My Journey - First time post - Possible trigger warning

Hello, this is my first post. Thank you for allowing me into this community. I hope that I am posting in the right place. This is a long one, so hopefully you have time to read this. I’m in search of a group to keep me accountable and true. This all started at a very young age. I have been a crossdresser my entire life. It started at age three or four. I have very few memories of it. Fast forward, to the late 90s. I remember my first time at a very young age (maybe 6 or 7) looking at naked girls on the World Wide Web. Fast forward a year or two, my friend and I would get on AOL and talk to girls (or what we thought were girls, it was probably a sexual predator) I started looking at lesbian porn. Around puberty, crossdressing and MO became connected. It became a sexual thrill for me. I would use my sisters clothes for satisfaction (gross, I know). This all seemed very normal to me at the time.

This went on for years. I would use my moms makeup to practice every night while I was in the bathroom waiting for the tub to fill up. I would become feminine. It eventually became a turn on for me to see myself this way. Keep in mind, I’ve always been enamored with girls, the hopeless romantic, very much heterosexual. Fast forward to age 16. My mother finds my stash of clothes I’ve stolen from people I know. Hidden under my bed. She shamed me, humiliates me, tells me there’s something wrong with me and that I need to be fixed. Sends me to counseling, puts a monitoring service on my computer at home. I was dead set on committing suicide. I couldn’t live with the guilt any humiliation. She told my dad. Thank god for him. He said no matter what that he would always love me, and nothing would ever change that. Sometime between puberty and adulthood, I started watching transsexual porn. MTF on mtf, group transgendered person stuff and the like. Fast forward to age 18. I made my first online profile on a cd/tg support site. I started mastering my transformation ability. By this time, I could transform myself into looking like a passable woman. When I was 21 I met the woman who is now my wife. The dressing subsided but it was still there. I came out to her about it a year into our relationship. She took it hard, but eventually was accepting. I would dress when she wasn’t around. Would lie about how I felt about it. I would continue to watch transsexual porn on and off. This continued to make on transsexual porn. Keep in mind that I was still very incredibly deeply in love with my girlfriend (now wife). We got engaged, built a home together. The pressures of family drama, home ownership, general problems got the best of us. We called off the engagement. I dated around. Met a girl, seemed to the be total package. I told her about my secret. Long story short she turned out to be a psycho and held this secret against me, I ended up wasting two years of my life. During this period I would dress up, get on the computer and cam chat with anyone who was interested. The rush that was provided when someone expressed interest in my feminine side was unmatched to anything yet. I believe that the escalation in graphic depth of porn is what led to this. Fast forward, my wife and I reunite. Everything is normal in the first year, not much dressing, very little porn. First year of our marriage, financial stresses make me want to dress more. I discovered the dark world of instagram and the admiring following. I made an online profile, instantly gaining a couple thousand followers. A common thing amongst the tg/cd community are wishlists. I had a guy start purchasing things off my wishlist and sending them to the house. I would try them on and post online photos of them on my Instagram. This guy got satisfaction from this. Looking back I am absolutely disgusted with myself from this behavior. After a couple months of this I deleted it. A year went by. My marriage, stronger than ever, like some kind of idiot, I made an account again. Same thing, a lot of followers, paired with my desperation for validation. I hate the Instagram community and what it does the human race. I hate what it does to women. I have such strong morals and values. I’ve allowed this ugly side of my to take over and destroy them. My wife was guessing that something was up, went through my phone four days ago. She found evidence of this profile. She was incredibly angry, and still is. As she should be. I had to come clean about everything. She is disgusted with me. I’m disgusted, ashamed, humiliated. I am begging for her mercy, and trying to patch things together. My first step in this is improving myself. Fixing myself. In the past five years I have distanced myself from the church community, and god. I have not had the relationship that I used to. I don’t think that it’s coincidental that this behavior started at a time when I was away from all of that. I am on a 90 day journey to become the best man I can be. The best husband I can be. Change my ways of selfishness. Give back to the world. Erase my wants and desires of worldly validation and attention. I understand that I have a sickness. I have purged all of my dressing items. I know that the temptation and desire to dress will return. I will have to deal with that at some point. For now I need to understand why. I am seeing a counselor / therapist that specializes in this. I am stopping the use of weed/alcohol during this time. I have understood and taken responsibility for my actions. For betraying my wife, breaking her trust. I have never been anyone to not be trusted. I seldomly lie, cheat, or anything of that nature. I believe the escalation of porn use over the course of my life has miswired my brain into thinking incorrectly and changing some of my deep internal morals. I need to reset this. I need a community to hold me accountable during this time. I need to prove to myself and more importantly to my loving, understanding, beautiful wife that I can be a better man. Hopefully one day she can accept me back and trust me. Until then I have to continue battling to be the best I can. I appreciate you reading , and more importantly I appreciate the help and support in advance. I look forward to continuing this journey. This is day number two for me.



Thank you

 

Thank you, sorry I missed your response. I am just now revisiting this. My wife has came around and she has been very supportive. I have been P,M, alcohol, weed, all substances sober since June 6th. I have not dressed up. This has been a great sense of accomplishment. We are working together to encounter my desires, as I have been honest and upfront when they arise. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to me and tell me your story. I hope the best for you, and appreciate your insight on loving oneself. I need to stay mindful of the slippery slope dressing can be. Part of me wants to start again, but I know that being an addict, I can want more and more and end up in the same place if I don't be careful.