Denial
A Significant Other View
by Julie Freeman
This article is reprinted with permission from DEVIL WOMAN, the Diablo Valley Girls newsletter. Ms Freeman is the wife of a crossdresser. She can be reached at Julie39@comcast.netPosted Jan 13, 2014
Denial
For the past few months, I have been receiving a lot of emails from significant others who suspect that their partners may be crossdressers. Some of them have even asked their partners whether they are crossdressers and their partners either won't answer them or deny they crossdress. But for many of them, there is evidence --receipts for clothes, makeup, and jewelry, secret telephone calls, access to Internet websites, weekend disappearances, etc., etc. When one wife asked her husband about removal of body hair, he said his hair had become brittle and he had too many ingrown hairs.
These wives searched for information on the Internet which led them to reading my articles and eventually led them to communicate with me. It seems that most of them are not heading for the hills, but rather looking for ways to communicate with their husbands to find out what is going on.
I believe that crossdressers when confronted directly by their wives or partners may simply fear what the reaction would be if they were to say, "Yes, I am a crossdresser." Would their wives pack up and leave? Would they tell relatives, neighbors, friends? And what about employers? Not knowing how significant others may react may simply lead them to believe that denial is the best option.
Others may be embarrassed and not feel comfortable enough to talk with their wives. They may believe they will be ridiculed or laughed at and just not want to go through that so once again denial seems the best option.
There are even those crossdressers who do not really understand or believe that they are crossdressers. They may simply believe that what they do does not constitute real crossdressing -- perhaps a fetish or obsession or fixation, but whatever they do that does make them a "crossdresser." So rather than trying to explain their "fixation" they simply retreat into denial as being the best way to avoid confrontation.
With some of the letters I read, though, I thought that even though the wives thought their husbands were crossdressers, I thought they really might be transsexuals and that was the reason they were "in denial." Perhaps these individuals don't really know what they are and definitely are not ready to discuss anything along that line with their wives or perhaps they even know they are transsexual and fear their wives will not understand at all.
So communicating with these wives can be difficult since I don't know them or their husbands and would just be guessing at why they cannot get their husbands to open up. I can gloss over the reasons very generally which many times is helpful, but they still need answers.
I cannot believe the husbands are happy. They must be aware of the anxiety, fear, and despair their wives are experiencing. But for whatever reason, their anxiety, fear, and despair is overriding their concerns and love for their partners.These are not situations that are going to go away. Many times I will refer these wives to my on-line support group where they can talk with others who are experiencing the same sorts of problems.
And then I open up my email and once again another wife writes me who believes her husband may be a crossdresser!
