Looking over search terms of people who have found my website, one that has come up a few times is very interesting – “crossdressing to be the woman my wife isn’t.” Now whoever wrote that, I apologize to you. I don’t know what exactly you mean, don’t know what you believe, don’t know what you do, and I’m not critiquing you individually as I write this post. But I’m going to write about what I think you might have meant by that search term.

The search term made me think about my own life and my own experience with crossdressing in the past. I know from experience that there is a temptation to use crossdressing as a substitute for your wife or a real woman. Crossdressers may think about their wives or girlfriends, and dress in the way that they wished they would dress. They create a make- believe woman that appears how they always wished their wives would appear. Or how they wish their future wife will appear.

The result of this is that the make-believe woman, (the activity of crossdressing), is the one the crossdresser runs to when disappointed in the marriage. If the wife of a crossdresser always says she is too tired for sex, then the crossdresser will use the make-believe woman as the substitute. When the romantic spark has gone out of marriage, the crossdresser will fulfill himself with the thrill of crossdressing. Instead of working hard to renew the love and romance, the crossdresser will escape into a false reality. They won’t find true love and intimacy, but they will get cheap sexual pleasure, at the cost of deception and guilt.

This make-believe woman that crossdressers create is very appealing. She is a willing slave. She will wear whatever you want her to wear. She will make whatever faces, smiles, and looks you want her to make. She will dance and move sexily if you want her to. She lives to please your whims. She will pose for you and wear the most ridiculous feminine attire you want her to. She won’t complain if it takes her hours to put on makeup, and won’t complain about pain from wearing high heels. There is something very disturbing about all of this. Crossdressers learn to immediately get whatever they want. It is objectification of women to an extreme level.

This phenomenon has been noted by researchers as well. Listen to what Richard F. Docter says in his book, Transvestites and Transsexuals:

The point of this discussion, therefore, is that the sexually conventional or reserved wife is ill-suited to be transformed into a wife who can participate in the TV’s games of erotic cross dressing. The idea of having sex with a man dressed (to any extent) as a women probably will be very distant from her own ideal sexual script. But after the TV husband has emerged from his closet, shared his secret, expressed his feelings, and has pled for understanding, his next aim is to invite his wife to participate in some kind of cross dressing-related sexual activity. If we are correct about her attitudes, her conventionality, her needs, and her sexual script-the husband’s plan is doomed to failure. The end result of this mismatch may be his withdrawal of sexual energies from within the marriage; his other pseudowoman self will come to be preferred as a sexually exciting “partner,” always available, with everchanging variety and erotic enticements in harmony with his sexual script.

Crossdressers also might even pretend to be their actual wives, by dressing up in their clothes and trying to look like them. They might even crossdress and then imagine having sex with their wife while masturbating. I guess this is better than many alternatives, because they are trying to think about their wives. But it is still a solo activity, still a confusion and a deception, and it still is sinful crossdressing. These crossdressers should be putting their energy into loving their real wives again and working on their marriages.

Creating a make-believe woman is adultery, even though there is no actual other woman involved. Why do people cheat on their spouses? They feel that the other partner doesn’t love them enough or doesn’t have sex enough or isn’t understanding enough or isn’t attractive enough. The person who feels like they are missing out on those things, then goes and finds that love, or sex, or understanding, or attraction from another person. And an affair is born. Well, in the case of crossdressers, it’s much easier. We don’t need to go out and find another woman to be with and commit adultery with, we can create the woman of our dreams on our own. But our heart is the same as the adulterer. Granted, crossdressing as an outward action is not as serious of a sin as adultery with a real person. It’s less destructive to families and relationships compared to an affair. But in the inward reality of the heart, there is the exact same sin and evil in the heart of the crossdresser as in the adulterer.  And we know that God cares very much about our heart, not just the outward things we do. In the heart of a married crossdresser, crossdressing is a betrayal of the wife, with the same sinful motivations as adultery.

If you are still giving in to crossdressing, repent, and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and freedom. In Jesus, there is no more condemnation. In Jesus, there is freedom from bondage to sinful addictions.