This is a common topic of interest for wives who have husbands dealing with cross-gender sexual addictions, and also for the men themselves who are dealing with these burdens, and want to know how to talk about it with their wives. For wives just learning about their husband’s cross-gender issues, you may still be in shock. Please read this first: Giving pastoral care to a crossdresser or person with gender dysphoria.

I want to share a really great article on this topic of the wife’s role. While it’s not about autogynephilia or crossdressing specifically, I believe the same principles apply. Sexual addictions may have different stimuli, but they all are basically the same. Please take time to read the article. What Every Wife of a Sex Addict Has a Right to Know About Her Husband’s Recovery.

For you as the man dealing with these issues, it can be difficult to know how much to tell your wife and how to involve her in a way that is appropriate and helpful to you both. What I usually suggest for men who are recovering from crossdressing is this. Confess to your wife in a general way about your addiction, including the actions that you have done that you need to confess. Make sure you have a very long talk so that she can understand what a crossdressing addiction entails and what it doesn’t. Explain autogynephilia if it applies to you. But leave out the specific details. The details aren’t necessary and will only give her graphic images in her mind and could hurt her and the marriage even more. She needs your confession, and hopefully forgives you. But she doesn’t need every detail. In the same way, she hasn’t shared with you all of her sinful thoughts she has ever had. You don’t need to share every perverted thought you’ve ever had. So confess what you have done, but without excessive detail. If you’ve committed adultery with a man while crossdressed, I’m not suggesting hiding that. You have to confess what you did and who you did it with, but you could avoid the details of what you and the other person wore, what you said to each other, etc. If you have been addicted to crossdressing fiction, you would confess your addiction, and tell her how you read stories to escape into a feminine fantasy and/or get sexual pleasure from it. But you wouldn’t need to go into the details describing each story. I hope this point is clear. It’s not about keeping secrets. That would be wrong. It’s about avoiding unnecessary graphic detail that adds nothing positive. In the same way, in our recovery groups, we confess to one another without getting into details of what clothing we wore, or what websites we went to, etc.

However, you also have to balance this lack of detail with respecting your wife’s wishes. She has a right to know anything, in my opinion. Especially if she is just finding out suddenly in a shocking way about what you’ve done, she will feel deeply betrayed and hurt. The trust will be devastatingly broken. So she should have the freedom to ask questions and have you answer them honestly. (This may be one of the only things that can help rebuild some semblance of trust). I believe she should be allowed to ask anything she wants and you should answer honestly. You can advise that it might not be helpful for her to know all the details. But if she wants to ask questions, you should still answer. After all, according to 1 Corinthians 7, she owns you! Don’t dodge any question no matter how uncomfortable. You might have to say, “are you sure you want to know that detail? I don’t think it will help you, but I will you if you really want to know.” And then give her the choice.

But I encourage the wives not to try to go down this road too far. Ladies, it’s completely understandable to me that you want to know every detail, because it’s all so painful. Trying to wrap your mind around every action that was done can help you to feel like you are reasserting some control on a life that otherwise feels like it is falling apart. But I can assure you from my experience helping marriages in these situations, sometimes knowing all the details is simply unhelpful for everyone. There are things that you will hear that you will never be able to unhear, ever, for the rest of your life. Does it really help you to know which clothes in your closet your husband at one point wore and which ones he didn’t? Do you want the automatic visual images that will be created when he tells you which specific things? Do you want to give away all of the clothes that he might have touched? If your husband feels utterly disgusted and unclean and full of shame about the really graphic porn or stories that he has read online, do you really want perverted content stuck in your mind as well? Shouldn’t it be enough to know that he looked at the porn, or read the stories, without digesting the disgusting details? I implore you to try to reign in that desire to “know everything.” Ask enough questions to make sure you really understand, and to be sure there is nothing more your husband is hiding from you. But don’t ask so much that you fill your mind with images and perverted thoughts that you will have a very difficult time removing again.

As the recovery moves forward, it’s important for the husband to keep his wife posted on his recovery process. Husband, tell your wife what you are doing and how you are progressing, but again, don’t give her every detail. That is for your accountability partner. (Make sure you have an accountability partner!). She doesn’t need to know every evil thought that goes through your mind. Agree with your wife which relapses she wants you to tell her about and which you will only tell your accountability partner. For example, maybe you will agree together that you will only tell your accountability partner if you give in to impure thoughts and fantasizing, and instances of masturbation or reading fiction online. But that if you give in to actual crossdressing or pornography you would let her know. This is just an example. It may be different for each couple. But I suggest the wife doesn’t need to know about every perverted thought or temptation or trigger that goes through your head. Doing this can make the addiction take more center stage in the relationship. You end up always talking about it, and neither of you can move past it. Bringing it up constantly makes her constantly remember the disgust and how much you hurt her.

But I suggest the wife does need to know you are taking your recovery seriously, that you have a support group or accountability partner, and that you are making progress. Maybe you can agree on one day and time per week that you have a check-in conversation about how you are doing. While you can’t share details of what your accountability partner said, or what is shared in recovery groups, you can let her know the things you are working on, how you are improving, and answer any questions you have, and then pray about it together.

How should wives handle relapses? If the husband is repentant and always confesses, and you can tell he is making progress even if slowly, then relapses should be responded to with grace and mercy and pointing the husband to Christ. Relapses are usually part of the recovery process from an addiction. Excuses shouldn’t be made for relapses. Every one should be taken seriously with real repentance and real steps to change afterwards. But relapses are often part of the recovery process. Please read this article – Breaking Pornography Addiction. The author does a great job at explaining what sanctification and progress looks like in terms of addiction recovery and relapses. If the wife does not respond to her husband with forgiveness, and grace, it may make the husband terrified to confess again and he may retreat into more secrecy and more sin. Of course, the husband has to realize that even if he is repentant, every single relapse will deeply further wound the wife. He must take care to realize that even if his wife forgives him, there may be consequences for his behavior. Each time he relapses and confesses, it may hurt the closeness in the relationship, the intimacy, and it may hurt the trust which has been slowly being rebuilt.

That said, I hope that in most cases the confession itself is a way to slowly rebuild trust. If a husband has been secretly sinning for years, that destroys the trust in the marriage when his wife finds out. But then if he completely, totally and fully breaks that pattern and is 100% honest to always confess any relapse, then there is a chance that trust can slowly be rebuilt in the marriage. The wife can see that he is still struggling but that he has learned to keep his struggle in the light. And she is monitoring his progress with him together. Husbands, realize that if you stop confessing to your wife, because you know how much it hurts her, you are in the end hurting her much more! Because now not only are you being unfaithful and sinning in your sexual habits, but now you have again become dishonest. Now if the wife happens to find out again that you have been secretly sinning again without confessing to her, the marriage may be over, as in divorce. The trust might never come back. So men, as difficult as it is to go to your wife in tears and confess yet again about a relapse, it is FAR better for her and for you to confess than to keep your relapse to yourself and keep failing secretly.

Wives who have been devastated by discovering their husband’s sin, when he wasn’t the one to go to her and repent and confess, may have an even more difficult time rebuilding trust. They may want to keep tabs on everything, including knowing the husband’s location at all times, monitoring his phone and internet activity, monitoring his purchases, or even putting up video cameras in the home. I’m not against some of these measures at the beginning. But I’ve seen some wives be too slow to loosen their grip. This is a huge problem for two reasons. 1. Trust cannot be rebuilt if one is not given a chance to exercise trust and be given trust. And I don’t think you can have a healthy marriage where there is never a chance given for trust to be rebuilt.  2. Self-control cannot be developed if the husband is never given a chance to exercise his self-control muscles. Some freedoms have to be gradually restored over time, so the husband can learn to face temptation and resist it, overcoming it, and having it lose power over him. If his life becomes a prison, or a constant monitoring, he will never learn how to resist temptation for himself.

Sincerely speaking, while these strict measures might be truly necessary for a time after a bad addiction that has seriously harmed a wife, this is no way for either of the spouses to live long-term. Marriage is meant to be about love and affection and partnership and trust. If the husband has to live with these conditions for the rest of his life, there is no healthy marriage possible. A wife must take baby steps from being in the police role, to being a wife again, a loving spouse in partnership with her husband. If a divorce is necessary then get a divorce. Sometimes that is necessary even though so very painful. But wives, if you are willing to remain in the marriage, then I urge you to begin the gradual process of forgiveness, a slow rebuilding of trust, a slow rebuilding of intimacy, and a slow opening allowance of freedom from the strict measures. Keep the end goal in mind, and consider the steps necessary to reach that goal. The goal should NOT be simply that the husband stops sinning in these ways. The goal should be a healthy marriage, and a healthy life with God, family, and the community. To reach that goal the trust and marital partnership need to be rebuilt, the husband needs to learn self control, and learn how to overcome his addiction, even when your eyes are not on him.

Husbands, true repentance means accepting the consequences of your actions. Give your wife space to heal. Don’t pressure her for sex or intimacy. Don’t expect trust to rebuilt in a day or a month. Give your wife space to be angry, and to be hurt. If you try to force her to move on quickly, or try to shame her for still feeling hurt or pain, I suggest you have not fully engaged in the process of thinking through your sin and repenting in your heart. Be patient, and let love and trust regrow. Be fully honest, confess any relapses, and keep your wife informed about your recovery process. Put into action whatever steps you need to make in order to make change.

This post is related to this topic and gives some more information about talking to your wife about this. How do I tell my wife, a friend, or a pastor about my crossdressing?