Passive vs aggressive parenting

[greatbighillofhope]

We have 2 dc, one has autism and adhd. I guess if we were just parenting the one NT child these issues wouldn’t crop up so much, but autism and adhd both present a LOT of extra parenting challenges. dh and I have always had very differing styles- he goes from one extreme of being silly and clown-like to being authoritarian Victorian father, passing ‘because I said so’ type edicts. By contrast, I am generally very steady but have a huge problem in setting boundaries and am easily manipulated. 90% of the time I feel I have to acquiesce to dh’s rules just because he shouts the loudest. The only time I put my foot down is when I am scared things will escalate.
Today dc2’s teacher told me that dc2 is working on assertive communication at school. He’s doing well with the theory in lessons but struggling to apply it in real life. In practice he either bottles his feelings up or explodes (sometimes one then the other). It seemed so obvious to me that dh and I are modelling only those two options for expressing yourself and never, ever modelling assertive communication. So, I thought to myself, why don’t we have a family project where we all try to support one another to communicate assertively. I printed some child friendly activity sheets out to discuss with dh but was pretty much immediately shouted down. I was annoyed, particularly because I asked him what it was about what I had suggested that he didn’t like, but he hadn’t listened long enough to even understand what I was suggesting so couldn’t answer!!! He said that I was always starting on ‘projects’ and why couldn’t I just accept things as they were. We haven’t really spoken for the rest of the evening.
So, already I’ve failed at the first hurdle, I can’t even assert myself enough to have an conversation about assertiveness.

You've had lots if good advice OP and you come across as a really switched on, intelligent person so the optimist in me thinks you'll get to the right conclusion. I'm going to throw this out there because having read your posts I think it describes where you're falling into a trap with your OH, your mother and others like them:

Trying to reason with unreasonable people is an exercise in futility.

I think you know OP you are looking for something that doesn’t exist with your husband

My first evening on my own with the kids has not gone at all well.
From the first moment of coming home dc2 has done everything he can to manipulate his way to having more screen time. He has tried every trick in the book and has succeeded to quite an impressive degree despite my best efforts. (Admittedly not that great). At the point where I thought I’d finally got him settled into bed (yes he is 12 and yes I still have to settle him despite his medication) all of a sudden dc1 (who up until his point had been perfectly fine) decided to pick a fight with dc2. I knew that it was getting violent and knew that it was all for my benefit so decided to gamble on the fact that If i wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be any motivation to fight with each other. So I went out.
My gamble paid off and no damage was done in my absence. They had just separated and simmered down, but dc1 was not happy with me and decided it was just the right moment to let me know in detail just what a poor parent I am using tonight’s debacle as prime example.
I was happy to acknowledge that she made lots of very fair points but the way in which she made them was basically verbally battering me. That has gone on for well over an hour. So between the dc today I have had about 7 solid hours of battling with them, that’s after I have done a day’s actual paid work already.
On the brighter side dh has finally agreed to family counselling and I’m going on an assertiveness course next week so I still have hope. But this is the final opportunity for redemption now for our relationship. If it fails then I really can’t see any sort of a future for us together.

@tootruetobegood ‘trying to reason with unreasonable people is an exercise in futility’
Yeah, and don’t I know it.
The worry is that I will keep on making excuses for this behaviour, keep on blaming myself, keep on thinking that the next book I read contains the next idea (that the whole family will tell me is shit and pointless but despite their attempts to derail it) will fix it all magically. But that seems less and less likely to happen.
Intellectually I know all this shit, I know what to do. I know that tomorrow I have to not allow dc2 any screen time after his behaviour today. But I also know that I will be setting myself up for another world of pain. He won’t get ready for school or go to school. He will run off, he will lock himself in the bathroom, he will climb up a tree, he will probably threaten suicide. He will go absolutely ballistic at me and try every single gun in his arsenal. And he will carry on again where he left off when he gets home from school. How can I withstand it, especially after today’s onslaught? I know it will cause me huge emotional pain, and probably physical pain too as I expect he will hurt me. This is no way to live is it?