Someone said ‘don’t stay together for the kids’.
That’s exactly what I’m doing.
My ds11 was diagnosed last year as autistic, validating my lifelong belief that he is NOT naughty.
However, DH just can’t manage this. He is a nice guy. But His parenting approach is to shout, get cross, physically enforce rules...and then, if that doesn’t work he withdraws and sulks.
As a result, dh now refuses to parent ds. He will do all the nice stuff - ie cuddling up in the weekend mornings watching a film.
But he won’t parent any of ds’ pda, stubborn or autistic traits. He gets cross, he shouts. He has thrown things (not at us) in the past. His behaviour seems to be cyclic. We will have a totally awful weekend, followed by one weekend where dh tries to engage,. Then we have lots of weekends where dh literally shuts himself in a room with his phone, takes a nap on the dining room floor for most of the day, or sits at the pc all day - he won’t Engage.
I cant leave. If I did, dh would aggressively parent ds. My older, farly nuerotypical Dd would undoubtedly step in as the ‘buffer’ between them (the role I currently hold. I don’t want dd to experience that.). DS would react to this parenting in a stubborn, autistic manner which, given dh’s responses, would end up seriously impacting ds’ mental health. :(
I don’t know what to do :(