Finding Out Unexpectently
A Significant Other View
by Julie Freeman
Originally published July 2014 In Devil Woman
Reposted here by permission January 28, 2017Finding Out Unexpectedly
Over the years, I have received emails from husbands asking for advice on how to talk to their wives when of course the wife has discovered her husband is a crossdresser.
Quite frequently, the issue revolves around the wife finding out about the crossdressing unexpectedly - whether it be stumbling upon the husband crossdressed, reading an email, discovering an Internet site, finding a photograph or something else. But when the husband then attempts to explain the crossdressing to his wife, in so many cases the wife says she can no longer trust her husband because he kept this "secret" from her. Even though the husband attempts to explain that fear was the reason he kept the crossdressing from her, the wife cannot find a way to forgive.
At some point, the husbands write me hoping that I have a magic solution to their problem - a way to help them restore their relationship with their wives.
In some of these situations, the husbands believe that the crossdressing does not bother their wives. It was only the fact that they did not trust their wives and did not tell them.
Many of those wives cannot believe that their husbands lied to them all those years, and some do not believe they can ever trust their husbands again.
I do have to wonder if it is really the "lying" that bothers the wives when they claim they can no longer trust their husbands. Or is it an excuse because what they really don't like is the crossdressing. Rather than admit their own bias in this area, they use the lack of trust as an excuse to if not end the relationship find a way to make life miserable for their spouses.
One wife years ago eventually left her husband because she could not get over the "trust" issue. Again, I suspect that the crossdressing bothered her more than she would admit.
Would a wife get that upset with the "lying" if she found out that her husband had gone fishing several weekends a year when she thought he was working? Would she leave her husband because she could no longer trust him? Somehow I doubt it.
I think whether the issue is crossdressing or fishing, it depends on how much the secret means to the other person. If a wife could care less about crossdressing or fishing for that matter, I doubt the issue of trust would even come up. She most probably would understand why her husband had been reluctant to tell her, and they would talk about his fear and come to an understanding at some point.
But since this issue of trust seems to come up so frequently when wives unexpectedly find out about the crossdressing, it seems to me that crossdressers need to be better prepared for this eventuality. They have to be prepared for the anger at finding out suddenly, the hostility at not being told before, and of course most importantly the fear that the secret causes the wife, not really understanding what she has found out.
So those husbands who find themselves in this situation must find ways to allay their wives' fears so that trust can be regained.