So far so good?

I actually 'came out' to my wife in November; although I've been looking for the right moment for quite sometime. I'm not going to get into the philosophy of it all because what works for me might not work for someone else; but needless to say, with 20+ years being together we each have a pretty good understanding how the other thinks and feels.

You see, I had reached a time in my life that I wanted to get out and meet others like me, to ask questions to see if others feel the same as me, am I unique or am I a special case ... am I going nuts? - at least I found the answer to the last point a confident 'no'!

Anyway, back to the story; I arranged with Kay Denise to go along to 'Tea with Teela' a monthly event that takes place at a local dressing agency; Kay offered to be my guide for the evening. Now I don't like lying and I certainly didn't want to lie to my wife so when she asked where I was going this particular evening I simply said 'to meet some friends I chat to on the internet', and that everything was 'cool'. Of course as any good partner does, she pressed for some clarity as what this might mean, so I eventually told her that I wanted meet others that liked to dress in womens clothes.

The penny dropped quite quickly to this (as you might imagine!), she didn't really need to ask the next question as to whether I was going dressed... but she did - but bear in mind that over the long period of our relationship, my wife had made quite a number comments and observations as to my 'more girly than most guys' demeaner, which I have always taken to be quite encouraging signs. Despite the question, I managed to evade answering it directly - opting for a small steps approach, reiterating that despite what I had just said, I was still 'me' and nothing had really changed. We talked for sometime and laughed a little at some of the situations a revelation such as this might make, but we agreed to keep it all just between the two of us.

Although she was initially a little upset on hearing all this, she was relieved; apparently she thought I had some interest in wife swapping or something!.

So that evening, I went along to 'Tea with Teela', met Kay and a number of other girls and had a very nervous time! - next time I plan to be a bit more relaxed and at least try some of the cake on offer!

And as for my fantastic partner; well, she accepted a new-but-not-so-surprising-side to me, and a few days later insisted that we should go shopping together to the Trafford Centre. Kate got a couple of new outfits, a nice fur-lined jacket, shoes and so on, and we had a lot of fun. The following day she showed me how to put makeup on - although it wasn't so different to what I had been doing for myself for sometime, perhaps a little more subtle than what I had been used to.

She then insisted that I try on my new outfits to see if they fitted ok - after all, when you're in 'Bob' mode, you can hardly try them on in the shop can you? So I put on my nice new sparkly top and skirt and asked my wife if she would be comfortable in seeing me in the full get-up? This was to be the first time she would meet 'Kate' and she was ok - upto a point; she made it quite clear she wasn't comfortable with me being touchy-feely with her ... which for me is a little dissapointing since we are both quite tactile on showing our affection for each other. Oh well, perhaps all in good time... my only hope was that I hadn't put her off altogether.

The moral of this tale so far is that you can't rush into anything. If like me you're fortunate enough to broach the topic with your partner and survive, the secret is to introduce further information a little at a time and at a pace she can accept. Small steps... that's the key!