Being Bombarded
Being Bombarded
By Julie Freeman
April 27, 2007Belonging to an on-line group of women who are in a relationship with a transgendered man never fails to bring up topics that I feel obliged to comment on. Without fail, wives new to the group are hostile, angry, afraid, and just wish the transgenderism would disappear. One wife, recently, pointed out that with everything being said these days about deteriorating marriages, crossdressers who push the envelope, formerly positive wives becoming more negative, might it just not be better to never start a relationship with a crossdresser since the significant other can only come to expect escalation of the transgenderism and a worsening of the personal relationship.
Well, this was a bandwagon everyone with an axe to grind could not wait to jump on. Warnings to those women, not yet married, came out in droves cautioning anyone who had not yet tied the knot to run as fast as they could from the transgressor – in this case, their transgendered boyfriend.
Those women, who were married, also remarked that had they known about the CDing, they would never have married in the first place. They were only staying together because of the children or financial reasons or whatever. It is the whatever that has me curious. Could it be that the whatever is actually love? Perhaps there is a reason that some of us did not know about the crossdressing before we married. Perhaps we were blessed because we had a chance to love each other. That might not have happened had we been bombarded with messages telling us to run for the nearest train and hightail it out of town.
Well, pendulums swing, of course, and in time, those wives who were in committed relationships spoke out about not being too hasty in ending a relationship. Some pointed out that all relationships have their problems and not all end in catastrophe. Relationships that have alcohol problems, drug problems, sexual problems, financial problems, religious problems, etc., exist in every neighborhood in every country. Some relationships weather the storm gracefully. Others do not.
What seems to matter is whether the individuals involved in the relationship can communicate with each other in such a way as to address the problem rationally and objectively. Are each other’s needs being considered? Are the needs of the entire family being addressed?
Those relationships that survive are those where commitment to the relationship is more important and placed on a higher level than the needs of just one partner in the relationship.
And it doesn’t matter whether the problem is crossdressing or not. It matters how the problem is handled.
