Once again as time went on and we had a child I managed to get by without dressing. Time went by and eventually I returned to dressing when my wife was not around. Not all the time but just occasionally. On one occasion she had to go away for the weekend, Friday to Sunday so I determined that I would go the whole hog and become Tina for the weekend including a trip out. See the story Out Again for what happened then.

Once again after the excitement of the weekend I threw most of the clothes and shoes away and tried to stop dressing.

Just after this Anne became pregnant with our first child so my opportunities for dressing reduced dramatically with the arrival of the infant. In fact I had little chance to dress until Anne decided to take our daughter away for a weekend with her mother to visit a relative in the South of England. I had a legitimate excuse for not going with them because I was involved with a meeting on the Friday evening at work.

Once again I anticipated becoming Tina. Because I knew a few weeks in before the event I looked around for what I could buy to wear and also looked to buy some shoes. Eventually I found the outfit I liked. It consisted of a gently A-line black skirt, which was just below and a dogs tooth black and grey hip length jacket.

The shoes were more of a problem. In the past I had always gone with the foot fetishists favourite of black patent leather high heels. I take a size eight but of course after not looking for shoes for so long a number of the shops I used to look in had either closed or moved. I knew from past experience that some stores had shoes that fitted better than others did so I began looking around. Fashions had also changed, this being the early eighties, but eventually I found a pair of black leather shoes with a three-and a half inch narrow, but not stiletto, heel. They had a small gold detail on the outside of the vamp at the front of the shoe and, unbelievably, they were the comfiest ladies shoes I had ever worn.

What happened when I had the weekend as Tina you can read in the story Visit To York.

After that my times dressing were few and far between. Another child arrived which meant that there was even less chance so I threw out all of my things yet again. Only to go out and buy some more when we decided to move house and I stayed in the new house to 'keep an eye on things'.

When we moved out of our first house we were in temporary accommodation for a period and this house had mirrored doors in the bedrooms. Before we moved the furniture in we took the computer and some other things there so I stayed overnight to make sure that things were safe. This meant that I could dress as Tina and I could watch myself in the mirrors. As with most cross dressers I get a thrill seeing myself dressed up.

Once out of this house and into the new one I was limited again in my opportunities to dress. I did keep a few items of clothing in the false roof of the garage hidden in a box and on occasion I would get the opportunity to spend a morning or an afternoon as Tina, depending on what was happening with the children.
We acquired a video camera just after we moved into the new house and when the opportunity arose I would try and set up the camera so that I could see how Tina looked to the outside world and not just to me in my mind's eye. At some time in the future I must see if I can manage to take some still pictures from the video, poor quality agreed but something for posterity.

I purchased a couple of items from a mail order firm. A padded panty and some breast forms. The panty added to the shape of my hips and bottom but the breast forms were not very good and I threw them away.

The entry into the mail order field was the way that Anne came to find out about Tina. As with all mail order companies this one sent out mail shots, albeit in plain envelopes, and it was one of these that Anne opened in error.
That morning was, perhaps, one of the worst of my life. I dearly love my wife and would not do anything to hurt her. I also love my children, who still know nothing of Tina. I do and did not want to lose any of them. Anne, understandably, was shocked and did not know what to make of the whole thing. I spent a lot of the day soul searching but by the time bed time arrived I had decided to make a clean breast of the whole thing and lay in bed discussing both what I had been doing and what it meant to me.

Anne, to my eternal gratitude, listened and asked questions. Eventually she said that although it was a very great shock we would somehow deal with it. Gradually over the next few days we discussed things and she said that she would take the children away for the day so that I could have some time with Tina. Also perhaps I could video some of it so that she could see how Tina looked and whether or not she wanted to meet her.

This I did and Anne managed to look at the video over the next few days. She had a number of suggestions and said that she felt that I needed to go out and spend some money if she was going to meet Tina in person. The main thing I needed was a wig, which, although I had one, was not really suitable in her view.

I did this and a few weekends later we arranged for my father to look after the children and we went away for the weekend. Actually it was a Saturday afternoon and a Sunday Morning but this was the first time we had been away together since the children had been born. During that weekend Anne met Tina. You can see the pictures she took in First Pictures.

Since then there have been numerous occasions when we have either been away for the weekend or there have been opportunities for Tina to appear at home.