AIBU to feel embarrassed our tiny house is affecting the children?

[Miseramble]

I know I've got issues about this but I need advice.
We live in the tiniest house. Miniscule. 8ft x 9ft kitchen. Tiny box 3rd bedroom. No hallway, no entrance way, front door leads straight in to lounge. Stairs lead straight on to front door. Not enough room fo 2 people to stand by door to remove or put on shoes, we all have to go in to lounge just to put shoes/coats on. I hate it and it's a daily huge stress. The whole entire house upstairs and downstairs is 85m2. The back garden is the size of most people's front gardens.
So it was meant to be a 5 year home when we bought it 11 years ago when DC were pre-school. That was the plan.
They're now teenagers both as big as adults.
And we never moved after 5 years.
And we can't move now.
Me & DH are both NHS staff (me midwife him paramedic) and suffered horrendously with the 10 year long NHS pay freeze whilst at the same time COL soared. We became significantly worse off financially. Meanwhile our 5 year fixed rate mortgage deal ended 3 years ago and when we re-fixed the interest rate had significantly risen and our monthly repayments doubled. Worst of all, our long term plan for me to increase from part time when dc were little to full time now they're older has failed because both dc have SEN, ND, high levels of anxiety, developmental delay, school difficulties, and basically both need me around when they are not at school. So I only work whilst they are at school for 25 hours a week. DD is on the verge of school refusal and I'm endlessly worrying about how I will work at all if she actually refuses long term. She is under CAMHS. Whilst DS is having weekly counselling. I can't work any more hours than I do, meaning I can't increase our income. Meanwhile DH earns a salary which is a shit amount where we live for the main breadwinner. DH had the opportunity to develop into a higher pay band but it required him to do a masters which he turned down on the basis that he is struggling with his mental health enough as it is without adding more pressure from stuying whilst still working on top of family commitments, so this means he's closed the door on increasing his salary. I feel angry that he's not pushing himself for us financially when we so desperately need more money; he can see how much strain I'm under working every school day then straight home to start looking after 2 teenagers with extensive needs. I don't stop, I'm run ragged and he returns from work daily at 9pm so I get no help whatsoever.
So we can't move. We're stuck in this tiny house that we never meant to stay in for this long. Stepping up the ladder is unachievable for us.
We live in an expensive area. Our house is tiny but we chose it at the time because it's on a lovely street, in a beautiful area surrounded by countryside. What I didn't consider is that we bought the smallest house in an area filled with 4 bed detached houses or significantly extended semi detached with whopping great rear extensions and luxurious loft conversions.
Anyway I now feel crushed that we can't provide a bigger home for DC. They really notice now. They both get grouchy and irritable by the lack of space. DS stopped inviting friends round about 2 years ago. I keep asking him why and he won't answer but I know it's because all his friends live in massive 4 bed detached houses, in our very affluent neighborhood. He goes to theirs or meets them out instead. And DD asks to have friends for sleepovers but there isn't enough room for someone else to sleep in her boxroom. DD is endlessly asking why we can't get an extension on our kitchen like all her friends houses.
And now DS has been invited to a birthday party at someone's house. I checked their address out on Rightmove. And guess what. It's yet another massive 4 bed detached house with a football pitch sized garden. It is only natural that DS 15 is going to compare it to where we live.
I don't know what I'm asking from this post. But I'm angry and tired and disillusioned and poor. I think I need advice about how to deal with feeling embarrassed towards my own DC for not being able to provide a family home that's big enough for a family to be able to actually function in. I feel like sitting them down and apologising. But there's no hope of doing anything to give us more space.
I have looked at this friends house with the birthday party invite and now I feel like a failure. Just like I feel everytime my DC get invited to all their friends massive houses. I want to be able to provide a big house for my DC but I can't. We are literally the only family in this village living in such a tiny house.

@roaringdragon

I wasnt replying to you or implying that you specifically were confused.
But there is very clearly a lot of confusion around the term 'carer' and Carers Allowance on this thread

So now you are acutely aware of the benefits you’d be entitled to if your children are as you say @Miseramble have you begin to progress?

Apologies if you weren’t. I thought you since you were replying to the pp who was replying to me directly about the carer point.

@roaringdragon

No worries

Sorry but you are facilitating the anxiety. I have an adhd daughter who has anxiety, and as I’m sure their counsellor had advised (as mines has), they need to face the situations that make them anxious and find ways to work through them with cbt. This may take incremental steps over a long period but they need to keep working through it to be able to function in life. By capitulating, you have reinforced to your daughter that her anxiety was 100% right and you staying in the house is the only safety she has. She has to push against her anxiety with appropriate support to get it under control, not r in force that her body’s haywire reaction was right.

The decades long wage stagnation and soaring house costs boils my blood. I worked in a non clinical role in the NHS 10 years ago and had to leave as I couldn't manage on the pittance I earned. Absolutely sickening that two highly skilled people can't afford to buy a bigger house. But here we are in capitalist Britain.
Is there any way you could move to a cheaper area, as I'm sure your skills are wanted across the UK? I feel like nowadays we can't plan on our children leaving home in the 20's for the reasons mentioned above.

Just catching up on this thread. Wanted to say that DLA is much much easier to claim than getting an EHCP. Please sit down and do it. There are guides online to filling it in, or ask for support on the SEND board here. Good luck x

Sorry that people are unsympathetic and telling you to increase your hours. That's the last thing you need.
Decades long wage stagnation and soaring house costs boils my blood, but here we are in late stage capitalism.
I feel like the best thing to do is work out what parts of the puzzle you can control, and worry about those only. Easier said than done I know.
I feel a good option would be looking to move to a lower cost area. You are both skilled professionals who are needed I'm sure across the UK. I live in a high cost area too and once my daughter finishes college I'm moving somewhere cheaper so I can leave my leasehold flat behind and get a little house.
Could this be an option? Wishing you all the best x

Apologies for posting twice, didn't think comment had posted!

Ok, having gone back and re-read your posts , I have to say that your DH sounds quite a big part of the problem. The drinking, the complete failure to take on board that you're struggling and the lack of engagement with HIS children is awful. Are you sure you wouldn't be better off without him? 😕 I have had struggles with alcohol so I know how hard it is but I have tried to address them as I am a parent and it's not just about me x please take care

You probably won’t be entitled to carers allowance or universal credit as I’m guessing you both earn too much for that, but definitely DLA is worth applying for. You ca send their diagnosis letters as support and the rest is you telling them what they struggle with and what you have to support them with. The form is long (very long) but absolutely worth doing and we were given it for 5 years so I don’t have to deal with that form again for a while!) The extra may enable you to afford the mortgage on a larger house to give them the space they need.

Completely agree. Then people wonder why NHS staff are leaving the country

My mum wonders why my husband and l aren’t moving to a bigger house and/or better area. The reality is we struggle to pay our current mortgage many months of the year. Our mortgage has tripled in the last decade; we went from 2 bed flat to 3 bed house but even so. Our salaries in the NHS have not tripled, they haven’t even doubled. Despite us both being promoted twice and doing 3 additional qualifications between us. I’m approaching late 40’s and still do the odd bank night shift to control our overdraft

So dh drinks. Won’t stop. Won’t drink later - is no help when drinks - so you really need to decide how to play this

I had an alcoholic for an dh. He is not an ex dh and I’m divorced as he will sadly put drink above anything - whether job - wife - family

yes it’s hard being a single parent and I’m tired and lonely at times but I’m also much happier now as is dd

By almost every objective statistical metric, humanity is currently living in the best era for health, housing, and overall living standards compared to any over era/time period ever. We have less disease, better sanitation, healthcare, housing. We have entertainment, smartphones, global travel, you name it. But we are still not fucking happy. My mother used to tell us we have a roof, we have food on the table and we have each other. We lived in a tiny house on an extremely modest income. Seems like these days everyone wants more. More money. More space. More gadgets. I think we probably need to stop looking elsewhere at material things to make ourselves happy. Maybe that gives the illusion in the short term but it never lasts.

In many ways l think it peaked about 25-30 years ago in England

@Miseramble

I think you have to ask.yourself if you had a bit more money and a bigger house, but a husband who still drinks would you be any better off or happier.
What is really making your home difficult to live in - space or husband ?

You may think that but that’s not actually true, global living standard are still fundamentally improving, life expectancy increasing, poverty decreasing etc but as humans, we do not evaluate our well-being in a vacuum; we judge it against the people around us. In the past, we only compared ourselves to maybe our neighbours or friends. Today, social media makes us compare everything to everyone else. We have adapted to new comforts stupidly fast. Things that would have seemed like miracles a century ago—like smartphones, instant hot water, and global flight—quickly become the baseline expectation. Once a luxury becomes a utility, it stops making us feel wealthy; its absence simply makes us feel poor.

DLA entitlement is based on the hours of care they need, over and above what a child of their age would reasonably be expected to need.

You will need evidence of their needs An EHCP is evidence. Any medical letters etc. Anything thT evidenced the care they require from you. Use the cerebra guide online to guide you with the forms.

It is nothing like the EHCP process. I would expect DLA to be awarded based on what you say (I work in this area).

This is generic and simplistic advice. I can’t comment on your daughter, and it’s great if pushing her helped her. But this advice can be damaging. The advice I was given from professionals re my own dc was that my pushing her (into school and social situations without me) was increasing her anxiety and making it less likely she would manage these things, not more. You can’t make this assumption re a child you don’t know.

Neurodivergence is also complex. There can be PDA at play, and sensory overload, which can look a lot like anxiety but needs a different approach (less exposure, not more)