In this post are questions asked by wives in the Private Wives Group which is a support and prayer group for wives of crossdressers. The questions are answered by a few former crossdressers from the Christian Recovery Group. The wives have very diverse experiences ranging from husbands who actively crossdress with no regret or care to those who have given up crossdressing completely and many experiences in between. The former crossdressers who have answered the questions have all committed to giving up crossdressing completely, and they have diverse experiences in terms of how much they still struggle with temptation or not.

The idea for this post was to help the wives who have so many concerns and questions about crossdressing and unfortunately many of these wives have husbands who refuse to talk to them about it or refuse to hear how much crossdressing is hurting their wives. And frankly, sometimes wives may have questions they want to ask that they don’t feel comfortable asking their own husbands, or they might fear they will not get an honest answer. Thus why we made this post together. Hopefully the wives will come away with better understanding of their husbands and more wisdom to handle their difficult marital situations.

To keep anonymity, each person answering used only their initials. This is the second post of questions. For the first set of questions see – Former Crossdressers Answer Wives of Crossdressers’ Questions.

1. Why don’t some crossdressers see crossdressing as sinful or not see it as an addiction?

BH:   It’s hard to say right off the bat. For a while I didn’t because I couldn’t separate it from my identity. This was not something easy to reverse. We’re talking years, maybe even a decade of believing “I cant stop so this has to be a part of me that I have to accept.” A rejection is a refusal of me. Not just my crossdressing addiction, but actually me as a whole. Even as a Christian I wanted to make excuses for this so that I didn’t have to give it up because that’s where my identity was. Here’s the good news -> a good Christian counselor can really help break those walls down. Maybe a good counselor that isn’t religious as well but I found all of those counselors just wanting to tell me this was okay and to accept it. It took years, but I can safely say that’s no longer my identity and it is very possible, it just takes a little bit of willpower and follow through.

M:   It’s hard for me to say since I do see it as sinful and as an addiction. My guess would be that they justify it in a similar way to how people with drug and alcohol addictions justify those. The challenge is that drug and alcohol addictions are obviously bad. The only thing you need to convince the other person of is that they truly are addicted. With crossdressing, there are a lot of loud voices in our culture saying that there is nothing wrong with it. That means that there are two hurdles to overcome at the beginning: 1) the person has to agree that there is something wrong with crossdressing, and 2) the person has to agree that they have a problem. Without both of those, I don’t think true healing is possible.

A:    I see it as being from the “way that one uses it.” If it is not compulsive, like a man dressing up only for a frat party, for Halloween, or for a job (like an acting role, playing in a band) or an occasional drag performance (again only if being paid by somebody else and is only interested in making money). In these cases not sinful. However when it turns COMPULSIVE and a man cannot control it, it indeed becomes sinful and highly addicting. (That’s a reason right there I would be all for the group name being changed to Healing from Compulsive Crossdressing, or Compulsive Crossdressers Anonymous). When it becomes compulsive it becomes just like alcohol, cocaine or heroine (activating the same pleasure areas of the brain) and we know from history and data how toxic and reckless a chemical addiction can be! It takes you away from responsibility, from living your life, to being OCD about yourself and as you get older it hurts yourself physically as well – all the acting out and masturbating to orgasm has affects on anxiety levels, high blood pressure, etc… (fill in the blank). Too many psychologists and the news media just don’t get it but again that’s because when they hear just the word crossdressing, by itself it sounds absolutely harmless.

C:  Truthfully I think it depends on the man. Some get so entrenched in an ideology that the world perpetuates that they start to see their addiction as their identity, or they see it as harmless, or otherwise. It’s a justification mechanism that allows the user to feel better, no doubt, because they are likely experiencing some degree of dissonance, shame, and embarrassment around their addiction.

K:   I see crossdressing as an addiction but not necessarily as sinful. The sin is not the crossdressing itself but the way it keeps me from being the person God would want me to be.

AB:   I’ve found that a huge population of the professional community of doctors (both medical and mental health) have said that it’s not an addiction or sinful ( even Christians). That’s a difficult and confusing place to be as a man when you recognize gender dysphoria symptoms. I think when people are honest they do know it is wrong.

T:   It’s a challenge to speak for others, but I would compare it to someone who has any addiction. Over time addicts have learned to justify their addiction with a variety of lies they convinced themselves about its sinfulness and their addiction to it, as they may actually believe they can stop if they wanted to.

P:   I would say that it’s a spiritual blindness. This is very probably because they don’t want to give it up, and so seek to find ways to rationalise it.

N:   I have struggled with this as well. I think it is because of the range of interpretations of scripture, and specifically of the oft-cited verse of Deuteronomy 22:5. Personally, I am suspicious of legalism, and we humans, including devoted followers of Christ, have a habit of finding our value, and the ascribing the value of other people, by rule-keeping. Scripture is much clearer on God’s esteeming the condition of a person’s heart than Deuteronomy 22:5 is on crossdressing. Avoiding crossdressing doesn’t make my heart right before God. In other words, crossdressing isn’t the issue. The condition of my heart is the core issue, and crossdressing and every other vice is merely a symptom of a heart not satisfied by God or inclined towards Him.

2. What words or attitudes from other people have helped you to see crossdressing as something undesirable, that you want to cease doing permanently? What finally caused you to seek help?

BH:   I was alone after ordering garments in a slip up state. I couldn’t even afford what I ordered. I’m pretty sure I financed the order through one of those buy now pay later services. I was so frustrated because I thought it would be enough, and as always I’d felt emptier than when I started. It was in that moment I decided I had to actually try and find freedom. I had always thought about freedom but never could say I gave it everything I had. I wanted to see what it was like on the other side to make an informed decision about which was better. All of the shame and guilt piled up on me and I just wanted to be free from it. Other people’s attitudes really didn’t play a major role. My girlfriend (now wife) was trying to support me in crossdressing at the time. Neither of us understood the implications this would later have and the years of counseling it’s taken to unwind a lot of it. I knew it was wrong though and wanted to be better for her.

M:   Personally, it wasn’t other people who convinced me that crossdressing was something undesirable. I always felt deeply shameful after cding. As the culture started to become more accepting, there were times when I questioned, but the strongest anchor for me was that my identity in Christ was always stronger than any cross-gender identity ever could have been. Apart from Christ, it is likely that I eventually would have surrounded myself with affirming people and transitioned.

A:   In my case, 99% of my crossdressing activity and persistence of gender dysphoria has been because of and activated by internet addiction. (Before the mid 1990’s/ pre-internet it was fantasy television, comic books and magazines). I realized I had to go deeper into the root causes (like attending ACA meetings and discovering my inner child and uncovering a childhood of child abuse and neglect (many trans people have had). I’m learning to control my use of time on the internet when I can. I have been attending Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous and seeing just how separate this is from the real world and it becomes about learning to think realistically, like just how much support is there for this compulsive crossdressing stuff in daily living OFFline? How many transwomen have I actually seen in the real world, compared to the computer screen? (I saw one – all of last year, in person). The undesirable part again, mentioning above – the out of control masturbation to orgasm due to OCD about myself escaping reality and the fantasy of becoming this indestructible human being who by dressing, rises above all of life’s problems and issues!

C:   I realized that if I didn’t stop, or in the very least start down the path of mitigating my sin, that it would eventually consume me. It also really helped that I realized my sin didn’t just have the potential to hurt myself, but also my relationship with a future wife and my relationship with God.

K:   For many years I accepted the belief prevalent in much of my society that crossdressing was an innate part of who I was, something that I just had to live with. I knew it was not good for me or for my relationship with my wife, but I thought my only choice was to accept that it would never go away. There was no single thing that turned me around but the biggest factor was finally recognizing the harm I was causing her and her love and assurance that a better life was possible. Also witnessing the overreach and crazy assertions of many “trans activists” that clearly seemed wrong.

AB:   Completing a sex/addiction program and seeking out the Lord in a real way. Letting all be uncovered in the light of day so that God can cover it.

T:   I’ve always felt guilty about it, and sharing it with my then-girlfriend-now-wife has reinforced its undesirability. I truly feel that it negatively impacts my relationship with God, and this secret eats at me which negatively impacts my relationships with friends and family, even if they don’t know.

N:  I was never, ever drawn to crossdressing by seeing others. Conversely, seeing others crossdressed was repulsive, and illuminated the absurd foolishness of crossdressing. What caused me to seek help? I hated that crossdressing had a hold on me.

3. Do you as a husband ever have a tendency to play down a relapse? “It was just a quick try on and I took it off, end of story.”

BH:  Absolutely not. My freedom comes from 100% honesty about this. Up until this point I’ve been 100% honest about even thinking about trying on something, so much so it’s been too much information for her to handle and I take it to accountability groups now. That attitude tells me the husband you speak of has not matured into seeing this as an issue outside of conflict aversion in your marriage. He sounds hopeful that you’d be okay with his actions and could continue to pursue it. I’m sorry.

M:  No. This sounds to me like the beginning of justification (if only a few seconds is okay, then surely only a few seconds more is also okay). Some people are better at handling accountability than others. That being said, there is also a fine line between judgment and grace. If someone has admitted to having a problem with something (crossdressing in this case) and they have committed to stopping, then it is likely that they will have slip-ups on occasion. If their hearts are truly repentant (which can be difficult to judge), then slip-ups should be met with grace or it will likely only lead to further secrecy and growing resentment.

A:  Yes, absolutely. I put the clothes on in the first place due to uncontrollable desire, urge, arousal. I will tell myself not to worry about it, that my reasons to dress up are justified in the first place because of some hardship I am dealing with at the moment and this is the best way I know of how to get away from it. After all, it is escapism from something in life, finding comfort this way and not having to deal with problems.

BB:  No, not at all. Even looking at a short story online, or a few photos online that I know I shouldn’t can be devastating to me for days or weeks afterwards. The more I grow in my recovery, the more I grow in my sanctification, the more that anything related to crossdressing is a big deal. Thankfully many years ago I might have been devastated by week long binges in crossdressing, while today I am devastated by reading a story. That means real change has happened. Relapses can be there once in a while, but there have bigger and bigger gaps of time between them, and the actual activity of a relapse is much different.

K:   I don’t think I play down relapses. I see them as warnings and lessons telling me that I need to do better.

AB:   Yes. Denial is a huge problem and the first step to overcome. It’s been important for me set clear and distinct boundaries so that even I don’t deceive myself.

T:   This goes back to question #1. We’ve lied to ourselves enough times to justify the relapses. Those only stop when we catch ourselves lying to ourselves, and this ability to stop lying to ourselves takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to be able to do so regularly.

N:  Yes, absolutely. I have gathered that all people use that line of excuse for any vice. “It was a slip. That wasn’t the real me. I felt helpless. I was tired. I was stressed. I wasn’t thinking. I…” and so on. Who are we kidding? Not God, that’s for sure, and likely, if we are willing to be honest, we’re not kidding ourselves, either.

4. Does hearing the stories of men who cross-dressed in the past (for example in recovery group discussions) trigger you to want to cross-dress now? Does it give you ideas for how you may secretly cross-dress?

BH:  To be honest, 90% of the time, no. It makes me a bit disgusted to see other men crossdressing in public. Every once in a while a verbal description can be mildly triggering but never that hard to fight with reinforcing the ideas that this is destructive. I just remember the pain this caused me. I think this one is very subjective to where someone is at in their maturity, healing process, and can change with mood. At the end of the day though, does it matter how we feel? It’s what we do with the feelings that’s important.

M:   At first it was triggering. I’d imagine this is similar to drug and alcohol addictions. At first, hearing others share about their struggles may be difficult, but it is a necessary step to healing. Our goal shouldn’t be only to avoid being triggered, but rather to learn how to resist temptation even when we are triggered. After all, an alcoholic who is sober will still see people drinking and hear about drinking even if he is not in an AA meeting. Being in the AA meeting at least allows him to see and hear about it and to gradually build the muscles to resist temptation when triggers come. It is similar with crossdressing. We will still see and hear triggers outside of a support group, but the support group is a safe place to build those resistance muscles.

A:   Yes it does and I think that is a large reason others don’t want to participate much on this “healing” site. Because it can trigger me. It makes me draw comparison/contrast with others. I read a crossdresser recovery story and quickly enough I will tell myself, you’re not this way, you are much more advanced with gender dysphoria. And true to that indeed, I read stories of men putting on panties or lingerie and that is nothing to me because I am well above that with my crossdressing interests and dysphoria and have been on hormones in the past. To me the stories of dressing in lingerie or panties tells me more of sex addiction/fetish compared to compulsive crossdressing/autogynephelic produced dysphoria. Most of the stories I hear on here too, the internet, I don’t know anyone or their problems and I can quickly digress and detach from that. The stories from the M2f2M detransitioners motivate me the most.

BB:   Not at all. Only if someone shares really vivid detail about their desires or about what they did and what clothing they wore, making it sound pleasurable. But in all the recovery groups I’ve been in, there are rules about not doing that kind of thing (which is also common sense).

C:   It depends on the day, though I can say it certainly doesn’t give me more “ideas” on how to continue in sin. If anything, talking with recoverers, though sometimes triggering, actually helps me pivot and seek Christ more than sin continually.

K:   No.

AB:   No. This stuff flourishes in the shadows. When brought out into the light it’s easy for me to see it for what it actually is. I’m not triggered but see the deception and lie even more clearly. Shame and pain keep this stuff hidden and active.

T:   For me personally the discussions do not trigger me. If they did I would have to consider my membership in this group. I have been a member for quite some time and never found these discussions to be triggering.

P:   Not for me. It causes me to see how addictive and foolish this is. I feel compassion for those who are confessing because they feel guilt and want to give up. I feel anger at those who confess with no intention of stopping.

N:   No. The opposite is true for me. I am repulsed by it, for I see the foolishness of it. Men trying desperately to get something they are lacking, and using crossdressing to assuage their desire to experience, to feel something pleasurable, even if it’s foolish and stupid. No matter how carefully I may dress, I will never be a woman in the way I look, think, move, react, etc. I may as well dress as a cheetah and think I am a cheetah.

5. If you consider yourself “sober” or “healed” now, how long did it take you to reach that point? What constitutes “sobriety” or “healing” for cross-dressing — is it not dressing up at all or does it include things like not fantasizing and not shopping for women’s clothing?

BH:   I do, and it’s taken me 3 years to get to a stable point, and it’s a daily fight that continues. If I take my armor off I’ll slip right back in. Having said that, it’s become much easier to keep the armor on, and so much more fulfilling. It doesn’t ever go away, just much easier to say no to. The farther I get from it the more I realize how broken and twisted of a headspace I was in. There was so much happening internally that I couldn’t even see. Sobriety for me is not crossdressing, not entertaining the thought of it, not fantasizing about it, trying not to dream about it, and certainly not online shopping. I avoid clothing sections when I have to. Sometimes I’m stronger than other times and don’t need to.

M:   What constitutes sobriety or healing is difficult to say. I tend to consider this to be an addiction and to be similar in many ways to other addictions. A former alcoholic may still feel the pull to alcohol, particularly when he is stressed, but it is not the lack of desire for alcohol that allows him to call himself sober; it is the choice to not drink even though the desire is present. In many ways, it is similar with crossdressing. I quit crossdressing around 15 years ago, a little before I met my wife. When we got married, I made a commitment to myself that I would never indulge in crossdressing out of respect for her. However, the desires were still there and I would frequently indulge cross-gender fantasies and look at cross-gender content online. I eventually made a commitment to take control of my thought life as much as possible too. As part of that commitment, I cut out all cross-gender content online. This has been very helpful, but it took a long time for the effects to be seen (1-2 years). At the beginning, I still had that content stored up in my mind, so even though I wasn’t feeding myself any new content, the content that I had already consumed was still fresh in my mind. Now, I would say that sobriety means that I do not crossdress, I do not “feed” the thoughts by looking at any content online, and I actively try to redirect thoughts whenever they come up.

A:   I’m not what I would call sober, just going thru a dry period right now because I can’t act out or dress any because I am dealing with a cold and living in a bubble until I can return home next weekend. True sobriety would be working recovery with other detransitioners and that would start by getting away from internet activity (except for Zoom calls in recovery and checking emails here).

BB:   I don’t consider sobriety perfection. There is no perfect Christian. But sobriety means always fighting against giving in to crossdressing related desires, and it means if I do give in, there has to be real confession not just to God, but to other people, and there needs to be real repentance, a real turning away from the sin and moving in the other direction. Without that then I’m living in sin and tolerating sin. For me, and I believe for others as well, the only thing that works is a zero tolerance policy. I think this must be true of any sin we are trying to fight. You can’t allow yourself to enjoy just a little sin. If you do, it will naturally lead to more. You can’t tolerate any of it. Which means sobriety is not just fighting against things like trans porn or crossdressing, but for me it has to also include no allowing myself to even entertain any sinful fantasies in my head, even if no one else would know.

C:   I don’t consider myself or my brothers in the group “sober” necessarily. Nor do I considered myself or them “healed.” True healing only comes on the day of Christ’s return, when we become glorified. Until then, we can only approximate healing. I will never be able to fully walk past sections of clothing without some sort of thought, and if I do, it’s only by the grace of God. In the same way I imagine an alcoholic would likely still be uncomfortable walking down the liquor aisle at a grocery store. As for what constitutes sobriety, which I find different than myself being sober, I think that constitutes my actions. Am I watching pornography? Am I engaging in lustful acts? Am I shopping? Am I letting thoughts fester instead of shutting them down? If “Yes” to any of these, I’m not living in sober mind.

E:   There is a phrase in the nofap community which I love: Your Mileage May Vary. We all have different backgrounds, traumas, hang-ups, reactions to events, temperament, levels of reflectiveness, strength of faith, other health issues and so on that play into how long recovery will take. I say this because I don’t want you to hear of long recovery journeys and despair. I have been in the prayer group since about 2013. I think ultimately full healing will happen when I meet Jesus Christ face to face, and I long for that day. However God is helping me work hard at sobriety on a day by day basis. I distinguish different harmful behaviours. This keeps me honest about my struggles and focuses on the issues for a time and see growth. I used to think that because I’ve not dressed I don’t have any problems. But the reality is, dressing up is always the result of many other actions and decisions. As I write on 1 March my sobriety counters are:
– Crossdressing (wearing woman’s clothes, makeup with the purpose of acting feminine). 94 days
– Clothes shopping in real life. 76 days. This includes browsing, not actually buying. It excludes shopping with my wife, which is a healthy thing to do.
– Clothes shopping online. 71 days. This includes browsing.
– Buying women’s clothes. 821 days.
– Watching female influencers on social media. My definition of that is basically fashion, dancing tiktoks, makeup. 45 days
– AI chats. There are genuinely useful AI chats out there, like Google’s Gemini which helps me with stuff. What I mean is games which are designed to be lovebots, girlfriend experience type things. 107 days
– Masturbation and orgasm. 17 days.
– Porn. 77 days.
I share this to demonstrate that sobriety takes different forms with different battles. My sobriety from buying clothes is good. Recently I’ve had to work really hard at not browsing women’s clothes online. So I’ve seen recent growth there. I had trouble with AI so I’ve worked on it and quickly moved on in that area. So it may look like I’m not totally sober, but in reality, it just means I’m actually able to see where to battle and fight. Furthermore, the day counters are only the times I acted poorly in those behaviours. I have other trackers for reading scripture and exercise, and for other negative behaviours. This shows that I have more space and freedom to grow in those ways too. The day counters are raw numbers, but there are plenty of stories of successes: times I wanted to act out but didn’t. That is another aspect of healing that can get forgotten: the ability to resist and say no.

K:    Yes, I consider myself sober now, by the grace of God. I consider sobriety to be a process rather than a single event. For several years I was mostly sober but had periodic relapses. I will always need to remain vigilant to avoid fantasies and temptations, but with more time that becomes less of a problem. Sobriety for me means stopping all crosdressing and addiction related activities. Partial sobriety is not sobriety and doesn’t work.

AB:   I believe it can take 2-5 years. I’ve literally had to change my brain pathways and be willing to see things different than what they look like in front of me. I’ve found that takes an overwhelming amount of trust in the Lord and willingness to face my dragons. That’s literally what repentance means. Undergo a change in your mind. I found a lot of biological withdrawal symptoms but now in a much better spot.

T:   I do not consider myself sober or healed. I do consider myself as making great strides towards sobriety, but I take it one day and one temptation at a time. Its been the best way for me to continue to improve upon my success.

N:   Once I found the Healing From Crossdressing group, it didn’t take long at all. Weeks, maybe? (it’s been a few years since I found the group). Sobriety, to me, is full abstinence from dressing, fantasizing, and internet surfing. I also don’t think that an occasional slip in these things means that you’re back at ground zero. No. Transformation is a process, and it is only logical that a lifetime of feeling inadequate, regardless of whether you cope by crossdressing or drugs or work or whatever, it takes time to effect that transformation to the depths of the need that is being rewritten and healed.

6. The term “euphoric” has been used to describe the pleasure from cross-dressing. I find this term hard to “compete” with. How is intimacy with your wife better than the euphoria of cross-dressing? How have you assured your wife of your attraction and love for her?

BH:    The euphoria associated with crossdressing is very different than intimacy with my wife. It’s a cheap substitute. It’s a lustful high; that is really the best way to put it. The problem with that is that while the high is high, the low is low. The high is also not gratifying at all. It’s like being on the edge of your seat waiting for something to happen that never does. It’s kind of a mental trap, and it’s very unhealthy. It makes you think it’s pleasurable. Intimacy with my wife is like rest for the soul. It’s like being able to feel each other’s souls closely and tear down all of the emotional walls. It’s like saying I’m here for you and with you. Sharing that level of intimacy with another human being is 1000x times better than any cheap substitute. I have just focused on that in replacing the desires of my brain. If we’re talking about just attraction and pleasure, I would encourage not to even put yourself on the same playing field. It’s like competing with a heroin needle. You are so much better than that as a human being there’s nothing that can put the two on the same playing field. All we can do is mourn the moments those around us choose the needle over true intimacy. As far as attraction goes, my attraction to my wife has radically changed since giving up crossdressing. There’s been psychological research done with porn addicts (I think the same is true for crossdressing addicts because it does something similar to the brain) that your brain has to recover from this. It takes years to pave new neural pathways. The best analogy i heard is that it’s like a mountain trail. It takes time to let the forest grow over the old path (and to stop walking on it), and it’s very hard to bushwhack through new paths the first time. Then it gets easier. The brain can change. Attraction can and does change. It takes putting down the needle and committing to not letting our brains go back into that “euphoria”, no matter what.

M:   Yes, both are euphoric. It is like a drug in that sense. In the case of a drug, the competition is drug vs. sobriety. Neither of those things (the drugs and the sobriety) change. They always stay the same. It is the addict’s perception of them, as well as his choices regarding them that change. The sobriety is good enough even if the addict does not choose it. It is important that you remember that the same is true of you. You are good enough, attractive enough, and desirable enough even if/when your husband chooses to crossdress. I know it may not feel that way, but your worth is not determined – not even a little bit – by the actions of someone else. Your husband needs to learn to leave the drug behind and pursue the euphoria of his bride alone.

A:   There’s a saying in Sexaholics Anonymous that “lust kills love” and while I say that compulsive crossdressing is quite different from sexual intercourse and/or staring at pornography it has that similarity of escaping reality through masturbation-to-orgasm because of lust and arousal caused by overwhelming urge and desire to act out. A similar “sex trance” occurs where one cannot get out of it without an orgasm, otherwise it becomes high-anxiety producing. And that (masturbation) gets confusing too, becoming escapism by being turned on to what gender therapists will say is dealing with the anxiety of gender dysphoria and transition. It could be but I feel another path should be sought (through spirituality or just plain reality) and applaud others who are able to do that.

BB:   My wife knows, because I’ve told her, that I desire her a hundred times more than sexual pleasure related to autogynephilia. There is no substitute for a real person that God made you to be one flesh with. Physical touch from a real person, who you love, is electric, it’s comforting, it’s uniting, it’s bonding. And it’s more physically pleasurable.

C:   I find the “euphoria” tied to this addiction a pale comparison for actual intimacy, though I am a virgin and unmarried. I think about the girlfriends I’ve had, as well as my ex-fiancée (our breakup had nothing to do with my addiction, though she was aware) and the intimacy I gave and received in those relationships. I also think about the deep intimate friendships I have currently, both with men and women in the body of Christ. Those godly relationships provide actual “euphoric” feelings for me. I’d much rather be in godly community than engaging in my sin. Even on my lowest days. My sin only attacks me when I am lowest, and when I refuse to pivot my eyes to God and the community He appointed for me.

K:    I would not use the term “euphoric.” For me crossdressing filled a hole in my life, giving a temporary fix but providing no real or long term repair. My addiction to crossdressing (and pornography) destroyed my hope for any real emotional or physical intimacy with my wife and stole from her the intimacy she deserved. It continues to be a struggle to rebuild the connection we never truly had.

AB:   It’s a way in which some men like myself learned to survive. Life is tough and it’s suffering. Especially being a man in todays world. Suicide is the leading cause of death of men under 50. For most of us like myself, we encountered past trauma and discovered or created a way inside ourselves to medicate ourselves. A drug. Either to feel alive or to numb. For me a combination of both. A very unhealthy coping mechanism. It has had nothing to do with my wife and was a coping mechanism long before meeting her. One I swore I was managing but you don’t manage sin. I’ve been honest with my wife. I love her and very attracted to her.

T:   In my experience, it took a lot of communication to be able to have this conversation with my wife. It is easy to understand why the wives feel they are having to compete with a crossdressed husband, either physically or intimately. Intimacy with my wife is better because it is a pure connection with the one I love, and crossdressing is purely a self-focused act. In that way they are not similar and that is why great intimacy with my wife doesn’t detract from the desire to crossdress.

N:   When my wife loves me for who I am, when she celebrates who I am to her, when she makes the effort to value me beyond her preferences, when she feeds my love language, there’s no need for anything else. She is beautiful to me. I don’t need to engage in crossdressing to imagine myself as desirable. By the way, that “euphoria” that some men describe achieving via crossdressing? For me, it’s a very short-lived and entirely based on my imagination, which, of course, loses its power over time. The euphoria is very little based on orgasm (masturbation) and mostly if not entirely based on my imagining that I am what I desire. I am not attracted to men, and especially not to men who are crossdressed. I think women are amazing in their femininity, and crossdressing was simply a tangible (via the attire) way of stepping an inch towards the image that I desire. But in the end, it’s always a sham, and I know it. When I celebrate my wife’s femininity, when she makes the effort to be kind, and use her gifts as a woman (that I as a man do not possess at all or to the level she does), such as empathy, gentleness, and even her natural physical makeup, she is desirable to me.

7. The wife of a cross-dressing man can potentially feel as if her own femininity or value as a woman is cheapened and confiscated when they find out the secret of their husband’s desire to embody what they naturally have. Is it possible for the husband to offer his wife assurance of her distinguishing uniqueness? If so, what would that sound like?

BH:   Absolutely it’s possible, and I think it comes down to the woman, because everyone is so unique. I think many women rightfully feel this way. My wife did and does but we’ve broken past it. I tell her all of the wonderful things she is not because she wants and needs to hear it, but because I believe it. We read bedtime stories together and I give her kisses on the forehead. I hype her up when she’s getting dressed up. Sometimes I just grab her in for a hug because she likes that. All of these are just normal interactions between man and wife. I don’t get it perfectly and sometimes she complains. We have “love meters” and we tell each other when they feel low. She nudges me when I’ve forgotten to plan a date night in a month. It’s not perfect but it just matters that we try. All of those little things build reassurance not for the sake of reassurance, but that reassurance is a side effect of doing normal healthy things. We don’t yell at each other even when we fight or are angry. We lead with gentleness and kindness and are sensitive to each other.

M:    Is it possible for the husband to offer his wife assurances of her distinguishing uniqueness – yes. Whether those assurances are received and internalized depends on you, not your husband. Trust, once broken, is very difficult to rebuild. It takes time and effort where there was once effortlessness. He will need to make an effort to reassure you and you will need to make an effort to believe the genuineness of those assurances. What does it sound like? It depends on your love language. I tend to offer little words of affirmation here and there as situations come up. That may mean saying something about a physical attribute (i.e. staring at her as she undresses for the shower and commenting on her beauty, or whispering tastefully lewd comments to her in public) or about a personal attribute (i.e. after a meaningful encounter with one of her kids, telling her, “You’re such a good mom.”).

A:   Tough question as there aren’t much romantic issues with my wife. I’m sure it could though, especially if they are starting hormones. I could see it becoming defeminizing to naturally born women.

C:   Perhaps I misunderstand, but I think that a husband’s unique desire for his wife is fully and totally expressed by the fact that he married her. Granted, I speak in ideals here. Ideally, the man recognizes his sin as what it is, sin, and therefore desires to die to it in order to not only please God, but also love his wife and support her well. I think, truly, that a wife’s distinguishing uniqueness comes from the fact that the husband has chosen her, and even in his imperfection, still desires to be in right relationship with her (ideally).

K:   For a long time, I didn’t fully understand it, but I now believe that my crossdressing was never about me desiring femininity or feeling “dysphoric”. It was a misdirection of my male sexuality, a fetish or paraphilia. It hurt my wife tremendously.

AB:   I’ve only had cross dressing desire when not in a relationship or when rejected in a relationship. It was some kind of fleshly misguided desire or maybe even jealousy to draw femininity out of myself as a coping mechanism. Hyper Femininity is put on an extreme pedestal in our society. Masculinity feels like it is often mocked, toxic or seen as outdated. The masculine space is confused and in many cases really not even separated anymore (e.g. Boy Scouts). Our culture is confused about what it means to be a man (and a woman) and that filters in through the messages I unknowingly received and contributed to my problem of blurring lines in my head. It’s been good to strip away what society tells us and look at what God says and thereby embrace being a man. I’ve been able to see my wife in a more complete way.

T:   The only way a husband can do that is to be transparent and communicate honestly with their wife. Crossdressing is purely a self-fulfilling act, and there is no “one-size-fits-all” way to answer this question. It took time, but I was able to express this problem of crossdressing in a way where my wife now knows I am not trying to copy her, or compete with her. It doesn’t make crossdressing now acceptable (nor should it) but it helps her better understand why this is an addiction for me, and now she can better understand and help me stay sober versus questioning my intentions for crossdressing.

N:   Great question. I told my wife that crossdressing was a misappropriation of femininity. In other words, I was associating women’s clothing with being desirable. I love how my wife looks and feels when she is dressed in silky attire, so, when I crossdressed in such, I imagined myself being desirable. Of course, every time I crossdressed, I once again saw the huge discrepancy between my experience and reality. I could never attain the beauty I find in my ridiculously idealized idea of what womanhood and femininity are. That realization is key to assuring one’s wife that she is far above whatever I was trying to attain via crossdressing.

8. During sex with your wife, does fantasy about being in the female sexual role play into the sexual pathway in your mind? Are there any hopeful testimonies of husbands being able to control their thoughts during arousal so that they are only thinking about their wives and nothing about autogynephilia?

BH:  Yes this is absolutely possible. It doesn’t come without trial and error. My wife will immediately stop being sexually interested if she can tell I’m not mentally present, and for good reason. At one point I was hung up on her playing out fantasies I couldn’t. That was super broken and ended in hard conversations, her feeling betrayed, me realizing that wasn’t okay, committing to getting better, counseling sessions, and now I don’t let my mind go there. It was hard. But I don’t think about that stuff anymore. Sometimes “spicy” intimacy is a trigger for my mind to go into lustful mode. I fight this by focusing on loving intimacy and just pouring into us connecting on a soul level. It’s done so much good. I don’t think about that stuff anymore.

M:   Just like sexual desire in general, autogynephilic thoughts have an ebb and flow. Sometimes they are strong, and sometimes they are weak. In my experience, the more they are fed (through crossdressing, through looking at cross-gender content online, etc.), the more likely they are to be stronger during sex. Yes, it is possible to get to a point of only thinking about her during sex and nothing about autogynephilia. How long it takes to get to that point depends on how much and for how long he has been feeding autogynephilia and how much allo (attraction to others) he had before.

A:   I / we chose a relationship based on need and codependency and not romanticism and I know that is wrong but it is what it is. I could see where it could though. With all that a husband/male can view online, it is extremely intoxicating compared to the real world. If this is a problem, get the husband OFFline asap. and have him use a “dumb phone.”

BB: Absolutely not allowed for me, even though my wife has never challenged me about it. I guess she trusts me on this. I do not allow any crossdressing related thoughts period, and especially not during intimate time with my wife. There were times long ago where sex could be more difficult perhaps than for the average man, because maybe my sex drive to autogynephilia was a little bit faster and more physically arousing than my normal heterosexual drive. During such times I could be tempted to let in other thoughts that I knew would arouse me. But when I learned how to just relax, and not feel pressured in the bedroom, and to let things happen more slowly, all the problems of arousal went away. It’s been so many years since I’ve ever had that temptation.

E:   I really hate that it did, yes. But here’s the good news: I have seen healing in this area. Four things I found helpful. 1. Having a discussion with my wife about the importance of orgasm. I thought sex without it was meaningless. Because of that belief I would look stuff up before sex and think evil thoughts during sex to help get to the orgasm. But my wife taught me that the most important thing was to just be with her and enjoy her, regardless of outcome. 2. Getting rid of all types of visual arousal, not just porn but Instagram influencers and such. Over time, this healed me to a point where my wife became truly attractive to me. In the crossdressing world, she couldn’t compete. Post healing, nothing compares with her! 3. An interview I listened to with a male porn star. He acknowledged that you simply aren’t attracted to every partner, especially in the hypersexualised world they work in. So what he and other people stars do is focus on some part of the body they like. I took this as a hint to study my wife before and during sex. It worked really well. 4. Keeping my eyes open and thinking of pleasing her. I had to train myself to do this. But I found that the best sex came when I didn’t think about me or whether I’d orgasm or not.

K:   My addiction destroyed my ability to have a proper sexual relationship with my wife.

AB:    Sex for me has been about the relationship and an opposite of the desire to cross dress. It slays that desire. But I also had developed a sex addiction along with crossdressing. I had to get to the root of all of it and find healing in the lord.

T:   Sometimes it does, however the best way to control the thoughts are the same as if these thoughts pop up outside of the bedroom. Hopefully each man has their gameplan on how to deal with thoughts and temptations, no matter when and where the temptations arrive. Again, for me it is sharing those thoughts with my wife, so I hear out loud how dumb it sounds, and she helps me understand its a bad idea without making me feel shameful for the thoughts coming into my mind.

P:   I never had thoughts of wanting to swap roles while having sex with my wife. I am turned on by her, and after sex have no desire for crossdressing. In the past I used to fantasise about it when we hadn’t had sex for a while. But as I see sobriety as putting fantasies to death, as well as stopping actual crossdressing and looking at porn, then I have fought/am fighting (being careful about pride) that battle.

N:   Great and very important question. This has been my greatest challenge since renouncing crossdressing. I hate that I sometimes need to imagine old things in order to be aroused. I truly hate it, for I feel weakened, and I am sad that I engaged in something that can still grab a hold over me. However, I have read from other ex-crossdressers that continued abstinence does bring transformation of the mind to regain a wholesome sexual mindset. However, I find that how my wife engages in intimacy with me has a lot of power to help me have a healthy sexual mindset. The more consistently (including outside and inside the bedroom) she makes the effort to attract me and also to notice me and celebrate my manhood, the easier and cleaner it is for me. Her going so far as to be mindful of my efforts as a man (such as my love for carpentry and DIY projects to make the house and yard the way she likes them), when she picks up a nice shirt and says, “Wow, you look so handsome in that shirt!”, when she feels my arms and says, “Your workouts are paying dividends!”… all that helps me to be satisfied in my manhood and also makes me feel good about who I am to her, and little by little, the need to fantasize in bed fades.

9. How would you describe your financial relationship with your spouse ? Does a crossdresser’s activities impact his honesty in this department?

BH:   We have everything tied together. Our phones get notifications when the other person buys a bagel. We are honest about everything we buy. We go over finances together. I make it so that purchasing crossdressing material isn’t an option for me. The temptation lingers from time to time and then I remember how stupid it is.

M:   My wife and I share everything in finances. It actually makes it difficult to keep gifts a secret because we can see the purchase. In my opinion, this is how a healthy, God-honoring marriage should be. I can easily see how crossdressing would cause a man to be dishonest with finances, particularly when there is no accountability.

A:   I haven’t had financial debt due to compulsive crossdressing but have spent significant money in the past when I have been alone. I have gradually gotten myself off of eBay and Amazon and that helps. Remember, the internet is the main catalyst for all this destruction. Maybe check out an ITAA support group on their website for your husband and start there.

BB:   All of our financial accounts and records are completely shared, and we plan all of our budgeting together.

E:   I am a “spender,” my wife is a “saver.” Over the years I have learnt from her how to be more wise with money (and she’s learnt to be more frivolous and enjoy life!). But early on I blew about 500 pounds on crossdressing in a few months. That’s a lot for two young people just out of university. I lied and said I wasn’t sure where it went. Shortly after this we agreed to join our separate accounts. The only downside to this is that we can see where gifts are coming from and how much they are costing. It’s a very straightforward way of making sure I can’t buy anything. She would know immediately. It’s the same reason I don’t carry cash unless it’s for a clear purpose. Because I’m a spender, I found being honest about any purchases difficult. I would just impulsively buy without thinking. As I’ve grown away from crossdressing and the secrecy of purchases, I’ve begun to be more honest about healthy things that I want to spend money on, or that I’ve resisted buying, or ended up impulse buying. So I would say that we are more financially close than we have ever been.

K:  While I did spend significant money on my crossdressing addiction, for the most part my wife knew about it and it did not impact our overall financial situation.

AB:   We have total honesty.

T:    When it comes to finances, we have monthly budget meetings and track our spending. I do not spend any money on these items.

N:   Not an issue in my marriage. We share the checking account. We each have business accounts, but I have never bought any women’s attire. I didn’t want to cross that line. To me, crossdressing was a convenient release, albeit one that I was uncomfortable with. I decided I wanted full transparency with my wife if at all possible because I saw what secrecy did to marriages. However, despite the desire to talk to my wife about my crossdressing, I didn’t feel safe because of things she said that made it clear her disdain for crossdressing, transvestic fetishism, etc.. That is why I was so grateful to find the Healing From Crossdressing group, for I finally could tell someone. The group leaders encouraged those in the group to be transparent and tell our wives or S/O’s. I eventually did, but carefully, slowly, and with much pre-prayer and voicing my reasons why I had not told her for many years. She was humble despite her discomfort, but she asked questions and I answered, and we eventually could talk about my past and my healing from it.

Additional Reflections:

C:   Thank you to the lovely women in the wives group. You are all stronger than you know, and I for one aspire to have a wife who, though I do not desire to sin, will be as strong, gracious, and supportive in my waged war against my own sin as you all are. God bless!

T:    The overall theme I think that can be applied to all of these questions is that while it is good to have an online community to discuss, the best way to understand, connect, and improve on this sin is to openly communicate about this between spouses. Unfortunately, this problem is not just the husband’s problem, it’s the wife’s as well, and both need to understand this. Just like if you marry someone who has a large amount of debt, the debt now becomes the debt for both spouses, and you need to work together and love each other though it. Same with crossdressing. It’s a problem that the husband has to be willing to be honest and work to repent, and the wife needs to give him a shame-free support system that holds him accountable.

N:   Crossdressing is very much encroached in secrecy. Otherwise, a man would crossdress all the time. There is shame involved, and oftentimes it seems crossdressers would love to have their wives or S/O’s embrace their crossdressing rather than deal with the root cause of their crossdressing addiction. It’s essential for both the man and the woman to discuss what is acceptable, and what those beliefs are based upon (i.e. Scripture? Rules? Other’s expectations?…). If a man truly wants to not be governed by crossdressing, then he will choose to not flirt with anything related to crossdressing, and he will not justify engaging in it. Instead, he will cherish your support in helping him focus his thoughts and energies to wholesome endeavors. Crossdressing is truly a poor use of the time we have been entrusted with. It is better to rewrite the script of our agenda with things that we deem worthy of our time. If you don’t have a clear gift or passion, then perhaps begin by finding ways to serve others– family, spouse, community, neighbors, charities, church ministries, etc. Transformation involves replacing one thing with another.

Barnabas:   Thank you to the wives for the courage to ask these questions as you seek for more understanding and navigate the challenges in your own marriages. Thank you to the men for taking their time to answer these questions to help people they will never meet in this life. I encourage readers to pray for these men as they continue to recover, and to pray for the wives in the challenging and painful marriages they find themselves in.