I think this is the end of my marriage and I don’t know what to do

[VeryOriginalUsername1]

I don’t know what to do. I have been married for 12 years. We have 2 boys. Our eldest is 7. He is autistic. Our youngest is 3.

My husband cannot manage his behaviour. I have begged him to access some parenting advice as I have so that we can be consistent. He says he can’t, he would not understand.

A lot of the time things are fine and we are a happy family. But then something will happen. This morning my eldest son was taking something that is special to him into school. He dropped it in the car and in anger kicked my husbands seat. My husband was driving.

This has happened to me before. I pull over, explain how unsafe it is for me to drive like that, wait for him to calm down, and then carry on.

My husband flipped. He did an emergency stop on the car, both boys cried. He screamed at our eldest son. He carried on driving and then did an emergency stop again because our eldest son kicked again. I banged my head on part of the car and the boys cried even more. I was trying to stay calm and diffuse everything. We got to school and my husband was still shouting. Another mum who I know was looking at me as if to see if things were ok.

When I took my eldest son into school he told me that his dad had shook his (my sons) leg. I asked my husband about this and he said he did, to stop him because he was about to kick again.

This kind of thing is happening more frequently. I’d say maybe one a fortnight or once a month I’m not sure.

What do I do. My children love their dad and he loves them. We have a happy family life usually. But I feel like I’m on eggshells and knowing my son has gone into school after all that has broken my heart.

Is this just normal and to be expected, am I expecting too much of my husband in terms of managing our son’s behaviour? He thinks I am. I just don’t know anymore.

I’m with you on parenting courses.

my husband was very resistant. I eventually dragged him (well actually the GP put us on it, I don’t recall being told it was optional!) - i thought it would be BS nonsense but it was amazing, transformative.

Learning about the brain patterns in autism and how to deflect meltdowns really was a game changer.

I agree with this. Imagine when you have an older much bigger teenager doing this?

I believe loving care is not actually the best thing. You can't have a kid doing this thinking it's ok. The husband isn't helping I agree, but I certainly empathise.

What the husband is experiencing right now is extreme resentment. I know this because I feel it atm too.

My husband used to often take the children out by himself on trips etc park tube cafe pantomime, and I noticed his ability to cope with ds's behaviours increased in proportion to being hands on. So reading bedtime stories, going on outings, giving them meals getting them dressed without me there actually taught DH how best to handle situations. To start with he might have found family life stressful in ways you describe IF I hadn't left him to do enormous amounts of childcare. You learn by dealing with children what works and doesn't work, not by listening to your spouse or even going on a course.

So my advice is, get him involved directly. Send them off together to bond. Playground walks. Avoid car journeys for now. My husband didn't drive I do know if that helped as he had to physically walk everywhere with them, diffusing stress I suppose. Play together Lego.

Your son isn't getting on well with your husband - how could that change? There might be positive grassroots interventions of the sort I suggest.

Yes, this. I suspect they are both melting down. It would be interesting to know what DH's own emotional regulation was like as a child, and how this was dealt with.

Hi. My kids have sen. And differ in parenting from dh.

You need family rules.

You sit down with dh, discuss situations and how you both deal with behaviour and the consequences. We drew up a list.

We sat dc down and explained our family rules

It gave us a framework to work with so we were both on same page.

Importantly they need to be suitable. So we had reward system on marbles so when dc did something like putting shoes on they got a marble etc. End of week marbles exchanged for treat of their choice from a list we made together. Dh needed some help like me saying 'oh look dh Freddie has got his shoes sorted let's do a marble' - bit false but helped dh get in the swing.

Consequences we used thinking time/time out - which i know isn't done thing now but really helped with dh not feeling he had to shout. He could place dc on thinking spot with sand timer and dh uses the time to recalibrate himself.

I have ADHD, brain damage, autistic and I can tell you what you are doing is right, you stop and explain to your son then wait for him to calm down then go, that's what my mum wouldve done iny situation.

However on other hand, your husband was handling it inappropriately and if he did that to me, itd make me so much more angry, like I dropped something that means so much to me and I wanted to show ut to the school, it would break my heart. My dad didnt understand the whole autistic problem so we had to get someone with knowledge to explain to him and he gotten better, more patient, explain more calmly and not get frustrated when I didnt understand something.

Id get him to go to classes, or get someone to explain to him other than you. The kids deserve better than that.

So car situation. I would have got dh to stop. Put dc(3) in the front. Swapped dc(7) to other side of backseat and sat in the back myself to monitor him the rest of the trip. If he understands later consequences I would have warned him he was losing something - earlier bed/screen time etc

I sense you have missed the sarcasm in my response to what was a vile commenter.
That, or you intended to reply to the person I was responding to, but I see MNHQ has rightfully removed their comment.

Think u mis understand. Im not telling her just to ignore the dangers of the child kicking. That is a totally separate issue. As yes that behaviour is very risky and her child also has to be made aware. BUT slamming brakes on and furthering the danger to everyone is her DP acting wrong.

Tell your husband that if he is genuinely sorry then he will attend parenting classes. Ideally specialist ones for children with ASCs, but a generic class will do.

Keeping calm is not about being a saint, it's about having strategies. It is way easier to cope without losing your shit if you have a strategy. Even if you know the strategy isn't a quick fix or isn't 100 per cent effective just knowing that "in this situation I am going to do X" gives you a much better way to stay in control of yourself.

I'm going to go against the grain here. He sounds exhausted. Parenting is hard enough, and adding in the special needs makes it even harder. I think I would snap too, tbh.

A child with special needs still needs to be told off if they are naughty. My friend has a boy of a similar age that has ADHD and possibly autism. He is high functioning. He is the naughtiest child I have ever met, and he is never told off "because ADHD". This has led to his behaviour becoming more and more extreme, including horrendous violence towards his siblings and class mates. He has even held a knife to his mother and tried to strangle her. There are never any consequences "because ADHD". He is only going to get bigger and stronger, and in all honesty, I suspect he will end up in jail.

Do you have any down time? Go out on dates? I would make it an absolute priority to find a reliable babysitter and go out just the two of you at least once a fortnight.

I would also swap your car seats over, so that the 3 year old is behind the drivers seat, and the 7 year old is behind the passenger seat. This seems a no brainer.

Autistic kids become autistic adults.
It's quite possible that the OPs DH is also autistic and loses control of himself when stressed. If she wants to remain with him then I suggest they explore this possibility and then try and put in strategies that help both of them.
Unfortunately not all neurodiverse adults are able to function well in daily life, particularly when there are small children involved. It is up to OP and her DH to decide if they are better off together or apart.

Yes. OP, he's literally told you in words that he thinks he's too mentally deficient to parent your children properly. Believe him.

Yes I agree.
For example, one of his coping strategies might be accepting that he can't drive when the children are passengers in the car.

Going to say the obvious but could your DH be autistic as well? It seems like many parents (often the dads) who really struggle with their own SEN kids are ND themselves. They don't really know how to interact with children, they have problems putting their own needs behind those of their kids, they have their own sensory issues and struggle to regulate emotions.

In my observation, undiagnosed ASD men are usually very high masking, obviously so because they've managed to cope with work, life and relationships so far. They develop a "script" for all the people and situations that may come up in their lives, in the sense of "if A happens, then you say B". If "A says this, you say B". This is very predictable for adult interactions but doesn't work with children. They may try to create a script for their kids based on cliched phrases they heard on TV or from books but it rarely works in real life. Kids need to be spoken to based on real-life context...you need to know if they're tired, or ill, or overstimulated and that affects what you say or do. ND men tend to interact with children without taking any of those factors into account and it rarely ends well.

Another thing is that, before kids, they've managed to adjust their lifestyle so they always have ways to decompress and emotionally regulate themselves (taking long coffee breaks, working from home, wearing headphones, long drives or commutes, eating certain foods, having the ability to nap whenever they're tireds, getting drunk, going on holidays etc). They also find socially acceptable stims and built those into their routine. However the sheer relentlessness of children (not to mention 2 with ND) means all of those regulatory behaviors go out of the window. Since they don't have the ability to decompress or stim, ND fathers often develop abusive behaviour. It's their last resort to get what they need.

OP, even though the obvious consensus here is to leave the marriage, there is also the possibility of staying but you will have to treat him like a third ND kid. FIL is clearly undiagnosed ND and so were both of his sons. MIL made it her life mission to shield him from the behaviours of his kids and keep him happy. She always ensured he had his space to decompress, didn't get overstimulated, had his favourite foods etc. God knows how she did it, but she managed to raise two ND boys who eventually became quite successful adults and the entire family is very close. She is literally the glue that held everything together at the cost of great personal sacrifice over the years. However a happy family was all she wanted and she did indeed get that in the end. Holidays are lovely, loads of grandchildren, everyone has the family home to retreat to and in some ways, staying in the marriage did pay off.

I'm sorry, am I missing something here? Why don't you simply seat the autistic child the other side of the car so that he CAN'T kick the driver?

You've posted about incidents like this before, haven't you? The answers are going to be the same - and you know what they are. Your husband's behaviour towards your oldest son is unacceptable - and things are only going to get worse as your son gets older.

Your husband needs to seek help and advice (from the GP, from the social workers, from the school - I think you have plenty of professionals around you who can advise). But note, YOUR HUSBAND needs to seek advice (not you telling him what he needs to do). You say he has gone to his mum's? Then only when he has sought help and has a plan for learning to control his behaviour and deal constructively with the challenges your son brings can he come back into the family home.

You wouldn’t believe how much easier my autistic children were to raise when they were no longer living under my abusive husband’s wrath.

Your DH is choosing to abuse your child rather than learn how to cope with the challenges better. It’s a choice: you have one too.

It sounds like your husband is not coping with an autistic child and I suspect that is the case for a lot of fathers. I would take practical steps to avoid this particular situation arising again such as not having your autistic son sit behind his father in a car for example.

It's all very well saying get a divorce but I think this would make things much harder for you in particular and many women left on their own with children will end up being just as frustrated and angry as your husband was. Women are not miracle people who stay calm in every circumstance. Women struggling to raise children on their own are more likely to physically or verbally abuse their own children when they are not coping. Two parents are better than one in most cases and your husband seems fine the majority of the time.
It may also be true that sessions would not work for him - they don't work for everyone and they tend to be female dominated which can be off-putting for men. He may benefit from joining an autistic group for fathers to link in with one another informally - worth looking into.

Exactly this!

Op has your dh EVER had any support around his feelings about your sons diagnosis?

If your background is working with SEN and you have professional training as well as the personal training you've put yourself forward for, you're already ahead of where a lot of parents would be coming to terms with a diagnosis as well as the behaviour management and support side. So in that respect I think you do have an added 'advantage' there and what can then happen is that you naturally end up taking the lead more but actually that doesn't help the other parent to step up/ process/ develop skills because there's a safety net there in that you'll do it.

I think you're absolutely right to be pushing him to engage with support. I think many parents really, really struggle to adjust to firstly a diagnosis and the fact their child may have a different experience of life than other children, but also that they will need to parent differently. Often our parenting (unless we've done a lot of work on ourselves) tends to fall back to how we were parented especially when we're under pressure and overwhelmed. Would this kind of reaction be how his parents dealt with him when he was acting up or they were overwhelmed? If so I think thats a conversation to have because that's not really OK for any child.

I think realistically if he's not generally abusive here and this is genuine overwhelm and lack of knowledge/resources then the best case scenario is that he steps up and he drops the pride/ fear whatever it is and he gets proper support. The alternative is you become a lone parent and he has no further involvement with your kids, you become a single parent and he has contact where he's going to face the same problems but alone, or you need to find another way to navigate this. So on that basis, I don't think I'd be ending the marriage yet, but I would be making engagement with support a condition for him returning to the home. It's not enough for him to just say he's sorry, he needs to action change.

I would arrange for a meeting with the school for you both to speak to the senco for advice and support, I'd look into parenting program specific to caring for children with autism and I'd look into whether there are any peer parent support groups for parents. He SHOULD be looking into this himself but realistically that's not where he's maybe at so I would give him the details and then I'd want to see him attending and then have a conversation about returning to the home. Marriage counselling would also be on my list because you two need to be able to get on the same page and he needs to be able to open up to you about how and why he's struggling and he needs to really understand the impact his behaviour is having on you as well as the kids and you need to find middle ground.

It can be really hard getting childcare when you have a child with SEN, do you have anyone who would be able to babysit to enable you both to engage with support? And ideally to give you both a little down time together in the future on a semi regular basis if he does start to make the changes you need to see?

This is all very hard op and I feel for you. Once you've exhausted all options and if after this come to Jesus talk he's still refused to engage in any meaningful way then he's not really leaving you much other choice than to go it alone.

I'm sorry if this has been suggested already but is there any possibility your husband may also be autistic? It is familial and there's certainly a chance it came from him. I don't have any advice that hasn't been offered already but I wanted to say how sorry I am that this is all on your shoulders and give you a virtual hand hold. It's very easy for people to throw LTB around but it so often just isn't that easy.

Thank you so much for so many thoughtful replies. It has given me a lot to think about.

The points about my husband not coping and possibly feeling resentful are very valid. I think this escalates in these circumstances, because when he does scream and shout and scare our son, my priority becomes helping and reassuring our son, rather than focusing on our son’s behaviour.

To be clear, I am fully in agreement with those posters who say you can’t let autistic children or children with adhd get away with things just because they are autistic/adhd. I see that with some of my son’s friends and I think it’s wrong. I set very clear and firm boundaries with him. But he does have meltdowns and these can be very hard to predict.

With the car seat being where it was, this was the first time in a year that it has happened. Also, it’s not always there. My husband had some work things in his car and took the car seats out and put them back in. I can’t say for certain, but when I think about it I don’t think he does usually sit behind the driver. But just to make the point that I don’t keep sitting him there whilst he’s kicking.

A lot of posters have asked if my husband could be autistic. I’m autistic myself. However, I think it’s highly likely that he has ADHD and possible that he is autistic. He has recently begun to seek help for some mental health problems too which have an impact on him, specifically OCD. He recognises that this could be the source of his anger. He can recall many anger outbursts as a child.

I have messaged him about the parenting courses but haven’t had a reply yet. The reason he thinks he wouldn’t be able to understand it comes back to the possible ADHD, and how much he struggled at school. But I am literally begging him and have been clear that it’s the only way forward that I can see to support our children and save our marriage.

I agree that this isn’t straight forward or black and white. The circumstances are very challenging and he is struggling with that, but it keeps coming back to that I can’t let that impact our children.

Oh and just to add as well sorry, I honestly hand on heart have never posted about this before. We have no professionals involved (accept for send support from school, who are brilliant)

The sort of anger your DH displays will be terrifying for a child. I know as I’ve been on the receiving end. You can’t allow this to go on and I am glad you are urging him to go to parenting classes.

OP's husband reacted the same way most people (other than those self-identifying as saints) would react in the same situation. People lose their shit from time to time. This was one of those times. Don't let the son sit behind the driver ever again or in the front seat as he could pull the handbrake or grab the steering wheel when he loses his temper.