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'I'm uncomfortable with my partner's cross-dressing'

Photo credit: Nina Vartanava / EyeEm - Getty Images
Photo credit: Nina Vartanava / EyeEm - Getty Images

From Red Online

Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist, Red’s agony aunt and the author of bestselling parenting book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read. Here, she advises a reader who is uncomfortable with her partner's cross-dressing.

I love my husband, and early in our relationship he told me he liked to wear women’s clothes as a means of escape for him. I know more than anything he would like me to help choose his clothes and makeup and then go out with him near where we live. We discuss it about three times a year and I always say let me think about it, hoping he will forget because I really don’t want to go out with him dressed as a woman.


A few years ago, we went to see a psychologist, and she said it was something he chose to do and if it was making life difficult for us he should stop. Since then he has dressed when I have been at home rarely and never without my agreement. But recently I have come home early a couple of times and he has been in the middle of getting dressed. Despite saying it is fine and he should carry on he has been embarrassed and immediately stopped.

I feel I am being unfair but the whole process makes me feel very uncomfortable. I need to find a way to embrace this part of him, but I just can’t get my head round it.

Philippa says: This is who your husband is, a man who likes to dress in women’s clothes. I believe the psychologist was mistaken - it’s not a choice as much as a compulsion.

And it seems to make you uncomfortable. Try to unpick that to understand yourself better. Why does it make you uncomfortable? What are you afraid of? Why do you need your husband to be attractive to you all the time? What meanings are you putting on to his behaviour? What are you imagining other people are thinking? Why do you let this affect you both? This is a man you love.

The wiring to dress as a woman sometimes is not something that will go away as you know, so how far can you accommodate him? You know how much discomfort you are willing to tolerate and, I think because you love him, you should tolerate that much and no more.

You are entitled to your boundaries around this. You could say, for example, ‘I’ll go out Wednesday mornings and I promise not to come back early’ (if you are comfortable with that). You could say, ‘I will go on a train into town with you, dressed, and we’ll go into some shops, try some stuff on and come home again, and we can do this twice a year and no more.’

I think if you knew you had your own boundaries about how much you could, for his sake, tolerate, you wouldn’t be so frightened about losing the ‘man’ part of him – or whatever it is that makes you uneasy.

You probably know that I have been happily married to a transvestite for the past 30 years. Google ‘Philippa and Grayson Perry’ and hit images.

Photo credit: David M. Benett - Getty Images
Photo credit: David M. Benett - Getty Images

I look comfortable in most of the pictures. Why? Because I am usually more worried about what I’m wearing than what he is wearing, and I am very used to it. Was I uncomfortable when we first started going out? At times, I was. Then I got used to it, and now I admire it. My comfort zone expanded.

You can’t love someone and pretend another part of them doesn’t exist, so begin to embrace it within your limits and I think you will feel more comfortable over time. It’s as though you need to surrender to the situation. There’s nothing wrong with being uncomfortable some of the time, but know what your limit is and put down your boundary before you reach it. When discomfort becomes distress, that is the limit. Put the boundary down before you hit distress.

Of course, if this all sounds abhorrent, you can carry on as you are, not really addressing the issue, or you can split up. But I hope you both find a way forward.

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