Divorce - disabled child- Advice please?

[SENSummer]

My marriage of seven years has ended this Christmas. My decision but STBXH has been emotionally checked out, difficult and distant for years so we’ve been on the verge a few times. It’s definitely over now.

I’ve held it together thus far because we have two small children. 4yo DD and 5yo DS who is extremely high needs ASD, profound learning disabilities, ADHD, non verbal, PICA and also massive for his age. Wears 9-10 clothes and weighs 35kg about 2/3 my size already. He is very difficult to care for. Honestly it’s horrendous he’s destructive and violent and just shrieks constantly whilst destroying everything he touches.

I’m scared they will make me take him and be resident parent. I don’t want to be. I can’t win against him in a fight anymore and all of his basic care needs are a physical fight. I also can’t deadlift him off the floor, which is a lot of what parenting him requires.

STBXH has been working long hours as a doctor throughout our marriage but does physically help with DS when he is here. He is much bigger and stronger than me and can still just about overpower DS when needed although worries he will hurt him. He has been deeply depressed for a long time and any periods spent alone with DS send this through the roof.

DS is in a specialist school with 1:1 care and has a small social service package. We have appealed multiple times for more or for him to be put into care as we just can’t manage him. We keep putting up bigger and bigger gates/locks around the house but he climbs them/breaks them and nothing can stop him.

I was forced out of work to be his carer even though I never wanted to leave work. I’ve done everything for DS for years fighting for all the medical/therapy/council help and his socialist school place but nothing made a difference. I’m scared for mine and DD’s safety and future if we end up in a house just us and DS. I cannot manage him or meet his needs and trying has such a detrimental impact on DD.

I don’t want to be his resident parent but I know that DH won’t want to either. He says he won’t be able to work which is true but that’s the situation I’ve been in for years so I don’t think he’s entitled to carry on like normal once we are divorced and I’m not his support act anymore. I worry what will happen and that they will make me have DS. I’ve spoke to social services and they said they don’t know what will happen.

I would of course share custody and if DH did have DS I would give him plenty of respite. I highly doubt the same would happen if I become resident parent.

if you’ve been through this please help!

I didn't mean any offence. I have two ND children myself. I personally would find it inhumane to have to look after children with a level of need that meant I could do almost nothing else or even ever get a full night's sleep, and think that people in that position should be afforded support to have the option not to do that. I'm on your side here.

Sorry, who are you ranting at?

I’m not screaming into any void. Society, the government and the LA did not make our son high needs, they’re not the cause of his aggression, and whilst they absolutely could provide better support, they are not responsible for his actual needs.

Raising your own children for as long as you possibly, safely, can is not “inhumane.” It is not unreasonable to expect me to cater for my son’s (very complex) needs until I cannot any longer for either health, safety or emotional reasons - I’m his mother, it’s the basic expectation.

At what point would you say it's beyond a basic expectation?

Thanks.

I do raise a child that allows for very little outside of doing so, and who has suffered from extreme sleep deprivation for all 9 of his years. Which means so have we.

I agree that an option to not do that should be available for those who want/need it, but also that it should be an absolute last resort. Language like inhumane does “get my back up,” because those of us have children with such high needs don’t always like the assumption they’re a burden.

When I’m no longer able to keep my child safe, and/or well.

I am less concerned about myself, but that’s absolutely my prerogative and I accept that.

Only when I am unable to meet his needs and keep him safe from himself, would I say I’d hit capacity.

It's inhumane when parents are desperate for support and there is nothing available. I got good support for my daughter born in 1998. Things are very different now. The cuts are having a big impact on parents, who used to get a lot more access to services like respite.

That makes sense, I'll think about my wording more carefully next time.

Thank you! That's really helpful @MamainWonderland . It might get to this although hope not.

To OP I thought we might be at this stage at 5/6 but thankfully ds did not continue to grow in size & strength and we split which seemed to help enormously. No black eyes since the split and only a bit of kicking/punching and pinching. Not so much in the last year so not curling up on floor for a kicking which would happen. Anger still there but with different techniques much much better so more verbal assault and some throwing objects/pushing and more stuff broken than people broken. It's so difficult and people really don't understand when you explain school, family/social situations and the danger to both child and other family members.

I hope you find a residential placement which sounds as if it would make you all far far happier.

I didn’t find parents need agreement from education and social services to get a residential placement. Social Services can be useless. We did win the tribunal on educational grounds; but the chair said before the hearing started, the medical evidence was almost overwhelming and the LA was going to have an uphill job to persuade them otherwise! (Our barrister told us the LA’s solicitor’s heart was not in it. He wound the chair up to boiling point) There was no discussion about social care and how we were coping or not.

We got an independent social worker’s report for the tribunal. She pointed out that SS was only focussed on DD1 and her disability. As soon as I went out of the room, DD2 became a carer to DD1. SS had apparently never noticed DD2 was painfully slim - with the appearance of someone with an eating disorder. (This is because she had been in the early stages of an eating disorder, after DD1 had been indecently assaulted in the classroom by a boy. DD2 had had a year’s treatment from CAMHS. Eventually she was referred to a dietitian to gain weight)

DD2 said to me, around that time, that when SWs came to the house, not one ever asked her how she was! There was never any “whole family approach” by them.

The educational psychologist also commented in her report that DD1’s needs were beyond the resources of most families.

The SEND tribunal accepted all our witnesses arguments, and ordered education to name the school, as recommended by the leading neurologists at Gt Ormond St and Queen Sq, as the only school that could meet her medical needs. I do not know what makes LA officers, who are jumped up pen pushers, think they are qualified to ignore consultants on medical needs (and I’ve heard this has come up in other tribunals) and why a court is going to think they are qualified to do so?

Education and SS did agree on joint funding though, but that was between them.

I’d say when the whole family is being woken up every hour of the night, and suffering post traumatic stress, that is beyond the basic expectation of parents. (Especially when a consultant physician at the the local hospital says they don’t have the expertise to look after DC, because of their medical condition)

OP - ask SS for a whole family assessment.

I haven’t read “Working Together” for years, because DD1 and DD2 are adults and come under the Care Act 2014 now, but the blurb here on gov.uk does refer to a “whole family focus”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children2

“Working Together” is partly about child protection, and partly about the procedures for social care assessments of disabled children. While there can be an overlap, I don’t know what bright spark decided to amalgamate what should be two different assessment frameworks into one book, thereby confusing and frightening parents of disabled children, who should be under SS Children with Disability Teams? Read the relevant parts, OP of “Working Together” on disabled children social care assessments.

SS will probably try to focus on DC’s needs, but emphasise to them, they need to consider you, DH and the sibling just as much, in a whole family approach. I never know why SS ignore their safeguarding duties to the sibling? Well I do - it’s about saving money, but I don’t see how it fits in with their professional responsibilities?

I know someone who fought for their dd to get a residential place, she became pregnant so said she was at risk and so was baby (which was true) It took years though, initially he was in a placement about two hours away. Then they said they couldn’t meet need and then he was in an air bnb with two carers round the clock for about two years before they got a space in a home about an hour away.

I have no skin in this, having no connection or personal experience of Priors Court, but I have been aware of its existence for 25 years.

Speak to them OP:

https://www.priorscourt.org.uk/

According to their website, they take children from age 5.

I believe my own LA must use Priors Court, because DD1’s last social worker talked about it to me it favourable terms. (He had been very senior in our SS)

Also, there is the NAS school Radlett Lodge. I know nothing about it, other than I am aware of its existence:

https://www.autism.org.uk/our-schools/radlett-lodge

It also goes from age 5. There is nothing to lose, by talking to them!

OP, i am glad you are getting advice and sympathy.
No judgement here at all as your situation sounds horrendous.
In your situation I would do whatever you can to save your daughter and her future by doing whatever you need to do so that your son goes to residential care permanently.
I am so sorry.
These stories are really heartbreaking to read.

There’s this article today, although it’s not very helpful:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/31/violent-crimes-against-parents-by-children-up-60-since-2015-shows-london-data?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I’m sorry it sounds very difficult. I think you should ask Mumsnet to move your thread to the Sen boards as I am sure you’ll find sympathetic parents who have experienced similar and have some great advice.

It sounds like relying on the authorities is all but hopeless in these scenarios.

I follow an Instagram account where a couple with 2 profoundly autistic teen sons live across the road from one another. It sounds mad but could you live next door to each other so even if he’s home at 6pm, he can basically be forced to take DS (by you walking him round and knocking on the door!).

I feel like if he settles down somewhere a few miles from you it’ll be far easier for him to shirk his responsibilities, pretend he’s ’still at work’ etc

I feel quite outraged on your behalf actually.