Rant – When You’re Not Allowed To Help Out Old Friends and New Crossdressers

Edit: Following rant is not entirely valid at this point. My overall points still remain true but some of the specifics that weren’t outlined to me have been specified in a private conversation between Mary and I. In other words, we talked it out like adults (yay!) and there are no hard feelings. We agreed to disagree on some points but my friend and I are going to be able to continue chatting and catching up. All in all, mellow ending to the drama.

WARNING… WARNING… BELOW IS A RANT… WARNING… WARNING… LOTS OF CUSSING INVOLVED

So I’m on myspace. I’m not on it often, I much prefer Facebook, but I go on every other week or so to play with my apps and to see if anyone has messaged me. Back in December I got a message from an old high school friend (and boyfriend for about, oh, two mighty weeks) named “Jay”. Jay contacted me to catch up and we chatted a little about how life was going. He married his senior year high school sweetheart “Mary” and they’ve got X number of kids, he does X for a living and he’s away from home a lot because of it, he misses them dreadfully… all the usual “hey it’s been ten years, how’ve you been, let’s catch up” sort of chat. I like these chats. I’m not a terribly social person now and catching up with people who knew me when I WAS social is always a pleasant surprise.

Then he hits me with this:

I took a look at your profile, it says you are a writer, and in the pics your hubby was en fem, looks good, how often does he go that way? I’ve just recently come to terms with my sexuality and enjoyment of womens clothing. I haven’t told my wife yet, I figured it could wait until I got home.

Wow. Okay. Not something I would have expected from this old friend, but it’s not a bad thing. It was just a little funny since I’d recently received two other emails from previous boyfriends who ALSO had turned out to be CD. (Either it’s the South Texas water or it’s me… or maybe I just really like open-minded guys. Either way, I found the Third-Time’s-A-Charm sort of amusing.)

Okay, well, I offered said friend a little advice, told him he wasn’t alone, and promised to be an open and understanding ear if he ever needed one. I also said that I’d be there for his wife if she wanted someone who had been there to listen. I’ve never met this woman (who was a freshman when Jay and I were seniors and graduating) but I was more than willing to get on the phone and chat with her to help her figure out this whole new world they were going to face. Essentially, I said “I understand, it’s okay, you’re not alone, and if you or the wife ever need help, I’m here”.

That’s all.

I sent off my reply and waited. A few weeks later I get a very quick response that’s titled, “Sorry I didn’t get your response”.

My wife got to snooping because she knew I was conflicted about something. I asked her to do some deletions and she accidentally (Note: My emphasis) deleted your as a friend and thusly all your messages. She wasn’t very happy about finding out that way. She felt betrayed that I would go to you first. we’re talking about it now. I hope all goes well.

My first response on reading the message was, “Oh honey! That sucks!” My second, “Shit!” My third, “Poor Mary!” My forth, “That dummy. Why did he ask his wife to delete messages off of his myspace when he knew there were conversations there he wasn’t ready to broach yet?” My fifth, “Oh well, if they need to talk I’m still here.”

I sent back a reply reiterating the fact that I was there for them and left it at that. No response. I figured they were working stuff out and decided to leave it at that. If Jay really wanted to catch up he had my email address. If she wanted to talk she could get my contact info from him. Either way, my life was filled with other more important objectives than the drama of an old friend from high school and his wife.

Fast forward to today. I’m cleaning out my myspace messages and I find this, from Mary, hidden hip-deep among the app requests and sent between the first email from Jay and the “everything got accidentally deleted” email. (I did mention that I’m hardly ever on myspace, right?)

I know that you probably didn’t initiate contact with Jay, however I would appreciate it if you did not try and talk to him again. He is very confused and does not need someone like you supporting him. He is going to fight this crazyiness going on in his head and it probably has to do with the fact that he is away from his family and in a war zone. I will support his recovery from this mental illness. I will not support the ideas in his head, and I don’t want you to either. So please, I am respectfully asking you not to contact him anymore. Thank you for understanding.

Wait… what? I read it again and again, growing more infuriated each time. I went back and reread Jay’s messages, only THEN noticing the fact that he’d mentioned that she’d “accidentally” deleted me from his account. I couldn’t believe it. I was… well, floored is the nicest term I had for the fury that was building inside. The only GOOD thing I had to say about the whole passive-aggressive message was the “polite” tone used… (in that she didn’t call me a “freak-loving hag fag” or something along those lines.)

Okay. That’s it. It’s on. First of all, you NEVER tell your spouse who they can and cannot contact unless they have broken the commandments of marriage. You may not LIKE that he’s talking to me but telling him OR me that we can’t talk is just wrong. It shows mistrust in your marriage, mistrust in your love, AND a disturbing lack of self-confidence in yourself. It shows that you are threatened by me and honey, there is absolutely NO REASON to be. I don’t want your fucking husband. I’ve got one of my own, thanks. I’m very fond of mine, he’s mostly trained regarding the trash and the dishes and whatnot, and I’m not looking to trade him in.

Secondly, I will support whoever I want to support, okay? It is not up to you to decide who I can and cannot support. That’s what this website is about – support and love – and the fact that you’re pissing all over who your husband IS just makes me want to scream. Now I understand that you feel betrayed. This is a common feeling among the wives of crossdressers who’ve hidden their crossdressing. It is especially common when they discover that said husband didn’t come to them first but went to someone else. In your case it has to be especially galling when that someone else is not only a friend he hasn’t spoken to in seven or eight years but one he also briefly swapped germs with. I get that. However your immediate response was not mature. It came off sounding mature, sure. There was no name calling. There was no cursing. But your immediate rejection of everything he is was not mature. Cutting him off from people who DO accept him – warts, crossdressing, and all – was not mature. And “accidentally” deleting me from his account. WAY WAY not mature.

Finally – and here’s the important part – crossdressing is NOT a mental illness. It is NOT because he’s in a war zone. It is NOT because he’s away from you and your supposedly “I am Helen of Troy, no man will ever CONSIDER being anything less than 100% manly around me” crotch and all the nookie you two have together. It is not because he’s away from you and your kids. It really, really isn’t. This, as much as I’m sure it galls you to hear this, has NOTHING to do with you. The ONLY place you have in this whole situation is the place AT HIS SIDE, either helping him or hindering him, as he walks this road. And Mary, let me tell you this very important fact, whether or not you support him… he will STILL CROSSDRESS. I’ve heard this story A LOT over the years. Wife thinks it’s a mental illness. Wife thinks he’s a freak. Wife thinks this, wife thinks that. Well you know what happens to those wives?

They get left, Mary.
They end up divorced.
OR, if they DON’T end up divorced, they end up LIED to. FOR YEARS.
Because crossdressing isn’t something you DO, Mary, it’s who you ARE.

So it’s your choice, Mary. Yours and yours alone.
You can support him and help him through this. Or you can fool yourself into thinking that he isn’t going to do it because he said he wasn’t. And Jay’s a nice guy. He might NOT do it. At least… not at first. He might hold off a few years. One crossdresser I recently met has been “mostly holding off” for TWENTY YEARS. The FIRST thing he did when they separated? Started dressing out full time to make up for the years he lost while with his wife.

So yeah, you can make him NOT dress up.
But you know what? He’ll be miserable.
Do you want to be THAT wife? That wife who’s such a bitch she doesn’t care HOW unhappy her husband is so long as her little boat remains unrocked?

The thing that gets me, the thing that just makes me cringe, is that you’re a mom, Mary. I know, I know, being a mother doesn’t make you superhuman, but it does make you a teacher. And I know one of those lessons you’re teaching is LOVE.

But love on what terms, Mary? Because from where I’m sitting it looks like you’re not practicing what you preach. Or are you teaching your kids that it’s great to love someone but the person they love HAS to fit their every expectation? Are you teaching your kids that they can love someone but ONLY if that someone does everything they want them to do? Because maybe my lessons were a little backward (Catholic guilt is a mighty powerful thing, after all) but I was taught that Jesus was all about loving someone no matter what.

Love, real love, doesn’t mean you have to LIKE every part of the person you’re with but it does mean that you should try and accept or compromise with the parts you don’t like.

Don’t believe me? Take Chris Rock’s word on the subject:

And right then,
your relationship’s in trouble. That’s right.
‘Cause if you can’t share what you’re like,
you’ll have problems.
When you love somebody,
you got to love everything about them.
You got to love the crust of a motherfucker.
You can’t just love
the white part of the bread.
You gotta love the crust, the crumbs,
the tiny crumbs at the bottom of the toaster.
That’s what the real motherfucker is.
Whatever you into, your woman
gotta be into, too, and vice versa…
or the shit ain’t gonna work.
lt ain’t gonna work.
That’s right. lf you born-again,
your woman gotta be born-again, too.
lf you a crackhead,
your woman gotta be a crackhead, too…
or the shit won’t work.
You can’t be like, ”l’m going to church,
where you going?” ”Hit the pipe!”
That relationship ain’t going nowhere.
Two crackheads can stay together forever.

Finally – and here’s the important part – we’re going to have a little hypothetical conversation here. Let’s put you firmly in Jay’s shoes, okay?

One day you go to your husband and you say to him, “Darling, I want to go to school. I want to be a doctor. We have the money, I have the time set aside, I’ll even do it under another name so no one around us knows. I need to do this, for me, to feel good about myself and what I can accomplish. I think being a doctor will make me a better person. At the very least it will make me FEEL like a better person. It will make me FEEL like a COMPLETE person.”
And your husband says to you, “Doctor? That’s crazy-talk! You’ve got some sort of mental illness! Don’t worry, honey, we’ll get you help! All you need is your family beside you and to be in the kitchen barefoot, making babies, and cooking me dinner and all those insane doctor-thoughts will go away! And, if worse comes to worse and you just can’t get those thoughts out of your head, well, we’ll use pills! Or shock treatment! You’ll be cured! I promise it! Now go back into that kitchen and bring me a beer.”

Sound a little overboard? A hundred years ago it wouldn’t have been.
One. Hundred. Years.
That’s it. That’s all that stands between us – women who can do anything they set their minds to – and lobotomies and shock therapy for those unhappy few who got uppity and wanted to improve their place. Did it happen to everyone? Nope, but it did happen to several. Back then even the IDEA of the average female being a doctor was crazy talk.

And now even the idea of your husband being a crossdresser is crazy talk too.

So you have a decision to make, Mary. You have a big choice ahead of you. You can either wake up and smell the coffee – the new, open, and understanding life you COULD have with your husband – or you can dig yourself in deep and cling with all your might to all those misconceptions you have about gender relationships and exactly how the human mind and heart works.

It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be depressed. It’s okay to be confused, frustrated, and feel a little betrayed that he didn’t come to you first. All those emotions are OKAY. But trying to CHANGE him isn’t okay. You don’t have to LIKE it – hell, you don’t even have to DEAL with it if you don’t want to – but changing him is wrong. If you don’t want to divorce but you don’t want to handle his crossdressing, that’s great, give him an hour a week to lock himself up in the bedroom and dress up. He would probably appreciate it if you were more on board than that, but believe me, even that little bit of compromise is worlds more than some crossdressing husbands get.

The point I’m trying to get at here is just this… it’s okay to be emotional about all this. It’s a shock to your marriage and to your peace of mind and to your own personal self esteem. But let me put it to you like this – it does NOT diminish you to allow him to feel pretty. It doesn’t. He isn’t taking anything away from you. So what does it hurt to allow him to improve his own life? You like feeling pretty too.

Think about it like that.
You like feeling pretty too. Would you stop your daughter, your sister, your mother, or your best friend from feeling pretty? Would you stop a random lady on the street and tell her to “Stop Dressing that Way! You’re Not Allowed To Feel Pretty!”"
Of course not. So why is it okay to stop your husband?

Either way, even though I’m disappointed in you, Mary, I want to let you know that I’m still here if you need to talk. I know you’re confused. I know you’re upset. I’m going to stand by the essence of your request and I’m not going to contact Jay ever again. BUT if he emails ME looking for an ear to listen to him then he has it. He was one of my best friends once upon a time and that isn’t changing. Since I know what you’ve been through and what you’re going through you also have my ear and my shoulder if you need them.

Good luck. I hope you change your mind.

Tags: advice, discussion, family, finding out, rant