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Excellent point, communication is paramount to the success of a loving relationship.

A friend of mine's husband told her that his crossdressing is "no big deal." It bothered her because the phrase tended to dismiss her feelings; I understand and agree. I've often also thought of this phrase myself and thought it might be interesting to consider what it means to me. I'm not offering any solutions here, just food for thought and, perhaps, conversation with your partner. By the way: I'm using feminine pronouns for the husband, which is the polite/supportive thing to do for her; My apologies to my FTM brethren as I'm only talking here about the husband being the transgender person. Now with that behind us let's dig in! I'm first considering it from my perspective. (It's my blog, I get to choose who goes first. ) When I think of my crossdressing as "no big deal" here's some my reasoning: It's just clothes after all, at least in the privacy of our own home. Who cares if I'm dressing in feminine finery? My therapists have also said that it shouldn't be a big deal. I wish my wife could also treat it as no big deal because then I'd feel better about myself. As it is I feel like there is a winner and a loser, and we should both be able to win. I am and will stay faithful to my wife and am confident that I will not stray no matter what. I still am the person she fell in love with at my core. Shouldn't she feel happy that I'm "finding myself" and support me? Okay fine, let's consider what might be going on in my wife's mind for whom it seems to be a Very Big Deal indeed. She was socialized to be the pretty one in relationships and society, to wear feminine clothing and be feminine. If I'm feminine too, where does that leave her? Should she now consider herself to be a lesbian? I think it's known that cisgender women may judge each other pretty harshly at times, and "their man" may be a proxy for her success as a woman. What does it mean if he crossdresses (privately or not)? Is it because of some failing of the wife's? Although we know that gender orientation isn't correlated or the same as sexual orientation, my wife is still concerned that in the euphoria of the moment (aka "Pink Fog") I might be tempted to experiment. Who's to say that I might so enjoy crossdressing that I find myself inexorably drawn to Gender Affirmation hormones and/or surgery? How will this affect our sex life? Will we even have a sex life going forward? And if not, why should I accept that? If our marriage/relationship needs to dissolve, how will I explain this to my family and friends? Oh my goodness: the scale is leaning so heavily toward my wife. Maybe I'm just being negative. I am sure there are missing points in both my and my wife's sections. Please feel free to post your thoughts on all this. Regardless of whether you agree with what I wrote or not I think it always comes down to communication between ourselves and our partners. Easy for me to say but I think my wife and I are making some progress. Yeah! I wish you a safe New Years celebration and a thoroughly wonderful and fulfilling 2015, Emma

We all know all to well that there are people that do not understand gay, lesbian and transgender people. With that said I consider New Year's Eve a time when you just might come in contact with them and if so there is always the chance of what I call "Gang/Group Mentality" where one person may start something and others will join in that would not normally join in if not in a group. Even though I am highly trained things can still go sideways, my guess is most people here are not highly train which puts you in harms way so please be careful.