Most people who come to this website wrongly jump to conclusions about me. Some people think that one day I decided to give up crossdressing and everything has been easy sailing since. And so they despair when they themselves are not able to give it up so easily. When they have a relapse and fall into crossdressing, they decide to permanently give up trying to quit. Others who come to this website think that I am in denial and suppressing myself and my happiness, and that I must be miserable. Others think I’m a liar and have not really given up crossdressing. Others think that I have given up crossdressing only out of terror of the Almighty God and that it’s not what I really would want to do. None of those assumptions are true. None are nuanced enough to explain the reality, not only of my story, but of the scores of other men I know who have given up crossdressing. I am indeed experiencing great freedom and happiness because of having given up crossdressing, yet sometimes it has not been easy sailing, and I have had periodic failures/relapses in the last decade. If you are going to give up this addiction, you need to look at it realistically. And realistically, it is a long term struggle.
I’ve written about this before in several posts such as – “Healing doesn’t mean no more temptations” and “How I successfully fought temptation but then failed” and “10 minute relapse.”
The Christian life is one in which we are already saved through Christ. We are justified by faith in Christ as our Savior. We are saved by grace. We don’t have to fear punishment as Jesus has already taken our punishment, and we are given the perfect righteousness of Christ so that God can look at us as righteous people deserving of eternal life rather than Hell. But although we are saved from the consequences of our sin, the reality is that we are still living sinful lives. We have been declared righteous in God’s sight through Christ, but our actual righteousness is still often quite pitiful in this life. All of us Christians are in the process of sanctification, the process by which the Holy Spirit works in us and helps us to become more obedient, more loving, more Christ-like, and more holy. It’s a long process that won’t be complete until Jesus returns and makes us perfect. In the meantime, we should be clearly seen to be transformed people who are more holy and more full of good works and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time, we struggle as we keep fighting against sin. We are not yet perfect. Our hearts still easily turn towards selfishness and pride. And even in our actions we periodically fall into sin and run back to God in repentance and we ask for forgiveness.
Sanctification does not mean that we will be perfect right now. No. We still sin, we still struggle. But it does mean that we don’t “walk” in sin or walk in darkness. We fight sin. We repent, we confess. We keep trying to please God. We obey Jesus because we love him. The evidence of being born again is not perfection, but it is that we no longer walk in sin or in darkness. We want to obey God. We want to fight sin. We don’t do so perfectly, but we keep trying. If you want to be assured that you are truly saved and born again, your life should exhibit these traits. You will not be living in sin. Instead you will be fighting sin and trying to live for God, even if you don’t do so perfectly.
In the life of sanctification, some sins are really easy for us to fight, though they differ from person to person. It’s very easy, for example, for me to never steal again for the rest of my life. I’m certain I won’t. (Of course people change and walk away from God and fall into sins they never expected, but that’s not what I’m talking about here). It’s very easy for me to say I will never murder. It’s very easy to say I will never rape someone. Etc. But other sins are more virulent or personally attached to us. We each have our own sins that we especially struggle with. For me, one of them has been sexual addiction, primarily everything related to crossdressing. But as I’ve become more resistant to crossdressing temptations, I have found I have become more tempted to sexual things that never used to tempt me, like desires that randomly spring up to look up pictures of women online. It takes self-control and reliance on Jesus to help me to continue to resist such temptations when they come up. It seems that fighting sexual temptations is going to be a regular part of my life until Jesus makes me perfect. But this is how the Christian life is described in God’s Word. A regular putting to death of sin in our lives, a regular reliance on God to help us battle sinful desires. A constant striving towards godliness.
Why should I see myself as any different from others who have addictions? An alcoholic can successfully give up alcohol, but alcohol will remain a temptation and a negative influence on his life until he dies, and he will have to continually be on his guard and watch out for it. He will have times of calm, smooth sailing with no temptations, perhaps for years, and then all of a sudden be at a wedding or party and have severe temptation. That is the life of an alcoholic. That is also my life, the life of a former crossdressing and online content addict. I will have times of smooth sailing, and times of severe temptation out of the blue. Those temptations might not fully go away.
But do I despair? No. Do I give up? No. Having strong temptations come up suddenly after very long periods of victory and ease is shocking, but it doesn’t make me give up. I just have to be ready to resist when such desires arise. I’m not going to give up and give in just because it’s hard. And as a matter of fact, though the temptations are annoying, I’m living a very happy life, and the more temptations I resist, the more I live the life that God wants me to live, the more healthy and happy that I am. I know that non-Christians probably won’t understand this, but a periodic failure is not evidence to me that I should give up on my resistance to crossdressing. If anything, it’s been the opposite. Each time I have relapsed, it has only reminded me of how worthless crossdressing is (and any autogynephilic sexual online content), and how much happier I am without it, and how much better it is to obey God. My temptations for crossdressing have overall dramatically and amazingly lessened over the years, to a point I sometimes have trouble believing it. It’s amazing to think back to when I struggled with temptation every day, and now I can go for many months at a time in between any small feeling of temptation. But even if temptations remained strong every day, I would not give up. I’m in this for the long haul, until my Lord Jesus comes.
There is no reason to think failure is assured. We have self-control and don’t have to give in. But you should very much expect the temptations to come. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t think that this is going to be an easy quick struggle. It’s a long time war against our enemy. We can win, but you have to be in it for the long haul. And when you fail, don’t let yourself binge out of control and restart your addiction, don’t allow yourself to despair, don’t allow yourself to wallow in guilt, and don’t allow yourself to hear the lies that it’s better to just give in and stop resisting. Just recognize it for what it is, accept God’s grace and forgiveness, and begin the life of holiness once again. Get back to the freedom you were enjoying and live in that freedom again.
When you resist temptations to crossdress, rejoice! Celebrate! Be happy about your victory. But realize that when the next hard temptation comes, whether next week, or next year, it might be an even stronger temptation than the previous one. Be ready. This is a long struggle, but you can do it. Don’t despair when things get tough. That may mean you are nearing the top of the mountain and ready to deal a serious blow to the addiction so that you can walk easy for a few years before you get to the next mountain of temptation. But don’t give up just as you nearing the top of the mountain!
And remember this. God told us in his Word over and over and over to rejoice at the trials we go through. Why? Because it strengthens us. As we experience temptation and resist it, we are learning self-control (one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit), we develop compassion for others who struggle, we are learning to choose the good over the bad, we are learning patience, we are experiencing dependence on God and closeness to him as we go to him for help to resist, we become more grateful for the salvation we have in Jesus and how he resisted temptation perfectly so that we could be saved, and we are developing a thirst for Heaven and Jesus’ return when he will end our temptations forever.
I hope you think carefully through this post. My message to all of you who are trying to quit crossdressing, and those of you struggling with daily dysphoria, is this – Don’t give up! Persevere. This is a long struggle but a very worthwhile one. There is hope for your desires to change and for temptations to dramatically lessen. I have experienced that. But temptations come out of the blue because this is a life-long struggle. I have experienced that. You may fail unexpectedly. I have experienced that. Don’t give up. Keep living a righteous and good life without crossdressing. It is worth it. Rejoice at the times of peace and calm where you go for years without desiring this sin. And when the desires come, don’t despair, resist and conquer and keep on going. May we all persevere until our Lord returns and makes us new and brings an end to our long struggle.
Recent Comments