House Arrest?

 

 

Hello! Another week, another series of semi-coherent thoughts from Amelia! I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about an issue so many of us crossdressers have, at some time or another dealt with, a restriction in when and where we can dress. I'll preface this with a bit of backstory...

Prior to coming out to my wife, Amelia (or as she was known at the time, Savannah), was restricted to the house, and only during times when no one else was home. I'm sure this is about as far as many ever hope to get, whether by choice or circumstances, but it definitely isn't the most ideal for everyone. Fast forward to after the big reveal, and Amelia was allowed to wander the house freely, and soon even made her way out into the world. It was exhilarating, to finally be free to express this side of myself, and have her be seen in the world as a real person living life...very freeing. But...the clouds of change and uncertainty are looming on the horizon.

My career (I'm in the military if you didn't know) dictates that I move every few years to a new place, with new dynamics, living situations, job schedules, etc. Difficult enough on it's own, but trying to add in "girl time" on top provides a whole new set of challenges. Depending on where you go, whether you have a family, and which branch you serve in, you have a variety of housing options that may or may not be available to you. You might find yourself living "on the economy" as in renting a house or apartment, or perhaps living in military family housing on or near a base. Or you might be unlucky enough to be living on a ship or in barracks with little to no privacy!

For me, things look to be trending towards the 2nd option. The area I'm moving to does not give me the warm and fuzzies when it comes to safety, especially if I'm going to be leaving my wife alone for weeks while I'm off deployed somewhere for my job, so family housing on base is my best option unless I want a 2 hour commute every day. There are also great benefits available on base in terms of gyms, military exchanges and commissary, and being in a close knit community where everyone understands the military lifestyle and experience. "Ok so what's the catch?"

The catch is my freedom of movement outside the home. Not so much an issue for me in male mode, I can come and go as I please, access all the amenities, etc. Amelia on the other hand will have a hard time getting through the gates with an ID that does not in anyway resemble her in appearance. And I can't very well just offer up an honest excuse and not expect word to spread like wildfire across the entire facility, back to my command, and potentially create a lot of heartache for me in my day to day work. So where does that leave me with options?

Well, there are a few I've been gaming out in my mind. First, I simply "smuggle" all my Amelia apparel, wig, makeup, etc in and out, and find somewhere beyond the gates to "transform" ala superwoman in a phone booth. Or, I could opt as some of my crossdressing sisters have, and restrict my out and about time to a select few weekend trips away to hotels. And least ideally of all, Amelia could be put back on "house arrest", confined once again to the limits of our home.

Each of these are valid options, with advantages and disadvantages to them. Ultimately, it might end up being a case of using all 3 interchangeably depending on time and resources. But, regardless, it reminds me that while I've had it good for a while, and will probably find a way to still experience some level of freedom in the future, there are many out there who never get the chance. To those who do, enjoy it! And to those who do not, if you have the desire, don't give up on trying to find a way, it really is worth the trouble!

With love and hope...
Amelia

The sometimes blurry lines between our male and female selves...

 Hello again! Time for some more rambling and whatnot from me to you! Tonight, I had an interesting conversation with my wife on a variety of stresses, thoughts, feelings, etc that have been in both of our minds recently. We've both been though a lot of big changes in the last few months, with more on the horizon as we juggle the ever changing landscape of working in a pre-post-COVID world, while preparing for a move later this year while not being certain yet on the exact timetable, and at the same time continuing to work on fitting Amelia into our lives without letting her take over. 

 

Obviously I'm going to focus on the "Amelia paradox" part of our conversation, and I should point out that, at least in my opinion, we have made incredible strides in a short amount of time. I came out to my wife in November, and since then we've grown by leaps and bounds in terms of acceptance, understanding, and love. But, the road is still a bumpy one, as to be expected, and as we travel along and take new turns in our journey, we find new bumps to navigate. 

 

The latest; the confusing and sometimes blurry lines between my male and female self. On paper, it seems pretty straight forward. If I'm dressed enfemme, wearing a wig, etc, I'm Amelia. If I'm sporting jeans, t-shirt and my typical military style buzz-cut, I'm the man. This should be easy enough...pronouns to match the outward appearance, simple right? We needed some way to establish going forward exactly how I wanted to be addressed, and this rule, guideline, whatever you want to call it, served us reasonably well as a starting point.

But, I also made sure to throw a self-sabotaging wrench into the plan early on, by telling my wife "I'm still me, regardless of what I'm wearing". Is this true? Absolutely! Do my mannerisms change a bit when I am enfemme? I would say yes. As we've both grown more comfortable with Amelia being an open part of our relationship, has there been a bit of bleed through? Yes. You might be saying "wait wait wait, what the heck does that mean?" So, allow me to explain!

In the pre-Amelia days of our relationship/marriage, I as the man had no outwardly expressed interest in fashion. When asked about how something looked on my wife, I gave the same default answers "you look great" or "I always think you're beautiful". Not wrong...as I do always think my wife is beautiful, but also not very helpful for someone who is trying to genuinely figure out what to wear. I also refused to participate in yoga, I do NOT dance, and forget about talking about feelings! All of this, I'm sure, was a subconsciously devised strategy to keep the yet-to-be-named Amelia locked as far back into that closet as possible. And then one day, as we know, she busted out.

Amelia loves fashion, even if she is a bit clueless sometimes. Amelia is much more communicative in terms of her feelings. She also is much more likely to dance, smiles more, enjoys yoga...she's not held back by that societal expectation of tough exterior that a man "should" present to the world. "Ok ok, get to the point!" I hear you saying...sorry!

 

The problem arises now that some time has gone by. Whereas in the beginning stages of Amelia's arrival into the world, there were clearly defined days, times and activities that she OR my male self occupied, but not both, we now slowly see a bit of merging of the two. I'm still not walking around the house in a dress while rocking a beard or anything like that, but I (the man version) regularly do yoga with my wife, and will happily discuss fashion/clothing/etc whenever the topic comes up. Amelia, at the same time, enjoys playing video games, and is also seen in the kitchen on occasion helping prepare meals where before only my wife and her husband shared time together. Throw the "icing on the cake" that is intimacy into the mix, and we've got quite a mess on our hands (no, not that kind of mess, get your mind out of the gutter)!

From the inside, I don't immediately recognize the blur. After all, I am me, regardless of what I am wearing. But for my wife, who wants to be as supportive and loving as she can, but also needs to be able to understand what's going on inside my head, while also coming to terms with her own relationship and attraction to both versions of myself (which might be a whole other blog post topic entirely), it quickly gets confusing and frustrating. 

To be fair, I don't consider myself to be suffering from gender dysphoria, at least not to any level which drives me to pursue a full gender transition, and being addressed by the wrong pronoun or name does not send waves of pain through my soul, but for many it is a very real situation and struggle. My wife, to her credit, is simply trying to be as respectful and understanding as possible. But, as the line between my male and female self is blurred in my own mind, it can be difficult to keep everything neat and organized. The ultimate fear, from my wife's perspective, is an accidental "outing" wherein the wrong name slips out in the presence of someone who does not know about Amelia. 

That's a lot of pressure to put on someone I love, and brings up many questions with regards to whether I should come out to the family at large, reducing the risk; double down on efforts to keep my two sides separated, or just give up Amelia entirely. None of these options are easy, and really the last one is impossible, that genie is out of the bottle now! 

So where do we go from here? Excellent question! Perhaps someday I'll be at a point in my life where I can come back to this post and laugh at how clueless I was. But, until then, the journey continues! For those out there in similar situations, all I can offer is to keep communicating, keep learning, and keep trying! We've managed to overcome every obstacle so far, this one will be no different!

With kindness, love and hope...

Amelia