Scared of DP contact with kids if we separate - am I being silly? Long.

[sparklyhorse]

I'm a first time poster so apologies if I make mistakes.
Been with DP for 7 years and have DD (3) and DS (20 months).
Relationship with DP has never been amazing. It was my own choice to get together but I think now I made a big mistake. Huge red flag I ignored was that he was 39 and had never had a relationship. A few months after we met, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I told DP we should stop seeing each other but he was really nice about it and ended up helping with lots of tasks in looking after my dad. I think I mistook this for emotional support. I had a horrid 18 months with my father's illness. After my dad's death I thought about what was really important in my life and I knew that I really, really wanted to have children. I knew DP did as well and that's how I got here. It was always so-so and never great but after years of dating I thought (foolishly) that I needed to lower my standards and settle..
The issue now is that I want to separate from DP as I am increasingly unhappy but I am scared about the effect his behaviour will have on the kids if we separate and he has unsupervised contact (I can't see how he wouldn't be able to get 50/50 if he pressed for it, especially as I am currently on anti d's - although as a result of depression/anxiety about our relationship and the kids).
To be clear, he is not abusive in any way to me, However, he is very much lacking in empathy. He can't process his own feelings (he has been diagnosed with alexithymia and I suspect he has some kind of autistic spectrum disorder) and as a result he can't deal with other people's feelings. His answer to this is to do lots of tasks instead of communicating like a normal partner. So he works hard and he also does at least 50% of housework, cooking, driving, chores etc. without any complaint. He looks after the kids from 7am til 9am before work to let me sleep in. He bathes them when he comes in from work and we put one DC each to bed. He also does his share of getting up for night wakings. I know many women would love this.
However, other than doing lots of practical tasks, he really doesn't do anything else and is often quite unpleasant to be around. He is unremittingly negative. He's grumpy. Totally lacking in assertiveness. He has no enthusiasm for anything, no joy, no positive direction (he just plods along passively with whatever is in front of him). He's lacking in any empathy (eg when I went through 2 C sections he literally just stood and watched me, he cannot say anything remotely sensitive). I get no input into anything whatsoever except the tasks. I have to decide what we eat, what children do, where we go on holiday, do all the finances and admin ie he doesn't take any responsibility as an equal adult.
Lately DP has been coming more and more into conflict with DD (3) who is a typical 3 year old but has always been very emotionally intense and sensitive. It's a complete personality clash. When she is reacting emotionally due to stress or frustration his answer is always to reason with her in adult language, cite rules or do the naughty step. He sighs and says her name in this horrible exasperated tone all day long at everything she does. It's breaking my heart and it's got to the stage that I sometimes want to kill him. I know it's not huge in the scheme of things but it's so upsetting. He has now started being passive aggressive to her too. For example, I was going to meet a friend for Xmas shopping and she asked me to bring her a reindeer toy back and was very excited. I overheard him say to her that I wouldn't be getting her one at all and she got so upset and he just laughed at her. He thinks tormenting her is funny.
I've tried talking to him and we've been to counselling separately and together but nothing has helped, I think because he has a very low level of self awareness and perhaps a brain makeup that means he genuinely can't relate like others.
My mother and rest of my family hate him and I notice that often people don't warm to him when they meet him. The children always come to me and not him. They're always more upset and highly strung around him. I love days out with them without him as it's a breath of fresh air.
I now want to separate but the thing stopping me is him being alone with the kids without me there. What if he's awful to them and I can't be there to help them? I spend most of my time comforting them and being extra positive to make up for his influence. I'm also worried that he wouldn't stand up for the kids if ever needed as he is so weak, that sort of thing is always left to me.
Am I being silly? What would you do?

You can’t stay in an unhappy relationship but you also can’t stop him spending time with them.

Realistically what contact would you be happy with? Would you be comfortable with overnight stays?

Sorry posted too soon!

I’d also be worried after everything you’ve explained but legally he has a right to spend time with them so I’m not really sure what you could do here. Hopefully someone will be along with some better advice.

I'm afraid I have nothing useful to say except you are not being silly to be concerned about it and one of the reasons I stay with my emotionally illiterate DP is because I can provide a buffer between him and the children and say 'what Daddy means is.....' and reframe the words more positively.
In fairness my DP has listened to what I've said & the suggestions I've made and has got a lot better with how he speaks to them over the years but its been a slow process and mine are a lot older than yours.

Thanks Glitter. I want them to have their father in their life and I want what's best for them. I have a vague hope he might be better with them if under less pressure as seeing them less. The more stressed he gets the worse his behaviour. And hes very stressed as I've said I'm really unhappy over and over for months now.

Glitter, i think if the children lived with me and he visited and took them out I would be ok with that. My DD is super sensitive and I think she would be really upset staying away. But I don't have a leg to stand on as he does might asking with her often so it's not like he's not capable.

• Would he actually want much contact with the dc if you split? What makes you think so?

• Living like this 24/7 means there's never any respite for the dc or you. At least you'd be able to provide a secure happy environment for them the majority of the time if you split. (Staying also gives them a horrible model of what relationships are like).

• You're not actually able to stop him even when you are there either. I'd be very worried about this getting worse as the dc get older and them being stuck with him wearing them down all the time.

• Your MH would improve away from him and better able to teach them good boundaries. And when they're older they'll be able to choose how much they see him, or not. If you stay, they'll never have that option.

• He might be a better dad if he's not living with them - might be more inclined to be a Disney dad.

Book thief I've thought for a long time it's better for the children to stay and protect them rather than split up. I'm just getting to stage where I don't think I can. I'm on anti d's and have comfort/stress eaten 2 stone and pre diabetes. I just know my health would improve getting away from him. And if he was around the kids less the on so much the better. But he's clueless - he never realises what He's doing/how He's speaking unless someone is there to point it out. And he never improves no matter how much practice. I could live with the lack of empathy but the passive aggression is awful. To a 3 year old!

Category I think he would push for 50/50. He has nothing else in his life and keeps super busy with all the child related tasks so he never has to sit down and confront anything. I think he would be really lonely and depressed. He is usually very weak and passive but when I suggested a separation he became very nasty and aggressive about not seeing 'his kids and 'some other man' raising them (Not likely, he's put me off for the foreseeable). I think he might get nasty and fight.

His family are pretty horrid and I'm not keen on I supervised contact with them either. He tends to take the DC to his mum's if he had them on his own.

I'm sorry I don't have any words of wisdom to hand right now. I just wanted to say that you sound very nice and balanced and reasonable. From your description I can totally see why you'd be concerned.

I don't think you can shield them effectively living with him. He's still grumpy and torments your dd.

By staying, it makes it their normal. All day, every day.

Book thief can I ask are you glad you stayed with your DH or do you wish you'd left? How do you cope with being the buffer?

I'd love to hear from any posters who've been worried about contact and gone ahead and separated and how it worked out. Thanks for all replies so far. In a strange way I was hoping I was being unreasonable as confronting this is daunting

Hi, you've basically described my life for the last 7 years. My xh also on spectrum, he's not a bad man but has never been taught coping mechanisms and so we were living in constant tension, he was so negative I used to describe him as a black cloud permanently hovering. He also drank quite a lot to hide away from himself.
In the end I left him. I couldn't see how it could possibly improve and he was actually getting worse with age. He's now staying with his mum and he comes most weekends to take the dc (3 and 5) to his mum's and plays disney dad. He is much less stressed as he doesn't have the daily grind to deal with. He plays with the kids and they look forward to seeing him. I've no reason to believe that they are worse off without me there. In fact me not interfering all the time has probably given him the chance to develop his own parenting tactics. He is hardly in touch during the week. He still wants us to get back together and was very angry at me and still is I think. But staying would have killed who I was, shrunk my and dc's world, and given them such a bad example of marriage.

One more thing to add - I waited til my dc were 3 and 5 despite wanting to leave after dc2 was born. I kept hoping he'd improve. If I could go back in time I'd leave earlier. Now dc are older, they have an understanding of what is happening and they have opinions. Many of which don't match mine!

Mamakiks thank you. Your reply brought tears to my eyes. It's so hard to explain to friends what it's like and sometimes I think I'm imagining it. Can you say a bit more about the opinions not matching? I have thought that maybe sooner is better as the kids won't be so aware but then I read that it has less negative impact on them if you wait til the youngest is 5.
When you say He's developed his own parenting tactics are you ok with them?
Also how did you go about deciding on residency and contact?

I did Sparkly, about 14 months ago. It's hard letting go when all trust has gone but the reality was that my dc were being damaged by staying - stress, depression etc.

It's not ideal and we're still adjusting but as pp said, at least they get some time away from him. And now i can be the mum i wanted to be rather than the shadow i had become. Good luck

I think I would start documenting his treatment of them - the teasing, passive aggression, inappropriate responses - in order to get ready, in court if needs be, why you will fight any shared care plan.

You would have to accept that he saw them regularly and had overnights, but you could fight the idea of 50/50 for sure. He could push all he liked but if you opposed it with solid reasons, it would be more likely that a more traditional every other weekend scenario would be agreed.

And things may change - life would be very different for him once moved out. You may find that he moves on in some way and that his interest wanes. Especially if it doesn't work out that he gets to be grumpy and cruel with no comeback. There would be comeback - it presumably wouldn't take long before he was faced with a 'shape up or they're going to refuse to see you' situation. He wouldn't get to throw his weight around and as they got older, his control would wane even more.

Well I started by telling dc that daddy and I were having a time out because we couldn't be kind to each other and needed to remember how - I thought this would work because it was language they understood as I use it with them and initially it was meant to be a trial separation. As soon as he was gone and the atmosphere lifted and I became myself again I realised he could never come back, but my older dc was saying things like, hurry up and remember how to be kind please cos we want daddy home. I tried to explain that it would become a longterm thing but she was pretty upset. With hindsight I should have waited until I was certain and then told them as a fait accompli. Also whenever I tell my younger one off or he hurts himself he cries for daddy which gets pretty wearing.
What have you read that says it has less impact once they are 5? I'd be interested to read that.
As for his parenting, it's certainly not my style but he's starting to find his own way a bit and is less stressed when he sees them (well he would be having 6 days off a week ) so that obviously translates into how he treats them.
As far as residency goes, as soon as things had settled a little I think he realised the benefit of not having to do the dogwork and agreed to them living mainly with me. He doesn't have his own place yet so doesn't have regular overnights but has already hinted at eow and midweek contact.