My first pedicure!

I've mentioned, I believe, how much I love my wife, yes?

Well today she gave me even more reason.  I had mentioned to her that I wanted to get my nails done.  I've never had a pedicure before and had always been a bit indifferent to my toenails.  I wanted to change that and get both my fingernails and toenails looking more presentable.

She offered to go with me to get a manicure/pedicure done.  Including color on the toes!  (Her idea!)

Yes, my lovely wonderful wife went with me and we both got pedicures and I got a manicure.  When we got there, she insisted on the deluxe package, which included all kinds of neat stuff, including a hot stone massage of my calves and shoulders, a rub down of my arms and hands, and a really good job on my fingernails and toenails.  Here's a picture of the toes :)

Ok, I don't have the sexiest feet in the world (they look much nicer in stockings ), but I love the color!

I feel very pretty, and definitely more feminine.  

This has been a great day!

And I love my wife :)

First Day of Therapy

So, I began seeing my therapist again today.

I had seen her quite some time ago for some other issues not related to my cross dressing, and we both agreed that my time with her was done when we were essentially spending most of our session chatting about stuff instead of doing anything therapeutic.  While I love chatting with her (she's damn smart, easy to talk to and definitely makes one think), I figured it wasn't really fair to charge my insurance company for a chat buddy :)

So after a couple of incidents where I was going into an unpleasant state of mind because of a few things that happened around the house, I and my wife figured it was time to actually get some professional help dealing with, not the cross dressing itself, but with the emotional issues surrounding it, particularly relating to my father's actions when and after he caught me. 

The first session was really good.  We did spend a little time catching up and talking like old friends, but not a whole lot.  I was nervous and somewhat unprepared (she called me with a last-minute cancellation and I was totally not ready for it, but I jumped at the opportunity anyways), but we are working on a plan to help me deal with the crappy emotional feedback I feel whenever I start to feel that my dressing is hurting someone or making them uncomfortable.

Yesterday, we had some company over.  My wife was folding some towels that had gotten left in the dryer, when she came across a pair of my panties.  At first, she thought they were hers, but didn't recognize them.  After she realized they were mine, she quietly called me into our room where she handed them to me and told me where she found them.  Now one of our agreed upon boundaries is that I do my own laundry of my girl clothes.  I had done some the day before and apparently missed a pair of panties in the dryer.

She could have made me feel like shit.  She could have been cold and nasty about it, or even cold and formal and disapproving.

Instead, she giggled about it with me.  I apologized, and she just smiled and said it was ok, and we laughed together about it.  See why I love my wife?  She could have tossed me into one of those nasty little feedback loops where I felt like shit, but she didn't want me to hurt.  So she found the humor in it and shared it with me and we laughed together.

She'd better be careful or I might start to actually feel good about myself again :)

And that's why I love my wife.

More therapy every week for a while, so probably some more posts here and there.

Megan

Coming Out, Part V, The Aftermath

Well, curious reader, it's amazing what difference a few days can make.

Joan and I have been talking steadily.  One ground rule that I've made is that I won't bring up the topic, but will wait for her to decide she's comfortable enough to talk.  Of course, this doesn't completely preclude my mentioning it, just any significant, substantive conversations will be started by her.  This helps her maintain a comfort level, which is really important to her accepting all this.

So the topic has come up every day, sometimes a couple of times a day, since my last post.  We've talked about all kinds of things.  I've reassured her that she is still first in my heart and will always be that way.  I've reassured her that I'm not gay, nor likely to decide I am any time in the future.  She's reassured me that I have her love and nothing is going to change that (a huge thing for me!), and that we are not going to split up over this.

We've talked about some girly things (she wants us to do a manicure/pedicure together!) and I asked about waxing and how painful it was.  All in all, it's been a great few days. 

I've had a few "What the hell am I doing," moments, but working through those as they happen.

I've stopped biting my fingernails (!), a habit since I was 10 or so.

I'm determined to clean up my office and make it a nice safe place for Megan to come out occasionally at home.  I don't think Joan will be ready to meet Megan any time soon, so I only get to be her from time to time.  Not the best situation in the world, but you know... if it never gets any better than this, I could live happily like this with my wife forever.  I'll still have my time as Megan, and she'll still have her husband.

So I think the whole coming out story line is about over for now.  Now it's just the day-to-day living part.  I'm sure I'll have some adventures I'll post here, and some hard times I'll work through here.

For now, I have my wife who loves me, my friend Abby who is going to help me through a lot, and my online friends Ellen and Megan (yes, another one, no I don't have a split personality) to chat with from time to time.

Life is good.

Coming Out, Part IV - The Pain

You know, I thought it was too easy.  And it appears I was right.  Today was painful. 

My wife, whom I truly love with all my heart, told me something today.  She didn't say it to be hurtful.  It was actually more in the way of a confession.  What it was isn't important.  Suffice it to say it showed me exactly how much all of this has affected her.

So, I felt like a complete shit.  I felt horrible.  I felt like I had let her down, I felt like I had betrayed her, I felt like I was the lowest form of life on the planet.

So I went home at lunch and told her that dressing and all wasn't worth hurting her.  It wasn't worth putting her through enough pain that she ... well it was a lot of pain.

So I told her I would stop.  And I meant it.  I promised I would just stop. 

I didn't want to hurt her.  I also didn't want to feel like shit.  I didn't want to hate myself any more.  And I didn't want her to hate me. 

Let me be clear here.  She NEVER said she hated me.  She never said she felt I was horrible, or betrayed her or anything like that.  That was all me.

More accurately, it was all my father.  All over again. 

I was so determined that I wasn't going to let him poison me again the way he did before.  I was so damned determined to be me.

And all the feelings were still there.  Just waiting for the right combination of words, circumstances, whatever to flood out from the fucking abscess they've been rotting in for 30 fucking years.

So here I am. 

We talked, we cried.  We talked more. 

She's made an appointment with her therapist.  She wants her to help her learn to deal with this.  She wants to be better.  For me.  Because she loves me.

I'm thinking I need to do the same thing.  There's a lady I saw years ago, back when things between us got really bad.  It wasn't entirely things between us, there was a third party involved (not someone I was in a relationship with), that made things immeasurably worse with their lies, their selfishness, and other problems that I'm not going into here.

We both got help and things got better.

Looks like it's time for that again.

Wish me luck!

Coming Out, Part III

Wow.

Yesterday was interesting!

So I had planned to tell Joan today, but events got away from me a bit.  I was sitting in my office and she knocked on the door (we have a rule about closed doors to our offices), so I just said, "Come in" like I did thousands of times before.

No, I wasn't all dressed up (I hadn't been since she got home Saturday).  She came in and there was a box with a pair of flats and a purple blouse I had bought that I was sending back to Amazon.  Joan noticed the box and said, "What's this," and opened it to look.  So much for my carefully laid plans of revelation.

Eager to regain some semblance of control, I told her to have a seat, we needed to talk about something.  Of course, she became apprehensive, so I rushed to tell her it wasn't anything horrible, I wasn't leaving her, I wasn't sick.  I explained to her about my brief history of crossdressing, briefly explained about my one encounter with the lovely crossdresser (she already knew about the encounter, but not the salient details), and that I wanted to continue dressing.  I was awkward, hesitant, and she finally asked flat out, "Is it clothing?"  I heave a sigh of relief and said yes.  Then I waited.

Her initial response was... "No big deal."

So far so good :)  We talked a little more and she admitted it took her somewhat by surprise.  She really wasn't sure how she'd deal with it if she actually saw me dressed (an understandable response), and that we would see how things went.

A couple of hours later, I took her aside in our bedroom and asked if we were ok.  That was a mistake.  I should have just given her more time before I brought it up again.  Things got a little tense and I told her I wouldn't bring it up again until she did.

Fast forward to dinner time.  She and I were in the kitchen, and she started talking to me.  She apologized for being bitchy, I told her it was understandable given the surprise I had popped on her.  I won't go into too many details, but she did say that she didn't want to give the impression that she would not accept me just as I am, because she did.

That's the important part.  I think we're kind of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" but it's not a hostile thing like it's been with some girls I've talked to.  It's more of a cautious feeling our way along kind of thing, and that's good.

We resolved that if I wanted to spend time dressed, for now, I'd simply get a hotel for the weekend. I was to do my own laundry of my delicates, but I could keep them in my dresser in our room.  Sadly, this means no more evenings curled up in a pretty skirt in front of the TV, but it's worth it to keep her.  Joan is my love, and I want to make this comfortable for her, as well as fulfilling my own needs.

So all in all, the Coming Out story has a happy ending for now.  There's still my family and friends (besides Abby, of course) to think about, but that's for another day.  I'm still married, and will be for the foreseeable future, and I didn't sleep on the couch last night.

All in all a good day.

Coming Out, Part II

I had another meeting with Abby later that week.  She dropped by in the morning, and we had a couple of hours to talk and laugh.  I got an impromptu lesson in how to sit more ladylike, which I enjoyed and have been practicing. 

I also asked her advice about to to come out to my wife. 

We talked about that for a good while.  She's known my wife (we'll call her Joan) as long as she's known me.  Joan is a warm, loving person.  We've been through a lot together.  She's bisexual herself, and knows about my recent bisexual explorations, but not what came out of them (that is, my crossdressing).  While my dressing is not the most important thing in my life, it is definitely important to me.  I like how I feel when I do it, and don't want to give it up.

That said, if Joan asks me to, I'm going to try.  Not out of guilt or shame, but out of love for her.  If I did it once from guilt, I can do it again, from love. 

I think in my head, she'll be understanding and loving.  I think I can reasonably hope for amused tolerance, and maybe a bit more.

Emotionally, I'm terrified of telling her.  A lot of it comes from the last time a family member discovered my dressing, and I know it's a visceral reaction, not one borne of reason or faith in her love for me.  So I keep that scared part of me warm and safe, and hope for the best.

This is too significant to try and hide it, and damn near impossible for a significant length of time. 

Stay tuned to this spot for Coming Out, Part III!

Coming Out, Part I

So, I put my little toe out of the closet today.  I told someone close to me that I crossdress.  My friend, we'll call her Abby.  Abby and her family dropped by today to visit and pass the time.  After a while, we decided to all have dinner.  Abby's husband (we'll call him Bob) suggested he run back to their house to get some stuff to fix for dinner.  I wanted a chance to talk to Abby alone, so I took him up on it.

I've known Bob for a long time, probably close to 16 years by now.  Abby and he got married around 10 years ago, and I stood for him at their wedding.  Abby's a sweet, loving, compassionate person of decidedly liberal bent.  She has many friends of varying degrees of non-normativity.  Honestly, I rather figured she'd be the best first person to tell, and she could help me find the best way to tell my wife, as well.  (Note:  We both decided that, "Honey, please pass the salt.  Oh by the way, I'm wearing panties," would probably not be too good.)

She and I stepped out on the porch while Bob was gone and we talked.  I told her about my explorations into bisexuality, and finally, hesitantly, about my dressing.  She was so very good about it.  I told her that I needed to know I would have at least one friend that wouldn't walk away from me for this, and that I really needed her advice and friendship, as a girl, just like we'd always been friends with me as a guy.  One of the first things she did was offer to be my shopping buddy :) 

We didn't talk too long since it wasn't going to take Bob long to get back, but I feel so good, so positive about this now.  We're planning on getting together later this week to talk more, and just hang out.

I'm so relieved at how well this went, and I'm smiling ear to ear.