The Other Side Of Life: Deeanna's Sanctuary

This little building is Deeanna's sanctuary. The place I can be the real me. The place that I can the solace and satisfaction that can only come from my crossdressing. Without this space, Deeanna couldn't exist. And ultimately without this space, I couldn't exist at all.

When I began crossdressing regularly back in 2009, I made a decision to be honest about it and tell my Wife. It wasn't a smooth coming out process. My Wife was not happy about it, and we had a rough few weeks, during which, we nearly broke up. But we managed to work through it, and eventually came to an arrangement based on compromise. My Wife didn't want to see me dressed or know any details about femme life. I could dress when she was out, and I was home alone. I could go out dressed for trips out to see friends or out shopping. And when I was with my Wife at home, I was just the same me, she'd always known me as. Her husband.

The arrangement worked brilliantly. I was living in South Hampshire, and went out for two evenings a month to the Totton Disco and the T-Girls Get Together event in Lyndhurst. I even had overnight stays in Milton Keynes to attend events at Pink Punters LBGTQ+ nightclub. Sometimes I would go out for a meal with friends. I also had days out shopping and trips to Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Salisbury and London on the train. Sometimes on my own and sometimes to meet friends. And from Spring through Summer, and into early Autumn, I had nearly every Saturday to myself, from late morning, to the early hours of Sunday morning, as my Wife worked for a company that did the catering at weddings. Those Saturdays were pure bliss. It was all going very well. It was the perfect compromise. Until it wasn't.

The arrangement worked brilliantly for three and a half years, and my crossdressing existed in a careful situation that minimised it's impact on my Wife. My clothes were kept in a closet I built in the loft. I would go up and bring down whatever I needed and keep it out of sight, until I was ready to dress and become Deeanna.

And then it slowly went wrong. During 2011, my Wife had a few unexplained problems with her balance and numbness in her legs and. She had a couple of falls. But the GP suggested trapped nerves and possibly an inner ear infection. Then she had a problem in her hand and the GP said it was carpet tunnel syndrome. She developed pains in her face and was told it was neuralgia. And then she had massive spasms in her legs and the GP said that all of the problems he had seen as seperate problems, might be related. He hadn't been able to join up the dots. My Wife was referred to a neurologist and diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the Autumn of 2012. And her condition declined rapidly from then until the following Summer when she had to give up work. This was devastating for us both. And it had a major impact on my ability to dress as Deeanna.

By the Summer of 2013, my Wife had given up work, and was at home 24/7. She couldn't go out unattended. So there was no longer any opportunities to dress. And as the year progressed, her health and mobility rapidly declined. 2013 was also a difficult year because it was bookended with the death of my mother in January, but my father in November. A very stressful time without my main coping strategy of crossdressing to lean on. With my parent's deaths, I inherited a reasonable sum of money from their estate. And in the Spring of 2014, as my Wife's condition continued to get worse, I made the decision to give up work and become a full time carer for my Wife.

So between the Summer of 2013 and the Summer of 2016, I wasn't able to crossdress at all. My clothes remained untouched in the loft. And slowly but surely, my mental health deteriorated to an existential level by 2016. And that was entirely down to not connecting properly with my inner femininity. And in July of that year, I got myself into a Do Or Die frame of mind. And I found myself taking the Do option, thankfully. I brought down from loft and stashed some lingerie in the spare bedroom. By now my Wife was finding using the stairs difficult, so would only go up or down them when she had to. I would sometimes tell my Wife that I was going for an afternoon nap while she was downstairs, and I would quietly dress in the bedroom. And I would dress downstairs in the early hours of the morning, while she was up in bed. It wasn't much but it did help to provide some comfort and relief for me. And then things took a dramatic turn.

My Wife had two bad falls in quick succession. Both required ambulance call outs. And the second fall resulted in my Wife being unable to get up the stairs to bed or shower for over a week. It was very distressing. It quickly became clear that we needed to move to single storey living and get rid of stairs in our lives. So a bungalow was needed. We lived in Hampshire and bungalows there were way out of our price range. But in the county I come from, Cornwall, they were definitely affordable and we would be able to sell our home and pay off the mortgage and buy the new home, thanks to the difference in house prices between the two areas.

And this presented me with a wonderful opportunity. To find a property that had a space seperate from the house for me to set up us a dressing space and somewhere to keep my femme clothes. We viewed a bungalow that was perfect. It had a summerhouse in the garden that was being used as a sauna. It had the perfect potential for us, both for my Wife and for Deeanna. And so we bought it and moved down to Cornwall, nearly 10 years ago.

It took a while to get the summerhouse ready for Deeanna. For a few years it was just a useful place to store stuff, but I had my clothes stored safely in there, and I could get dressed out of my Wife's view and knowledge. And eventually I turned it into my little private space.

This little summerhouse has become my little sanctuary and a little place for Deeanna. I have a wardrobe, and the old sauna cubicle to store my clothes in. I have a lot of items that I collected down the years, including stuff I have owned since I was a child, which I keep in there. It's a lovely little space for me to spend time in.

Most importantly, it allows me to carry on crossdressing without upsetting my Wife, who struggles mentally because of her condition. Anything that I can do to alleviate her stress is important. But I need to be able to exist myself as my femme self, in order to be able to stay healthy and functioning. And the three year enforced hiatus that I had between 2013 and 2016 reinforced that. It's essential that I crossdress and not something that is optional. And this private space gives me that.