Had the most stressful 2 years of my life. DD 12 has been diagnosed with ASD and we're investigating ADHD. Her main issue is anxiety, to the point that she wants to die. It's horrific.
DS, 8, is being investigated for both ASD and ADHD. He almost certainly has ADHD. We can't handle him at the moment, he copes (just about) in school, but he erupts at home - shouts, swears, hits, refuses to do anything other than play on electronics. I can still just about contain him physically, but it won't be long before he's stronger than me.
DD,10 is NT and struggles all the time with her siblings, to the point that she just doesn't want to be near them. She's gone from being a happy and contented girl to a sad, frustrated one.
DH has so many ASD and ADHD traits, but no formal diagnosis.
I can't cope with the reality of life with them anymore. They don't understand each other's reactions, let alone our NT reactions.
The situation is so bad with my DH that I have thought about divorce many times. I haven't got any further because (1) I don't know how I'd cope with the kids on my own and (2) I'd be rejecting him for all the things my ND children struggle with. That causes me such heartbreak, to think they might be in the same position in years to come.
We live in commuterville near London.
My parents and sister live at the very end of Cornwall.
We have no family support from DH's family, and I have no other family nearby.
Friends are finding it hard to support, mainly because everyone masks all the time and they don't see the reality of how hard life is behind closed doors. Their problematic social interactions means that friendships are always a huge struggle and this has spilt over into adult friendships.
Eldest DD has had a better than expected transition to secondary, but her anxiety is coming back massively, and I caught her googling "how to kill yourself" at the weekend.
DS is not coping at all well with school.
I'm struggling to hold down my jobs because of all the demands on my time. I earn twice what DH does, I do more hours, yet still have to organise everything to do with homelife.
DH is struggling with his job and is at the point of burnout.
We are very lucky financially in that we don't have a mortgage.
AIBU to insist that we move close to my family. They are as supportive as they can be, given the distance. They have already committed to supporting more (whether through helping to home school if it came to it, taking my NT daughter out of the situation, babysitting etc). I have no doubt that they will do everything they can to help if we moved close enough.
One of the main reasons for moving would be to give us some breathing space to work out how to move forward as a family, and to heal everyone a bit. We could both not work for a couple of months and sort our heads out - so badly needed.
DH is totally against the move. He loves the area and the outdoors life. However, he finds change incredibly difficult to cope with, and he also makes very valid points about the future - we're effectively going to a very poor area of the country where support might not be great for the kids, and it is 7 hours away from our friends and support here. We also wouldn't be able to buy again easily up here if we moved and hated it.
Jobs wise, he is a teacher and could certainly get supply to tide us over but hopefully a position would come up. I have 2 roles - 1 I can do from anywhere if my boss will agree, and the other I would have to set up again locally, but am fairly confident I could grow to similar income levels within 2 years.
We have savings that, if we were careful, could last us over a year to tide us through the move and settling everyone in.
If we are going to move, we need to do it this summer as DD 10 will be going into year 6 and have to select a secondary school. I'd like her transition, at least, to be as easy as possible for her.
Schools wise, there are decent schools for them in the area that don't seem to have the oversubscribed issues that we do round here.
We are so exhausted and broken by the demands of life that we can't even talk nicely to each other, let alone have a proper conversation about big stuff like this. But I don't think either of us can go on like this.
So AIBU to give him an ultimatum about moving? We could rent our house out and rent down there for a year to try it, but then if we wanted to move back, we'd be really stuck for schools up here.
We have spent a lot of time in the area, visiting for 2-3 weeks at a time, so have seen it at its best and worst. Overflowing with tourists, and dead in January and February. It's not the location we'd choose to live in if there were no other considerations, but the family support makes it worth so much.
AIBU and WWYD?