Seeking guidance from experienced members

[Pc271977]

Hello everyone!

I would like to ask experienced members here for there experiences/feelings/opinions if possible.

I’m 43, married, 2 kids and have suppressed my incontinence desires for years, but I’m reaching a point in my life where I want to start doing some things for me, not just everyone else.

I have always leaked a little so have a good excuse (to my wife) to start wearing incontinence pads. This has been liberating and I feel immensely comforted when wearing them.

I have been practicing relaxing my muscles and have had a number of conscious accidents, which have been easier than expected.

Really the above is just a way feeling out my feelings on this whole area and at this moment I feel I want to start moving towards diapers and concentrate more towards a 24/7 situation

I appreciate the above is brief and a little rambling, however reading through the forum posts, there are lots of notes of caution which I completely understand and realise if I choose to go down a route of bladder incontinence then this has very real consequences.

However, I feel it could bring me a sense of completeness too. I can’t explain why and I have no one at the moment who I can discuss this with. There is a sense of it being freeing (I appreciate the irony of this statement) and feeling padded is comforting. I get a feeling of being cared for. It’s something deep routed that I can’t easily articulate.

Do many of you feel the benefits of your choices have outweighed the costs?

On balance are you happier?

How have other half’s reacted?

Sorry this is a very open post, but I’m trying to get my bearings with my feelings and choices.

 

 

 

 

[Little Sherri]

Hi, Pc - a couple of threads I could recommend you have a look at would be my own, and an excellent one by @oznl. I read about oznl's journey before I started out on my own, and it was a tremendously helpful guide to the terrain of going over to 24/7. There are a lot of other great threads on the topic as well.

I completely understand the desire; well, I should say, I don't understand it entirely, but I do empathize with it, because, I have the same feelings, and while I don't fully understand where they come from within me, either, nevertheless, talking and reading about it here has definitely been helpful. 

For me, so far (~19 months), the benefits have outweighed the costs; at this point I don't envision ever wanting to go back. I used to wear diapers overnight when I was on business trips, and sometimes on weekends if I had the house to myself, but, there was always a deadline, always a time when the diapers had to come off, and the peace that I got from wearing them was tainted by the knowledge that I only had until Monday, or whatever, and then I had to go back to "real life", and I would have to be a bit less happy for a while. Plus, I found myself actively engineering situations when I could be away from my family, leaving for vacations a few days later than they did "for work", or returning home early, just to buy myself 18 or 24 hours of uninterrupted wearing. 

You'd have to know more about my background than you probably want me to go into here, in order to fully understand what I'm about to say, but, I also grew tired of constantly sneaking around, shamefully, constantly hiding something. I felt once again like a little kid, paralyzed with fear that someone would find out about my terrible secret, that I was wearing babies' underclothes, and worse, that I liked them, drew pleasure from them, needed them. I also felt like I was doing something illegal, or immoral. Whereas, say, taking antidepressants with lots of side effects was the "adult" way to deal with my needs. 

Finally, I had had enough, and I decided at a certain point, that I wanted to see how I would feel if there was no deadline, if the diapers never had to come off. That was more than a year and a half ago, and so far, I think it was the best decision I could have made, although it hasn't been without its lessons, or costs, or tribulations. But, so far, the balance leans decidedly in favour of staying the course, at least for me. 

However, a lot of other people have dabbled in 24/7, and then gone back, and you should know that there's no shame in that, either - indeed, for them, it was probably a rational reaction to their life circumstances and how they respond to them. Maybe it will happen to me. I won't necessarily wear diapers for the rest of my life. But I will wear them today. And tomorrow. And for as long as I want to, hopefully. 

Feel free to reach out. There are a lot of friendly and helpful people here. 

[oznl]

Firstly, the link to @Little Sherri's 24/7 thread:

 

And secondly, the link to my own:

Both of these are lengthy, more like novels.  Don't expect to skim through them quickly in one sitting.  Alcohol and/or coffee will help.

The thing is, same gender, similar demographic, similar motivations, two years further down the road.  I'd wager there is some hard-won experience you can leverage there somewhere.

To deal with your questions:

5 hours ago, Pc271977 said:

Do many of you feel the benefits of your choices have outweighed the costs?

On balance are you happier?

These questions are kind of intertwined.  I guess the only "benefit" outside of happiness would be a certain convenience in not having to interrupt activities for a pee!  Having said that, there's a lot of infrastructure and planning actually involved in allowing a grown-up to pee in his or her pants at will and get away with it so arguably there are quite a few costs that might outweigh that benefit!

In terms of happiness, the answer is a conditional "yes".  Yes I am happier however it wasn't a flower lined, sun dappled path to nirvana and for that matter, I don't think I'm exactly at nirvana yet either.  I'm definitely still on a road, not at a destination.   Some folk will give you a trite "yes, absolutely, should have done it years ago!" but I think that's over-simplifying things.

@Little Sherri makes a point that resonates strongly with me in that the border-less nature of 24/7 diapered life is one of the big relaxants.  I'd reached the point where I'd either be in nappies, stressing about when/how I'd have to get out of them or being out of nappies, stressing about when I could get back into them.  That's all gone.  The biggest thing I have to worry about now in that department are nappy changes and making sure nappies are available to me.

It's not everybody's road and it may not be yours but there's only one way to explore it.  I'm continually puzzled by people who set themselves up with all kinds of objectives and success criteria for these experiments and then tear themselves to pieces if they encounter "failure" with 24/7.  An experiment is an experiment.  Irrespective of the outcome, you will have learned something.

5 hours ago, Pc271977 said:

How have other half’s reacted?

Varies wildly by the disposition of the other half.  I'd rank my beloved as a "5/10".  She hasn't left me but nor will she support me.  It's not talked about.  There are details on my thread about why I felt justified/compelled to pursue this irrespective of her antipathy.  It's two years later and we are still very good friends at least which is not bad  for a life partner.

Good luck and let us know how you go!

 

[Clr224]

8 hours ago, Pc271977 said:

 

Personally, I’ve been quite satisfied with my decision.  However, I’m single, living alone, and don’t have explain my actions.

I'm curious if you’ve given any though as to how you will justify your desire to your spouse, family, doctor, etc?  Are you going to be completely honest about your motivations?  The costs of making this decision aren’t necessarily monetary.  If you give an honest answer, how will your wife react when you tell her that you’d prefer wearing diapers;  how will other family members react?  If you fabricate an excuse for wearing diapers, the cost will be to your integrity and the very real possibility of being exposed when the truth comes out.

In your situation, I’d give some very serious thought to the consequences before starting down this path.

[Pc271977]

@Little Sherri @oznl - thank you both for your replies - very useful, and I will certainly take the time to read through your posts.

@Clr224 in answer your questions:

I have started to give thought about how to explain/justify my actions - but part of the reason I have posted on this forum is to use the experience of members to help form my actions and thoughts on how I intend to move forward.

I do not want to be deceitful, but at the same time, if I come to the realisation after a period of trying 24/7 or similar, that on balance, this isn't going to work for me, then I can move on without the possibility of putting my desires out there and potentially damaging relationships. Though, it feels like a fine balancing act.

Having read the above replies and given some further thought to the whole situation - I think my biggest challenge at the moment is to seperate the 'fantasy' from reality and really understand what 24/7 and openness entails.

 

[Clr224]

For the most part, 24/7 for urinary incontinence is not even an inconvenience once you’ve found the right products for you and developed a management routine. Bowel incontinence is a whole different situation.

Starting a 24/7 test period and then deciding it’s not for you could be problematic.  If others (spouse or family members) are told you have continence problems and need to start wearing diapers, stopping would be hard to explain.  If you’re honest with them and told them that psychologically you occasionally feel the need for diapers, then using them intermittently as you feel the need would be more explainable. How any given family member reacts to this explanation only you can judge.

[spark]

For me, since I live alone and it's 2020- I'm in a diaper pretty much all of the time.  Since I basically wet the diaper early on, my diaper is wet almost all of the time.

I don't poop in my diaper often, and never in public.   I don't know how to deal with that.  I'm pretty good about dealing with pee, and it's no big deal.

What I found is that 24/7 was freeing.  It was no longer this "OMG- I'm wearing a diaper."   I don't have to find diaper time.    I've shared rooms with friends and colleagues, and and I don't expose myself.  I wear a pull-up, and they are discreet that nobody says anything.   I wore diapers on Thanksgiving, and it was wet- they didn't say anything.   24/7 allowed me to control these desires.    

On this forum we keep hearing that once you cross the line- there is no way to return.  These are always followed by list of cons.  I've yet to experience the point,  Maybe it's because I choose to poop in the toilet.   I know I could choose to go without- and not have an accident (I think), but my experience says that by the time you hit that level you've already experienced all of the cons.  From my experience, wet diapers are no big deal, and don't require much to keep them discreet.  Remember- it's a secret that nobody needs nor wants to know.    The reason I don't poop in a diaper is I don't have a partner to clean it up, and the clean up really sucks.