Has having SN little one affected your relationship/marriage

[Blossom4538]

We’re both struggling and weekends are particularly miserable as they are v challenging with lots of meltdowns/dangerous behaviour. We have a few good days, but lots of miserable ones and I feel so down about it, as does H

How old is the child Blossom?

What are you doing differently at the weekends?

This is just a shot in the dark and apologies if you've already tried this. Is it because in the week the child's day is structured, but at weekends it's more a free and easy approach? That can result in total bewilderment for a child because the transition from weekday to weekend isn't understood and the weekend to them is totally unstructured compared to the weekdays, hence anxiety rocketing and being overwhelmed.

Have you tried now and next explanations for how the child's week works, Mon to Fri we do this, Sat and Sun are called the weekend. On Friday nights, try and explain some of the weekend schedules so the child knows what to expect, rather than having everything thrown at them in what appears to them to be random uncontrollable sequences for 48 hours until normality returns on Monday morning and once again they understand what's happening as they are back to their usual structured routines.

Yes we ended up splitting up

We had tried couples counselling but didn’t find the right counsellor in time

I would say contact Relate or look up via BACP to try to put things in place to make sure it is ok

Have you heard of Non Violent Resistance training? It could be worth a look. There is a woman called Sarah Fisher who does online training if you can't get to a course. Maybe it would help you work together and be more of a team? One of the first steps is to look after yourselves and find small moments of "self care" and also care for each other. I'm very aware that ASC is a heritable condition and I think we adults are struggling with our own behaviours in parallel to those in our child. It makes it a more complex picture. My OH has been doing DBT therapy and it has been helping him stay calmer. I did a rewind with a Human Givens therapist and it helped me let go of some things I was struggling to forgive. Like they say on the plane - put your own oxygen mask on first so that you can help other people. Good luck and hugs