Staying together for the sake of the kids- study shows it may actually *harm* your kids.

[dizietsma]

Another reason to end it, if it's over. It's all fairly common sensical really- high conflict families create traumatised kids.

The effects are- a higher chance of mental illness, behavioural issues, binge drinking and drug abuse. Also lower grades at school. This is a study that compares "high-conflict" families with secure lone-parent families.

Guardian article

How do those of you who are staying together for the sake of the kids feel about this new information? Will it change your mind?

Yank, me too :"They fought so much they barely noticed I was suicidally depressed, ..., and working very much under my potential at school." I was also suffering healthwise but again, they just ignored my needs as they were so consumed with hating each other.

I wish my parents had split up a long, long, long time ago, in fact i can't remember a time when they were happy. I remember listening to horrific, scary, violent arguments between them from when i was around 4. The trouble is I don't know which parent i would have wanted to stay with if they had split up. They were both such awful parents, I would have been better off in a foster home I think.

this post makes me so very sad i think i have posted before that my husband and i stay together for the sake of the children well they are not children now 16 and 17 the reason we do it is because our youngest son has severe autism and we both agreed neither of us could cope with him alone and we did not want him to suffer in any way this has been going on for 14 years well a bit longer really but definate boundries for 14 years my husband told me then he does not love me (i love him ) but love etc is never discussed we do not sleep together etc and have no physical closeness BUT and it is a very big but i still say it was the best decision for us i do not see any signs of unhapiness in my other nt son he seems very happy in fact we do not rant and rave( much) and we share all the money tell each other our worries etc etc also hardly anyone in rl knows our situation and i think many people think we are very happy and he is a great dad and even if i say so myself i am a good mum i know it is far from ideal but that is the choice we have made happiness of children before personal happiness lastly i would hate for him to ever leave i suppose it will happen one day

gosh nevergonna that is an amazing post full of love. TBH I dont really know what to say - you are so devoted to your lovely boys but it must be so hard to live as you do! I have admiration yet sadness for you. Hope you arent offendded by what I say!

mumfun no i am not offended thank you for saying nice things i just got big fat tears rolling down my cheeks lol if i am perfectly honest the reason i joined mumsnet was that i could hopfully get it all off my chest one day as there is literally no one in the world in rl i can discuss it all with and you would think after the amount of time that has gone by i would be used to it all but i am not i feel so incredibly lonely at times but most of the time i am cheery and my husband is cheery as well just dont scratch the surface we have our boys and thats the main thing

nevergonnapost - there are so many different circumstances and it is so easy to generalise without mentioning each and every possibility so please don't be offended by anything said on here.

Peoples opinions are just that, opinions that may be right or wrong, no one can say. It is interesting and illuminating to read your point of view. It goes to show that not everything is black and white.

Maybe you could start a thread if you want to talk about your situation because so many women have so much in common on here and would be well placed to give advice or listen to you

nevergonnapost

Oh dear, I certainly did not want anyone to feel I was judging them, I hope you don't feel that. Your situation is a little different than the kind of relationships I was generalising about.

If you don't mind my asking, and please feel free not to reply if this is too personal, why is it that you decided to keep up the facade of a marriage? Surely you could have continued to live together in order to support each other in caring for your DS, but arranged to have seperate romantic lives, and done so publicly?

If you were to try out this possibility, you could keep new partners out of the family equation until absolutely sure they would be permanent or at least long-term, in order to avoid too much distress on his part with new people coming in and out of his life. I'm not saying I have the answers here, BTW, I'm just thinking out loud about how I would've approached the situation.

I have no idea how difficult it must be to raise a child with autism, it does sound like your situation is far from easy, you have my sympathies.

It breaks my heart that you have to live with your husband and pretend to play happy families, still in love with him and not having that reciprocated. It sounds tortuous.

dizietsma no it is not too personal and as i said in previous post i actually WANT to talk about it once and for all. i hope nobody minds if i am taking over the post this will be a one off thread right ok at 36 weeks pregnant with 2nd son my husband and i were trying to think of ways to make money as we were going through a rough patch financially i thought we were blissfully happy in our personal lives i jokingly said perhaps you should pretend you have moved out and we could claim some money that way( i was joking) he out of the blue said well i was thinking of moving out actually i could not beleive it when i asked why he said and these are some of the worst words i have ever heard uttered i dont love you and i dont think i have ever loved you(we were married in 1985 he was 19 i was 22) he did move out then came back 2 weeks later then we had our son and lo and behold we found out when he was about 2 he had autism we had tried to patch things up for our own sakes and other son then but as time went by and our ds 2 got more and more difficult to handle we decided that neither of us would ever leave sorry this is very long as far as i know my husband has had no romantic attatchments in all these years asin his own words sex was never that high up in his agenda thiugh i thought he was great at it!!! (could be hes having it off with everybody and i just dont know as he is very attractive and well liked) so maybe it does not physically bother him and he is always out and about at golf etc but cooks for us takes me anywhere i want to go etc etc as for me if i see a man looking at me i just look the other way i am not even going to go there as i cannot imagine the mess it would cause if romance entered either of our lives and in my case its never going to happen as no one outside immediate family knows about our situation so they are not exactly going to be queing up to date a woman they think is happily married all very confusing but my 17 year old son knows the score but as we can have a laugh etc i dont think he realises just how hard it is my autistic son is blissfully unaware so that is good too iam not saying i do not LONG for love andto have someone to love who loves me we used to be so happy or so i thought apparently he wasnt..if i accidently brush my arm against my husbands arm or something i always say oh sorry! as if i have done something wrong anything else any one wants to know fire away its all coming out in the wash now

Wow Nevergonna - my hat's off to you. It's an amazing thing you're doing for your son, and it sounds like your other DS can accept it, so you're obviously handling it exceptionally well (in front of them).

Hat's still off - I don't think I could ever be that strong.

"i cannot imagine the mess it would cause if romance entered either of our lives"

Why would it be messy if romance entered your life? Are you still too hung up on your husband to move on? I can certainly see how your situation would prevent you from moving on emotionally.

"and in my case its never going to happen as no one outside immediate family knows about our situation"

This is what I was asking really, why haven't you told anyone? There's nothing to be ashamed about in your arrangement, you and your husband have decided what works best in order to help your DS- you live in the same house, but are no longer in a relationship together. Why not tell everyone and get some support for what is clearly an emotionally difficult situation?

You mentioned that your husband isn't really interested in sex with you or anyone, just a wild guess here, but do either of these Asexuality Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder sound at all familiar?

i suppose the sexual things you have mentionedcould be what he is all about i am the only woman he has ever had sex with as in he was a virgin when we met so i do not really know why he is not interested in sex as for not telling anybody i know this is really mad the reason i dont tell anyone is even at this later than late stage in the game i dont want anyone to know just in case it ever all sorts itself out and we become loves young dream again then noone i sany the wiser as for him i think the reason is that its none of there business... about your point of me being hung up on him then i would have to say in all honestly oh yes i am severley hung up on him i am still very physically attratcted to him and though he treats me like shit at times knowingly or unknowingly i have never met a man i LIKED as much if that nakes any sense agin to be brutaly honest i would rather he did not find any one else which makes me sound very selfish but it has all come from his side i did not want any of this if it wasnt for our sn nson i am sure he would have left me years ago and i have to feel sorry for him if he has to be in a realtionship with someone he does not love at least i still love him so it is not hard to live with him if you see what i mean i think he feels guilty for leaving me when i was so heavily pregnant and i know that he thinks he caused our sons autism by doing this and i sometimes think thats true too

NGP: if you feel that your situation is livable with, and that there are enough good things in it to make up for the bad, then stick to it and good luck to you: we all make our choices.
But I think you might actaully be happier if you gave up trying to pretend that you and your co-parent are a couple and also, sorry to say this, but if your 17 year old son knows that you are not a couple and you are expecting him to keep that secret from other people for your sake, that's something of an unfair burden for him.
There is no shame at all in living as co-parents, doing the best for your SN son, as you have done and having other sexual/romantic relationships under terms mutually agreed with the other co-parent.

Hi

I think it is hard to pretend youre a couple when youre not. I wonder if anyone guesses - not trying to worry you here.

I would also want hugs from him. I couldnt not touch him.

I think I would probably prefer to be honest that I was coparenting as Im a very straightforward person. But you would also need his agreement to be honest.

Sorry if this is an upsetting question but would you expect your younger son to live with you the rest of his life or could he live independently?

hi there sorry i have namechanged as i thought this was the end of the thread and i wanted to be able to carry on posting about my usual.. sn,cats and bedding etc lol also feel very embaressed not sure why ...we would hope that one day he will be in some sort of a shared house or something with 24/7 support he could never live independently we will both kick the bucket one day and obviously will have to have things in place for him very depressing but true that said i want him to carry on living at home for a long while yet not to keep husband here or anything like that just for the simple reason i love my son and want to be with him and hope he wants to be with us i dont know if people guess our situation i really dont think they do we dont really socialise at home i dont think it come into ds1 conversations with his friends much either i have never heard him mentioning it i certainly have never said to him dont tell people about your dad and me all his friends seem to talk about are gaming computers etc maybe do think its all going to blow up soon as i said its all been going on for 14 years which i know sounds impossible to beleive but somehow it WAS easier when they were younger my mimd is in turmoil i thought posting would help me somehow but i just feel stupid all of a sudden but i HAVE to keep doing it for ds2

Please dont feel stupid - Noone regards you as that. You are far from that

Its just interesting to me as Im currently separated from H - he has just said he wants to remain separated but do a lot of things together. Your situation struck a big chord with me. I have a son almost certain to be aspergers. I am really wworried about the impact of separtion long term with him. I also dont see the doing lots of things together but remaining separated as practical for me. But youve done even harder so it has been very enlightening to hear your story. Thanks.

mumfun so sorry for what you are going through i would honestly say to you if you can bear to live seperately and that there is no chance of a reconcilliation and that your darling son is able to be cared for by both of you apart i would leave it like that you do NOT want to end up like us x all the best for the future

I am a co-parent: when DS was conceived his dad and I were not a couple and we are not romantically interested in each other (despite a drunken night some months ago...). We are both currently single, he has had a girlfriend or two since DS was born and I have had a few shags (I do not do couple relationships, urgh). We are adapting to it all as we go along but DS has two parents who love him very much and can get along OK with each other, and it seems to work.