Dear Coleen

EXPLICIT PHOTOS THREATEN MARRIAGE

I’m a lifelong cross-dresser and my wife has known about this since we started dating. I’ve been completely honest with her all along, told her I wanted to take female hormones and that I wanted to be with men.

Recently, my wife found pictures of me dressed as a woman, having sex with two men and she got angry with me and started calling me “queer”.

I’m totally confused by the way she’s acting. I thought I did everything right by being open with her. Am I wrong?

Coleen says

I think it’s perhaps time that your wife is honest with herself about how she feels being in the marriage. Maybe she’s done quite a good job of ignoring your cross-dressing or burying it at the back of her mind and telling herself she’s comfortable with it.

But these explicit photos have brought it home to her that you have this other life that she’s not a part of.

You’re sleeping with other guys and you don’t say if you and your wife agreed to this kind of open relationship. If you haven’t, then she’ll see it as you cheating on her. From your letter, it sounds as if she didn’t know you were having sex with other people until she found these photos.

Just because you’re open and honest about something, doesn’t mean it’s dealt with and you can wrap it up and move on. People can change their minds and boundaries can shift, which a partner might not be OK with. So you have to keep talking and listening to each other.

You have to be frank about what you want for the future and what you’re each willing to compromise on. It might be that neither of you is willing to compromise on important things and that you’ll be happier as friends, and living lives where you have the freedom to truly be yourselves without worrying about hurting the other person.

Good luck.