Chapter V: The Empire Strikes Back

I'm sure I can twist this in some way to make it kind of like the Star Wars story but I'll not even attempt the full on parody - for a start, what happens is just not funny in the slightest.

So, I had been exploring the inner Fiona and had managed through cunning, charm, and amazing ability - no, actually just sheer dumb luck - to not get caught with a suitcase (make that several) full of clothes. So my wife had no idea, she was blissfully unaware of what I was doing and what I was beginning to realise I was.

For those of you with a cruel streak have a look at the very early pictures on Flickr and you'll see what I looked like then - terrible! But certainly not just someone wearing a few bits of underwear for kicks or with just a bit of a fetish for the odd girlie thing. I have to admit that certainly some of the things I bought were because I thought they looked or felt sexy, and yes, making yourself into (in your deluded eyes) an attractive female form is a turn on ... in a bizarre way it's also alot easier (and safer) than alternative methods of sexual satisfaction that errant husbands away on business often indulge in.

It got to the point after a few trips, and after talking alot on one of the forums that I realised that this was not going to go away and that it was not longer a case of turning it off again and throwing everything away. So this is when I started asking about how to go about telling my wife. I asked first of all if I should and of course people said that yes, this is the right thing to do, you shouldn't have secrets, it's the person you love.

I thought about this quite alot and decided that it would be quite nice to have everything out in the open, in fact I convinced myself that telling my wife about Fiona would be a wonderful thing as it would mean absolutely no secrets at all, she would know everything about me completely. She already knew about the past girlfriends (not many so that topic didn't take long to cover when we were going out) and pretty much everything else.

I actually felt quite thrilled at the idea of telling everything. I also thought that being completely honest would mean that my wife would know and understand me more and that she would be able almost reconstruct all of my thoughts and feelings by knowing so much about me and, without this missing piece alot of who I am would affectively be lost.

I have to admit that some of the whole "missing piece" thoughts also had a geeky twist to them; picture the scenario; in the year 4000 they are trying to create a hologram of me and reconstruct my consciousness but they have no record of the Fiona bit ... disaster, what they get isn't me! Yeah, I know, I should really cut down on the sci-fi books/films :D

Anyway, my wife and I were also getting on well after all my travelling and a few glitches related to this (and maybe to my keeping this secret and the affects it still had on me to some extent). So I thought even more that this would be something that she could deal with, that by telling we would become better together. We'd have a better life, we'd have a better sex life, in general we'd be closer and more intimate.

So I tried to prepare to tell her. This is hard. Really it is, and too be honest I made a complete and utter mess of it all!

I won't drone on about it too much, in short this is what happened.

About one week after our anniversary (my wife tells me this is when it was and this in particular hurt her) we were lying in our bed and I was trying to get my wife to put on some sexy lingerie (or maybe she was just taking some off and complaining about it, I forget) and the conversation went like this:

Wife: "I hate wearing this stuff"
Me: "Well, it's my turn to wear it next!" (hopeful sound in voice I suspect)
Wife: "Are you some sort of transvestite"
Me: "Actually yes I am"

At this point decent into hellish scene of confusion, tears, and disbelief.

I ended up in the spare room and my wife cried her heart out most of the night. I was stunned, I didn't know what to do.

I can't remember much about the morning I think we talked and I tried to explain. My wife didn't really understand it all and it obviously didn't sink in though she seemed to calm down - I think this was just the shock.

We had to take our son to meet up with his Grandma (my wife's mother) and I said I'd drive ... again calm going down. Nothing was said until we got back ... and then more hell, more questions, more tears, more hurt.

In the end my wife couldn't take it and had to tell someone so she phoned her mother and poured her heart out. Her mother was angry, hurt, confused and then some more angry ... she said (and I still think this is somewhat 'funny') that she was going to phone my parents (never have figured out exactly why she felt the need to do this) ... so this means I had to phone them first ... by which time I was in a complete state.

My wife wanted me out of the house but she had reached another calm point whereas I was in no fit state to drive or even move, I have only cried more in my life a few times since, and one of them was shortly after all of this happened, I'll come to that in a little while.

So I spent some time at my parents house, again alot of which I can't remember now, certainly we talked and I tried to explain as best I could. Eventually though I had to go back home because I was flying out to India for two weeks with work and needed to get some things. Yes, I should really have stayed to sort things out, but at the time my wife really didn't want me there and we were heading for divorce. So, I thought it would be better to be away for 2 weeks to give us both space.

So now we come to one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever gone through. I went back to the house, my mother-in-law was there, the place had been turned upside down and any evidence of me had been removed (photos, books, etc). I had to try and pack some things but before I did I wanted to see my son ... I remember carrying him to the dining room and hugging him and trying to talk to him. I remember him pointing out of the window at something and talking away as if nothing was happening. When I went upstairs to pack I just broke down, I have never felt so utterly drained and in pain than I did at that point.

I flew out and, as will not be surprising to anyone of a similar persuasion I still had Fiona clothes and things with me even then! (If I do the prequels to this story it might explain why, in in the depths of such sadness I would even consider doing this when my activities had caused so much pain). My wife and I talked more when I was out in India and I even had to phone my in-laws; they were "disappointed" in me and didn't want to see me - both are fairly understandable reactions.

When I got back (in time for my sons birthday) my wife and I talked some more and she had decided that, given that I abide by certain rules, that she would take me back and we would not divorce. The "rules" were pretty fair I have to say and allowed me to carry on with the Fiona things while away from the house but strictly not while at home.

So, it seemed like we could move forward, albeit with some comprimise and still with a long, long way to go with understanding and acceptance but it was a start at building our relationship back up for the sake of our son, our marriage and ourselves.

Sadly, as you'll have seen from the latest posts, this hasn't been at all easy and it looks like we're far from a happy ending at the moment. I'll post the next bit of the story later, and try and explain what happened in the following 2 years leading up to the problems that we have now and why things really just haven't got better, and if anything are now much worse.