Relationship with DH

[FindingThingsTough]

Things feel crap at the moment between DH and I and I don't know how to make it better. To be honest this has been going on for months now, since we got DS' diagnoses last summer.

We are both sad and depressed about DS' difficulties but somehow never seem to comfort or support one another. He also seems to always feel guilty we're not doing enough. I don't have the guilt thing going on and actually think we're doing an ok, maybe even good, job with it all so get upset when he talks about us "letting DS down". DS himself is currently happy and seems to be getting the support he needs. Ideally he'd have more SLT but he has weekly private therapy and on / off NHS therapy. Hopefully things are on track for him getting a statement in time for starting school later in the year but there's still uncertainty over where he'll go, we're really hoping he'll get a place at a mainstream primary with a speech unit. Reading loads of reports about his problems in the last few days and seeing him being shunned by another child his age (the daughter of a friend of ours) has been really hard.

DH goes to bed early each night and deals with DD in the night while I stay up late, primarily dealing with all the admin associated with DS. We sleep apart because DS comes in to cosleep with me at some point in the night. I (half heartedly) tried to stop this a while ago but DS got really upset and isn't able to communicate why he needs me at night. So now I'm just going with it and hoping it will pass at some point.

We rarely get time to ourselves and are always exhausted. I kind of know we need to talk to each other and have suggested counselling (our local SN charity even offers this) but DH is not keen.

Any advice from others that have been in a similar situation would be really good to hear.

[eggsandwich]

I know exactly how your feeling but let me tell you that you are both at the begining of the journey into the world of SN. My DH also found it incredibly hard to come to terms with the fact our DS had ASD, I would go as far to say he was very depressed and angry about it which also made us clash and blame each other over it, I too suffered with drepression not long after our DS was diagnosed but for me it was relief and concrete evidence of what I knew for a long time, with my DH he just thought I was paranoid when I aired my concerns about our son so when we finally got the diagnoses it hit my DH really hard.

The early days are a struggle with all the paperwork and appointments that come with having a special child, and as well as you are both trying to deal with the situation you also have to make your wider family understand as well, I know for us this was quite difficult as they had certain expectation of DS to be able to do what other children of his age do, which in reality he could but just in a different way.

All I can suggest is that you and your DH need to talk to each other open up about how and what your feeling. My DH and I did this and I know we had good days and bad days but as long as we could share our worries it helped.

My DS is nearly 14 years old and is serverly Autistic and is non verbal, but has achieved so much from the simple things like pouring his own drink without it going everywhere to being able to swim 15 lengths of the pool and has in this last year got so much more independent.

Please try and talk to each other it really does help!

[2boysnamedR]

I ses like early days for you all. I seem to do everything re my ds and the paper work, school, statement ing etc. dh takes the boys to their aps but sometimes seems to be in denial.

We have fallen into roles doing to bits we feel best at ( ie me doing everything as I'm a control freak!).

It's good to sit down and really have a good chat. It also takes a long time to accept things. Plus it's never going to feel easy, but after a while it becomes your normal and you cope better