Ask Amy: Wife Hates Husband's Lingerie Secret Habit

[cereta]

Dear Amy: I have been married almost 15 years to a man I first knew in high school. I first became aware of his problem several years ago, when I found a bra hanging in our laundry room that was not my size. Finally, my husband confessed he'd bought it for himself. He said it was a one-time occurrence.

After he returned from a business trip, I found more women's lingerie. He assured me this would not occur again. Then, I found a white gown and panties in his backpack in the trunk of his car. Yes, I was snooping, because I remained suspicious.

He wrote me an email telling me he was fascinated with female lingerie. I decided that he had a fetish, and sought marital counseling. He attended, but he didn't think it helped. I told him then that if he had to make these purchases I did not want to ever know about them, and I'd better not ever find evidence.

Last week I discovered two emails on his phone (yes, I was snooping again) where he has ordered almost $1,000 of lingerie AND women's clothing.

He also has a secret post office box where these shipments are delivered.

I sent him a letter to the P.O. box asking him WHY he has it, and WHY he was buying women's clothing.

So far, he hasn't acknowledged the letter.

Our relationship has suffered because I feel betrayed. I do not feel loved, respected or cared for.

I think I still love him, but this behavior disgusts me (maybe it shouldn't).

Your advice?
-- Confused Wife

Dear Wife: You have demanded that your husband must not disclose anything about this fetish to you. You have also demanded that you must never find any evidence of it.

He seems to have gone to great lengths to keep this a secret, as you insist he must.

So why do you keep snooping? If you don't want to be confronted by something, then don't look for it.

Cross-dressing (or perhaps only purchasing women's clothing) is obviously a very important part of your husband's life. It is shocking to me that your therapist didn't help you to talk about this during your sessions. The way you two communicate -- via email and now postal letter -- is passive and one-sided. You both seem to basically throw down and then run away.

Instead of insisting that your husband stop doing something that he won't stop doing, you might seek to understand it by discussing it with him, suspending your disgust and judgment until you feel you understand this impulse.

You say you feel unloved and betrayed, but I can imagine that your husband might feel this way, too.

Comments

[cereta]

LW: This is your problem. You can either accept this or end the marriage, because what you're doing now (demanding he hide it and then actively searching for evidence of it) is not remotely fair to your husband.

[the_rck]

This.

I finished the LW's section just kind of wanting to smack them for being horrible to their husband because combining the hiding it with searching for evidence... No.

I could see being upset about $1000 over two purchases of anything optional if they have a tight budget and combined finances, but that would be a completely different issue.

[eleanorjane]

Yeah, that's some bullshit.

Gee, it's like she's setting him up to fail, or something.

[lilysea]

Fair conversation: whether and/or how you can fit $1000 of lingerie into the budget.

Fair conversation: are you cross dressing, or have you been thinking about transitioning.

Unfair conversation: asking that your partner stop expressing himself.

Ideally she should be asking "do you want to explore this with me" and looking through lingerie catalogues with him in a supportive manner,

but at minimum she should be "I love you, lingerie wearing and all" if she wants to stay in this relationship.

[conuly]

Admittedly, a $1000 undeclared purchase is going to raise some serious eyebrows unless these folks are absolutely loaded, but seriously, other than the expense, when did this become her business?

[minoanmiss]

When I read the title I said "Oh here we go" aloud. I'm pleasantly shocked by the decency of the columnist's response!

I have to admit though that I don't even understand why crossdressing bugs people.

[shirou]

I have to admit though that I don't even understand why crossdressing bugs people.

Really? It's the immense cultural baggage surrounding our concept of masculinity. I would be deeply uncomfortable wearing women's clothes, even in private. The idea of another guy doing it doesn't bother me in principle, but my rational mind still has to suppress a negative gut reaction.

[minoanmiss]

That makes sense intellectually but it doesn't hit my gut. To expand: I can intellectually understand the transgressive nature as it relates to our society's concept of masculinity (whether it should be so transgressive is another matter, but currently it is), but it doesn't hit my gut because in my experience of the human world, clothes are inherently arbitrary. If you look closely at my icon you'll see that the woman's clothes expose her entire breasts -- that was common among Minoan women in the Bronze Age. It isn't common in US society nowadays but that's because we view such exposure as having a dicfferent meaning than the Minaons did, not becuase they are more moral than we are or vice versa. Clothes send messages but the framework and meanings are inherently an arbitrary language laid onto pieces of cloth.

Perhaps part of the reason this douesn't affect me so much is that I'm female and nowadays a woman in "men's clothes" is seen as pleasantly racy rather than deeply transgressive (for a whole bunch of reasosn I'm not getting into here) but still, I don't get why this bothers his wife so much, on that gut level of feeling betrayed by the activity itself. I'm not married so the shared-finances aspect doesn't apply to me, but this came up in my dating life before and the only thing that bugged me was that he walked better in heels than I did.

(Nb: that didn't bother me.)

[shirou]

I imagine it bothers the LW because she feels her husband is undermining their marriage by willfully failing to live up to her concept of a man. Gender (usually) plays a big role in sexual attraction and how people see themselves and their partners, right?

[minoanmiss]

I imagine it bothers the LW because she feels her husband is undermining their marriage by willfully failing to live up to her concept of a man.

Oh! That's the piece I was missing.

Also, I think that's really, really sad, and I feel bad for both of them being wedged into such a restrictive conception of manhood.

[adrian_turtle]

This. She needs to reconsider her ideas of "what is a good man?" and "what is a good husband?" She might never come around to thinking gender-essentialism is wrong. But the idea that a good husband is somebody who treats his wife well? Or the idea that what a man does [ being a loyal friend, kind to animals, working hard, helping those in need...] defines him more than his appearance? That could get traction.

[sathari]

I'm just here to cosign what everyone else here said.

- LW needs to either manage her emotions on this issue or GTFO. Husband has obviously pretzeled himself to keep her from having to deal with it and she just keeps pushing.

- $1000 undeclared purchase in a household with joint finances is the only place where hubs' behavior might be at issue--- but with LW's stricture on not wanting to know about it the only way that aspect can be manages is if they each have a private "mad money" account, where each of them has $X that they can spend without shared discussion while still staying in their overall budget.

- Echoing minoanmiss in particular that I'm pleasantly shocked by the excellent of the columnist's response, and that I really don't get why anyone cares about crossdressing, especially when done in private.

[ayebydan]

This woman is a horror. I feel bad for her husband.