How can I support DH with this?

[Mamma18383]

DH has started saying he needs more validation when he is upset about something.

For context we have a child with complex SEN. So much of our life is filled with compromises in favour of DS. We’re not parenting how we thought we would parent. It’s often frustrating and very difficult. But DS is happy and making progress at school, which was not the case a year or two ago.

Today DS was dysregulated and was irritating DH - DH has a habit of lecturing and haranguing DS even though DS doesn’t understand and isn’t listening. I tried to de-escalate. DS went away and got calm again. I told DH that DS can’t help it and we have to be calm for DS, especially right before school, otherwise we risk escalating DS further.

DH expressed that he wanted some acknowledgement from me that part of the routine stinks. I said I agree but I’ve accepted this is the routine, that it’s already very rushed, and we don’t time have to stop. In my head I thought that it’s not just a simple acknowledgement he wants, it’s a big moan about everything that is rubbish in life, during school run. Because we stopped to talk about it DH ended up leaving late, another thing he is stressing about in the mornings.

Do we really need to build in time to have a lot of little moans or one big moan about DS? We’ve been dealing with his complex needs almost his whole life. If DS does something particularly concerning then we need to talk about it. But the everyday annoyances, I feel like there isn’t time or energy in the day to complain about every one. I kind of accept that some things aren’t great because on the whole everything is fine.

From DH’s perspective he has a demanding job and commute that adds to the stress. DH does bedtime with DS while I manage other DC who is a baby. There are things DH could be doing to better manage the morning routine, like get DS to bed earlier and use his time in the morning (he wakes up earlier) to help get DS get out of bed sooner, but DH uses that time for himself. Currently DS has just 30 mins from waking up to school transport (transitions being one of his most challenging areas.)

I think DH is still a little in denial that this is our life now. We talk on and off about how rubbish parts of it are. For me I just want DH to get on with it. I don’t mind talking through problems if we are looking for solutions. But DH just wants to vent and does so at the most inappropriate times, like today when DS is dysregulated and both he and DS need to be out the door in 2 mins.

What should we be doing to improve this? Reading back on my post I’m thinking maybe I need to allow space for him to vent when we are both calm so that he doesn’t vent when he is upset. But he may not want to vent as much during those times.

I guess I manage better because I have a network of SEN parents to talk to and I offload regularly, but he doesn’t have that, so he wants to offload to me. We both find making friends hard but I know talking about DS to others helps me (be a better mum, stay calmer at home, come up with new strategies) and he doesn’t want to do that, with other SEN parents or anyone really. He does that typical male thing of only having very superficial banter with others and is afraid to talk more deeply about himself or ask personal questions of others, and therefore he doesn’t have any good friends. We’ve talked about this too but he’s not going to change.

@Mamma18383is your DS autistic? Because if he is I would bet good money on your DH being undiagnosed and that will be why he struggles - he can’t help regulate DS because he is massively dysregulated himself.

We’ve taken it turns being the SAHP. Yes DH’s job is not flexible unfortunately. We’ve explored him changing jobs but he’s not that motivated to look widely.

It would be bad. So yes I would like to improve things before we get to that point.

We are both likely ND. I see traits of both autism and adhd in me, and autism in him. We talk about it indirectly. We’re both high functioning so don’t feel the need for a diagnosis. I guess me having SEN parents has friends also gives me a pool of ND friends as well as they are almost entirely ND.

DH knows in what DS needs and is usually able to meet those needs. But I agree he is probably at capacity. I do also think that he meets his own needs as the expense of DS, such as giving himself time to decompress but then doesn’t put DS to bed early enough or wake him earlier in the mornings so DS has longer to get ready. I totally agree with what you’re saying about children in the mornings, and since I’ve had the baby to look after this part has been going downhill. We’ve talked so much about how DS needs more time and nothing changes.

Parent of sen kids here.

Are headphones an option for the morning? DS loves his YouTube videos but tinny phone sound sets my teeth on edge.

Your DH - in the morning I would be just repeating "yup this isn't ideal but we just need everyone to stay calm and get ds out the door. Let's discuss tonight" on a loop.

Then do actually have a discussion about reorganising mornings - 30 mins is nothing in our house, dd would take that long to brush her teeth.

Can someone get up earlier or start the routine earlier? Would DS understand a picture chart of his routine so he can move on to the next step himself?

Thanks, yes a lot of what you say is sounds on the nose.

I should encourage DH to put his headphones on in the mornings if he’s dysregulated himself so he can focus on getting reading for work. I really only need DH to open the curtains for DS (as he gets up much earlier) so he starts to wake up and I can do the rest.

I find I am already starting to use strategies on DH that I use for DS - de-escalating type strategies, etc. It feels ridiculous in a way, like parenting another SEN child, managing his feelings.

Thanks this is a good line to try, though I wonder if DH might still feel dismissed.

Yes, DH needs to start the routine earlier! I would but I have really poor nights and I have to hold/feed the baby. DH also starts off the morning on screens and watching rubbish so he should understand why that time is needed for DS as well. But yes I’ll talk to him about it again.

I second this! As adults we need to be emotionally stable and available for our children- your DH is an adult and needs to regulate himself. He should identify why he's so stressed in the morning's that he's got no tolerance, and then do something about it... Obviously you support each other to do this, but shouldn't be your job to regulate him... Wishing you all the best- it's a lot to carry for you...

DS needs a lot of shadowing in the morning - regular prompts with getting dressed, even prompts to eat every bite or drink every sip of breakfast or he won’t have anything at all. We did visual charts when he was younger but they don’t work so well at home now.

Thank you

Does DH recognise/accept he is autistic? I agree that diagnosis it’self isn’t always necessary but it sounds like DH is currently not ‘high functioning’ in that he is struggling to function at the moment. Lots ND people manage until the external pressure increases. I wonder if him recognising his own needs mean he would be able to plan ahead to get his needs meet.

Can you and DH physically write out and evening and morning timetable with times and stick it up somewhere and give DS a visual one too.

I am trying to be sympathetic - DH has to rush off on a difficult commute and stressful job every day. DS obviously doesn’t appreciate how much DH has compromised for him and DH feels that DS is ungrateful for all the little ways he tries to help him and says yes to. I have the baby and house to look after and DS after school but I’ve got time (while feeding baby) to sit on MN for an hour and think through what I can do better.

I think that’s the other thing, I have and give myself a lot of time to think about the kids and when things aren’t working I ask for advice or for new things to try. Whereas DH will use his spare time to watch TV, and then when things fall apart at home he reverts to the same strategies or no strategies at all. I do talk to him about new ideas too but whether he implements is a bit 50:50.

I completely sympathise. You’re really in the trenches at the moment and I don’t think there are any easy answers. I have been here so I will try and figure how things got better for us.

What are your plans for work? Are you on maternity leave? I’m just thinking of strategies which may work and what else you have coming up.

We’ve only gone as far as agreeing we are both probably ND as is his family. I suspect mine too. We’ve done informal tests to see if we have autistic traits. I think we’re both reluctant to put a label on it or self diagnose. That’s a good point about external pressure and recognising what our needs are.

I think physically writing down every bedtime and morning routine step is a good idea but DH thinks I over manage already. For example I have phone alarms to remind me of certain steps during bedtime/morning routine - since he’s now doing bedtime I suggested he use one alarm too (as it’s a long build up), to get DS to bed at a consistent time - he thinks it’s unnecessary but he just ends up putting DS to bed whenever he remembers, or whenever he has finished all the evening chores so he doesn’t start the routine very late and then he has to rush it or DS goes to bed very late, and that impacts on school.

Reading that it does sound like DH might have some adhd traits too - he’s always been a procrastinator and avoided hard tasks
until the last minute.

I’m not on maternity leave. I would like to go back to work eventually but it has to be compatible with both kids.

I say all this but I’ve normalised a lot of the difficulties and I think we are generally doing ok - the kids are happy so I’m happy. Some of my SEN parent friends have very unhappy children and very difficult lives so I’m grateful for what we do have. Whereas DH’s point of comparison is his colleagues who all seem to have NT kids (from what he hears) and they are doing normal things, going holiday etc. You obviously only hear the nice bits from
colleagues (especially if you don’t ever want to talk about anything deeper) but it upsets DH anyway.

I’m a sahm too so I can meet my children’s needs. It has lots of benefits including giving me thinking time but it also means my children become my special interests and it’s difficult for me to recall how difficult it was to manage parenting and working.

Sorry if I’ve missed it but are you bf, is why bedtime is all on DH? Is there a way you can share part of the evening routine either every other night or you can do bath time or super time while you’re feeding the baby. I thinking if there is a way to subtlety get DH onto a schedule.

Demand avoidance can be part of autism but as you will know there are big crossovers.

Yes BF baby and cosleep - she wakes frequently through the night too.

If I can settle baby and the timing is right I will go and jostle DS into bed - he’s quite keen if I’ll read a story with him, and then pass him onto DH who will stay with him until asleep. But if baby wakes up then I need to attend to her, and she won’t be comforted by DH at night.

I hadn’t thought of DH’s procrastination as demand avoidance but it is of course, thank you.

Agree about the benefits of being a SAHP. I find it frustrating that when DH was the SAHP he didn’t use it the same way. He was more attuned to DS and met all of his main needs, but the SEN side of things, the reading, admin, etc the extra stuff, seemed to fall to me anyway and I had to balance that with work.

I have a friend who honestly could have written your posts. And my DH has defiitely had some of these issues as well.

I'm completely gobsmacked at the comments on here that don't seem to have any idea of how this impacting you. As you say, it's like you're aparenting a third (SEN) child with having to manage him and it's exhausting.

My DH was not as bad as this, but there have been points over the years we've been parenting a challenging child that it's been so bad for me I honestly contemplated whether divorce would be easier. Where my resentment that I had to be the grown up got completely out of hand. In my case, I have twice sat down and writen DH a letter. A letter in which I explain why I'm on my knees and why I'm resentful and what I believe needed to change to give DS the support HE needs. To my DH's credit, he has always responded well to this - the letter allows him to read and digest at his own pace and to think before he responds and we get into a huge fight - and improvements were made. And, watching his nephew whose needs are NOT being met spiral further and further has really made him appreciate the effort I put in and the help I gave him to help DS.

For my friend, she just has her DH whining and complaining all the time and I honestly wander sommetimes if their relationship will survive.

Your DH needs to figure it out. if you, as a couple, agree he's in charge of the morning routine then he needs to stop whining about what ds "should" be able to do and accept the reality. My Dh also struggles with this idea of getting up with enough time to get all the things done in a calm way. But he has learnt that if he is responsible for the morning routine, he cannot stay in bed later if he wants that time to sort the chores he needs to feel regulated, as well as the chores related to the children.

I'm sorry, this is a long anser, but I'm so tired of these men who seem to think that their unhappiness is OURS to fix. I sympathise with your DH COMPLETELY But he needs to sort it out. Seek counselling, create strategies etc so that his life is not so hard. You can't just sit there complaining that it doesn't work the way you want it to work. The first 2 years of DS' life were so hard for me because for the first time in my life, in order to m ake a change, I couldn't just implement a plan that worked for ME. I had to figure out what was going to work for DS and THEN how to make that work for me. And I resented the hell out of it. But I did it. Becuase that's what adults do. They accept the realities and figure out how to make shit work.

“There are things DH could be doing to better manage the morning routine, like get DS to bed earlier and use his time in the morning (he wakes up earlier) to help get DS get out of bed sooner,”
“DH has to rush off on a difficult commute and stressful job every day.”

So why is DH both getting DS to bed AND getting him up in the morning? Why can’t you wake up earlier to get DS up, if that would ease the morning routine? You say, “DH expressed that he wanted some acknowledgement from me that part of the [morning] routine stinks” - and he’s not wrong. Clearly, the short amount of time between getting up and getting out if the door is stressful for both DH and DS - you and he are going to have to think about how you can change it in ways that work for you both. You say you’ll “talk” to DH about the morning routine - I think he needs a hand with it, or maybe just acknowledgement that it’s not easy, and then finding ways to make it easier.

“I should encourage DH to put his headphones on in the mornings”

Why can’t DS wear headphones? He’s the one listening to the annoying cartoon! I think from your DH’s POV, it’s all on him to make changes. I’m sure it’s very difficult for both of you, having an SEN son - but maybe your DH finds it harder, on top of his stressful job and everything else. I think women are often better at getting on with a stressful situation, but you do need to acknowledge your DH’s feelings, because if it all gets too much and he can’t cope, he might think of leaving which wouldn’t help anyone. You say, “I think DH is still a little in denial that this is our life now” - so would counselling help? Or going to something where you can both talk to other SEN parents? There isn’t an easy fix for this, OP, and I can see that from your POV, there are things your DH could do to make life easier, but from his POV, he is not having his feelings acknowledged, and you are both going to have to find a way round this.

I feel for both of you. I don't have experience of a SEN child but I remember turning up at work after hellish mornings getting a kid out the door and being utterly drained and useless, which made me feel worse. Not all work colleagues understood and I felt desperate for some headspace.

Equally, I agree with you that just complaining is counterproductive.

I think I explain later than I put our other child
who is a baby to bed - she is breastfed and we cosleep. She wakes through the night and I have to settle her.

DS’s bedtime routine is long, multi-stage, so not just popping him in bed. I can’t be with him through all of it, but if the baby is asleep I’ll come down and help push things along. Bedtime is earlier on those days but ideally it should be even more so. I really want DH to do bedtimes earlier but he’s too tired after the day and leaves it to the last minute. Then his own bedtime is impacted and he’s tired in the morning and even though he’s up early he doesn’t get DS morning routine going either.

My sleep is terrible - I wake up through the night with the baby. Sometimes DS wakes and DH doesn’t so I have to comfort DS too. On occasion I have had to drag the baby with me to DS’s room to comfort them both because DH has slept through it all. DH has a long driving commute and I want him to be safe so I don’t give him a hard time about not getting up.

But the result is that I really struggle to be the one to get up early. I wake up when baby wakes up and I then I need to feed baby, which is about the time that DS is up too. I’m the one waking DS and supervise toileting and his change of clothes with baby in hand. If I can I’ll pass her onto DH.

I have no idea what DH is doing first thing in the morning - when we come down he’s either on his phone or he’s doing chores that are completely unnecessary like laundry or emptying the dishwasher under the guise of helping. I know I’m being a bit mean here, that it could be his way of regulating by doing monotonous tasks, but it makes
me upset, because he could be doing something useful like helping to get DS up, get DS bag and food ready. Sometimes he makes breakfast for them and does the DS snack but not always. Sometimes
theres a cup of tea for me and sometimes there isn’t. It’s just a bit random and it upsets my routine on the days when he’s not been helpful because I don’t know if things have been done.

At minimum DH needs to get himself fed and ready for work. He has complained that he’s often late out the door and into work, that he would have a much less stress with traffic if he could leave earlier. But because he is busying himself with unnecessary tasks (that I have the whole day to do) he is consistently late.

I’ve tried to discuss this so many times, that ALL of us would benefit from going to bed earlier and having more time in the morning, that we’re putting DS school and DH’s commute and work at risk by rushing, but he probably feels I’m nagging, and I do feel like I’m parenting him and explaining very obvious things to no effect! He agrees in principle but in practice it’s no good.

I know we have to try and reset during the weekends but this is where I’m a bit weak as I like the lie-in, plus I feel sorry for DS who is always underslept, and he has some morning activities that he needs to be rested for, so I let him sleep in for 30-60 mins, and so his bedtime doesn’t get any better.

Re the headphones DS has sensory difficulties and headphones can be difficult. Given the speed at which DS has to wake up and get ready for school, I just want to reduce other demands on DS as much as possible
and get him into school transport without any upset. What he is watching is normally fine - it’s often educational - on this occasion it was irritating DH.

There aren’t many places you can meet other SEN parents on weekends and have substantial time to talk as everyone is supervising their kids. It never goes anywhere when we do meet other parents - DH said he can’t just launch into issues with DS. I said with SEN parents you can! They will understand! He doesn’t want to or doesn’t believe me. He’s not up for counselling but I’ll keep trying.

Writing all this is making me feel angry tbh. On top of all this I also need to acknowledge how hard he’s finding things?

He’s great otherwise. He takes the pressure off me with the kids when he gets home. It’s really just around these pressures points, bedtimes and mornings, that I feel I’m the one doing everything, that I’m only one who cares that DH and DS are not overtired.

You’ve really picked my posts apart - hope I answered everything.

have no idea what DH is doing first thing in the morning - when we come down he’s either on his phone or he’s doing chores that are completely unnecessary like laundry or emptying the dishwasher under the guise of helping. I know I’m being a bit mean here, that it could be his way of regulating by doing monotonous tasks, but it makes
me upset, because he could be doing something useful like helping to get DS up, get DS bag and food ready. Sometimes he makes breakfast for them and does the DS snack but not always. It’s just a bit random and it upsets my routine on the days when he’s not been helpful because I don’t know if things have been done.

I really feel your pain on this one. I had a "lie in" the other day and asked DH to do DD's fruit and to bake her roll (it goes in the air fryer) and I'd make lulnches when I came down because I was cooking chicken and DH is notoriously bad at that sort of cooking. I came down and yes, the dishwasher had been emptied and that was lovely.... but none of the other tasks ere done and I had to rusn. And all I could think was, "what has he been doing in the 30 minutes since he left the bedroom!?"

INFURIATING.

It is actually easier when either he oes the morning routine entirely alone, or I do. But then it lands up being me because he leaves early for work two days a week. One day he has a late shift so I'm very happy to let him have a lie in. Then for the other two days, one requires him leaving promptly and I just know that the extra stress isn't worth it so I don't bother. So if I'm lucky, it's one day a week where I get to just stay out of the way and leave him to it.

Yes it’s infuriating! He’ll be doing dishes (ones we don’t need) still in his pyjamas 5
mins before he has to leave and I’m thinking WHY?? But I don’t want to say it in the moment as he’ll just get upset.

On the occasion that he’s done mornings on his own when I’m not around he’s capable of focusing and thinking of everything.

One thing you could do is to support DH in banning that cartoon in the morning.

Ask DH to find other shows or to find other games etc instead of what he detests. Have confidence in him finding another solution. Also never come to his aid if he is slow making lunchbox etc. The inactivity will result in DH being late for work but that also teaches him to have better time management.

Maybe making a game or race out of getting dressed, DS and DH. Does your DS like interacting with the clock? Maybe looking at the clock and knowing when to be ready could be helpful.

Can DH attend a support group for fathers where he could learn skills. It is a rotten start to everyone's day, it seems, so hearing everyone's moans is possibly reality.
Hear him, agree, thank him etc. but let him find the answers.