
ReplyDeleteMy main problem is that my sexual needs (act like a women in bed) don't match my emotional needs (be in love with a girl).
I don't catch why you don't allow your man to dress, use a dildo and masturbate alone ?!!!
He could do that alone and afterwards have sex normaly with you.
In my case, I have a need to dress. The pulsion gets stronger and stronger. If I don't dress for a while, I dream about it when I sleep ! If I try to not dress, I feel bad and I am not interested with the girl I date. I am away. In my own world. Reality doesn't count.
After I dressed and had sex alone, I feel relieved, more or less normal and I am very atrtacted to girls again. So I can have sex like a man, without thinking that I am a woman.
I don't want to have sex in DRAG with a girl because I know that I will feel ridiculious next to her female body, I will not feel like a woman but like a DRAG.
Why not leting your man having sex with men ? What do you risk ? He will always come back and this is just sex. Other normal straight men have sex with women while married. All men have more or less affairs. At least, in your case, you are sure that he couldn't fall in love and leave. Your husband will NEVER leave you if you allow him to be free. In exchange, he would probably not need anymore to be dressed to have sex with you.
You must catch that for men, sex and love are 2 different things, unlike for women who link sex to feelings. A man can have sex with a stranger, it is like eating with a stranger = simple and natural.
So having sex alone or with other people doesn't mean that he doesn't love you.
Let him be free in his sex life. Your relationship and sex can only be better as he will felt understood and himself.
Of course, set some limits to protect himself and your security = no strangers at home, he has sex in parties or hotels. No sex without condoms. The best would be to have a few regular lovers, you could even know them !!!
At the end, this is just dressing clothes and playing a role. It doesn't change your man. He is the same.
We only have one life. So why bothering with details like having a man who would like to be a woman ?!!!
I think that your pain problem is that you don't like yourself so much and so feel rejected as a woman. But it doesn't come from you. You could be the best looking girl in the world, he would still prefer more or less sex alone than with you because his fantacy is beeing a woman!!!!
You could try to be more sexy because his need to dress can come of a lack of contact with sexy woman though. A woman dressed like he would like to dress. He will not stop dressing but if he sees sexy clothes daily on you, clothes will become more like somple clothes and not something special.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYou asked what I thought about a few things. Here is my response...
1) I am a narcissist - Women have a sexual power on me, I admire them and consider that they have a magic that I don't have. Hence I don't want them to have a power on me and want to have their power on men. In woman, I control men. In men I don't control women.
My response: William definitely struggles with male/female interactions. When he is dressed, he feels that he is the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world - and he exists only to pleasure the man that he also is. So, yes, I would say that, en femme, he is definitely narcissistic. When he is fully male, his self-esteem plummets.
2) I might be bordeline - Bordeline personality makes sexual identity unsure. One day I feel normal and doesn't bother to be a man and one day I need to dress and have sex like a woman and really think that i would be happier if I was a woman.
My response: I don't think I would have described William as borderline, but he has admitted to me that if he could switch back and forth between male and female at whim, he would be the happiest. He has no desire to transition full time. He likes being male most of the time.
3) Fetish - I am very attracted by nylon stockings on women. This is what made me dress first. I need to wear them when I dress and can not imagine having sex with a man without my nylon (or in the worst case, fishnet stockings). So this is linked to fetishism of women's legs and feet. When I see women's nice feet in stockings in the street, I can not get my eyes out of her feet or legs and I want to be her !
My response: oh, yes...William has his fetishes. While it started with underwear, it progressed to garters, stockings and high heels. Short, short skirts are also on his list these days. As he himself puts it - slutty clothes are his turn-on.
4) Anal sex - I am very anal, I have been using dildos for 10 years before having sex with a man.
My response: did you see my link to the pegging website? Yes, William is extremely anal.
5) I have no name as a woman, I know that I am a man and I stay more or less myself, I don't try to mimic woman at 100% by changing my voice or gestures
My response: this describes William for the most part as well. He has no name for himself as a female either. The only thing that I am aware of that he has ever done is grown his fingernails out long right after I found it. He was so excited to be able to do that. But he only did it once.
6) I don't need to be dressed in woman to have sex with a girl. I just more or less want to be her when we have sex but my sex works normaly.
My resposne: William had never dressed for anyone else until after I found out about him. He enjoys it now, but it was very strange for him (and me!) at first. As far as his sex working normally, BEFORE I found out, he could always "get it up", but he would have trouble orgasming about half the time. Not sure why, but he comes EVERY time now - dressed or not.