To want to leave my terminally ill husband and disabled son behind

[FedUp2025]

My husband is ill with stage 4 cancer.
My 5 yr old son has severe adhd and is a nightmare. Volatile, agressive and manipulative. No amount of love or positive parenting has made any difference whatsoever to this child.
I'm fed with the pair of them. I get nothing but abuse and and shouting all day at me.
I'm done. When I forget things I'm supposed to do for them or miss 1 item off the sopping list. All I get is how selfish I am and how they hate me.

After my husband passes I just want to put this child into care and live a peaceful life.
AIBU?

Leave 'd'H and sort your child out - at 5 it's not fair. You need to get your child out of that toxic enviroment.

I really feel angry on your behalf that you are not getting the support and / or respite that you so clearly need. Is your husband capable of looking after your son for a couple of nights so you can just go to a hotel for a break?
I have had years of 'helping to care' for my elderly parent and it still has lasting effects on me now, (I wasn't ever the main carer but still my life wasn't my own) It was utterly traumatic. There was no help from social services because they knew he had family support. Nobody cares whether the carers are at breaking point.
I have also had to deal with my (now exH) who had ADHD. We live separately but get on ok together on that scenario. I have told him should he ever need help, I shall be there for him, but the minute he shouts at me, I'm off. He has an extremely volatile nature and personally I think he used the ADHD diagnosis as an excuse for his volatility. I wasn't buying it, and never will.

Having ADHD doesn’t make you abusive

A woman I knew was in a similar position, abusive husband and son with autism. Only husband was not ill, but abusive. Her happiest day, she told me, was when she got sepsis (!!!!!) and was hospitalised for a month, 2 weeks of it on a drip and 1 week unconscious. She did not want to be discharged afterwards. She was so happy to be left alone, even if in an underfunded, badly run hospital where they forgot to feed her. Her son was placed in care whilst she was in hospital because her husband did not come home for a few days and the neighbours called social services. She buckled and got her son back, she was feeling bad about him and she is now back in the cycle of abuse.

what medication is your DS on

Jesus wept !!!

It’s called getting your ducks in a row

Has your DH always been like that or is this new? Is the behaviour change a manifestation of the cancer?

The child hasn’t got a terminal illness, her DH has, and depending on the prognosis the situation will resolve naturally soon enough. Life isn’t fair. Do you think her DH suddenly finding himself with a terminal diagnosis is fair ? The environment isn’t toxic, it’s angry, sad and strained to the limit, and to advise OP to leave with her child and possibly end up in a worse situation is totally irresponsible. She needs help and support to deal with the situation as it is, not advice to run away from it and probably hugely regret a decision made during a time of unbearable stress and grief.

One of the things we realised in hindsight when we were nursing my dad through dementia was that it had started affecting him several years before he received his diagnosis. He'd gotten so difficult that my mum was literally on the brink of divorcing him - when he was diagnosed she decided to stay but it was at great personal cost.

Where do you think the OP can drop off the child? You cannot just 'give your child into care'. Such care doesn't exist.

Do you have a child with SN? Have you ever dealt with the system? Probably not otherwise you would be sprouting this absolute nonsense.

Well that’s a favourite bit of advice on MN isn’t it. Doesn’t make it right.

You might think that but there isn't.,respite is very limited and you have to jump through hoops to get it.

How is this helpful?

All of this.

You may find your child’s behaviour improves once away from your DH

My mother was absolutely hellish when she had her terminal diagnosis. My father just use to say 'there's no need of that A'.
My surgeon is having another go next week in saving me. I'm thankful and my husband has been great.
I was having a shit time a few weeks ago but @Rosscameasdoody helped enormously when my son was being an arse. A lot of it was fear. He's OK now.
This family needs help not advice on counting the silver. I'm lucky to have great friends close by, not everyone does.
The smaritans are good at sign posting.

I love that posters are bandying about advice like ‘get respite’ and ‘he should get hospice care’ don’t you ? The plain fact is that in many areas lots of care homes have closed, plus the only way to move hospital bed blockers who aren’t ready to go home, is to buy in care home and other services as a kind of ‘halfway house’ until they’re more independent. The knock on effect, as in my area at the moment is that there is no respite and very little hospice availability - even for those very near the end. Berating the OP and suggesting non existent support services is rapidly turning into a sport here.

This is a vile post.

Get back to your golden life and leave the OP alone.

Big hugs from me. Refer the family to children's social services and tell them what has been going on and how you feel.
This will pass x

Every sympathy here for you OP - you sound worn out.
Some of the responses you’ve had haven’t been very helpful and are based on the fact that the services you require are readily and widely available which they’re not. It’s obvious that a lot of posters don’t live in the real world where social services are on their knees, hospitals and hospices are full to the brim, getting a GP appointment is luck of the draw and provision for children with special needs is not all it should be. That said if you haven’t already you need to try and get the ball rolling for some help for all 3 of you, and you definitely shouldn’t be bottom of the pile because like it or not you are the glue that is keeping the house running.
Depending on how ill he is ( and I know he’s obviously ill as he has stage 4 cancer, but some people are still able to function more or less normally) your husband needs to know how difficult you are finding things at the moment.
Has he been referred to the Palliative Care Team and is being seen at home by them, or is just under the care of the hospital and being left to his own devices between hospital appointments. If he’s under the care of the Palliative Care Team I’d be phoning them and at the same time booking the earliest appointment I could for myself with my GP to tell them both how you are fast reaching breaking point and to ask what support could be made available to you.
I do know that where I live the Palliative Care Team for Hospital and Community Services included a Social Worker who worked very closely with families and was able to access services and grants from various charities.
As to your little boy, difficult though it may be he needs every bit of your love and support. Living in a home with a very poorly parent and an understandably fraught mum would be difficult for any child, let alone one with special needs. Presumably he is attending school during the week - are school aware of his home situation and do you have any family or friends who would be willing to look after him for an hour or two.

If he has always been abusive, then leave.
Contact his GP and say you are done.

Contact Women's aid for advice.
As for your child, contact SS and ask for temporary fostering as you sound close to burn out.

Respite care from a 5 year old with ADHD does not exist. Don't know what planet some posters are on. Stage 4 cancer also doesn't nessacarily mean that op's husband will be ready for a hospice or palliative care just yet.

Op you sound exhausted and I hope you have friends or family in real life that you can lean on. I would talk to the school senco about your son and push for your husband to have more care if you're having to do things that nurses could be doing at this point. There might be things both the school and medical staff can put in place for you.x

OP how is your mental health? I work in this field, and when people say they want to ‘leave xxx behind’, it worries me a bit. Hope you are safe and can get some support x

It’s A really difficult situation and it will be affecting your son negatively. You may find a massive improvement after your husband dies and everything settles down.
In the short term is your son able to attend breakfast and/or after school club and holiday club during the school holiday? I have been in the cycle of child constantly lashing out at me, all interactions negative, trying positive not working and reducing the amount of time we spent together and therefore the negative behaviour really helped.
Locally there maybe services available to your husband and the CAB and library are good places to find out about them