DH and I live overseas from where we were born, all our family live where we were born; most of our friends live in the UK. We have no support and few local friends - the friends we have are busy and often in a similar situation re: total absence of support.
DS is 2.5, under referral for ASD (mild, Aspergers if anything), a life-suckingly bad sleeper and incredibly intense to be around. He's also right into the terrible twos at the moment. I have been surviving on sleep in 20-minute chunks, to a total of a few hours a night, since he was born. I do everything in terms of caring for DS, and all housework, and I am utterly exhausted. DH is a workaholic academic whose whole self-worth is completely tied up with hard work and overachievement, so he sleeps about 4-5 hours per night and works nearly all of the time. He is continually ill with colds because he picks up everything going, probably because he sleeps so little and never relaxes.
Unsurprisingly we are both finding it all a bit relentless and finding it really difficult to be joyful. It isn't fair on DS.
I can't get through to DH that he has to work less. unfortunately neither of us drinks alcohol.
What else might help?