Update in para 1, reflection on parenting intensity para 2.
I’ve previously posted about S1, 9yo with a classic Aspie profile who was asked to leave three different schools in four years. I received excellent advice here, including seeking input from the Davidison forum re profoundly gifted kids with challenges. Six months after beginning afresh in a small, nurturing private special needs school for bright kids with social/emotional challenges S1 is thriving. He has quickly became beloved by faculty and administration and befriended classmates. Most importantly he is HAPPY. Same quirky mind, but just an overall happier kid. His anxiety is massively reduced and he’s making strides on many fronts. Of course there is a long road ahead, and as he becomes a tween new challenges are sure to emerge. Given what we’ve all been through (especially S1) I am carefully monitoring all of his progress and continuing to look for new and better ways to address his challenges. Looking ahead and to avoid ‘summer slide,’ I’ve enrolled him in a small, well-established special needs summer camp affiliated with one of the local universities. I’ve have gently introduced math tutoring to keep his confidence level up in school (his strengths are verbal/reading domain). I read books. I read special needs parenting forums. I try to also ensure S2 is showered with love and attention.
I’ve done this solo, as H (with whom had parenting battles over the years) is of the mindset that we’re over the worst of it and we need to ‘live our lives.’ He has seriously embraced marathon training and has set a goal for himself to run the “Majors” aka the six largest marathons in the world. He lotteried into the Berlin marathon which will take place during the second week of the new school year this fall. I work full time and getting S1 and S2 back into the groove, ensuring everyone is settling in and we’re re-establishing good homework habits and routines is, I think, more critical. H travels extensively for work (about a week per month) as it is. When I advocate for more support, H sticks by his lines that his intense exercise routine ‘keeps him sane’ and the travel is an essential part of his job (he’s an academic and attends conferences worldwide). He is a great ‘provider’ and is a genius at battling insurance companies to cover S1 myriad expensive therapies. But he is minimally engaged in the kids day-to-day lives beyond packing one lunch in the am (when in town) and a cursory ‘how was school today?’ when he gets home from work (before disappearing to do nightly yoga, part of his marathon training). I do not see how I will change H’s engagement level in what is fairly challenging parenting. We’ve tried couples therapy. No lasting changes. I give up.
I’m wondering if many other couples exhibit disparate levels of parenting involvement and time/bandwidth for personal projects and self-care and, if so, how it impacted their marriage, full nest and empty nest.
Let me first congratulate you on finding a good fit for your son! I’m sorry I’m no help on your real dilemma, your husband sounds selfish. It’s not fair that all of this falls on you.
I have thought of you and your family from time to time. I’m glad you checked in. But even MORE glad to read that wonderful paragraph about a thriving happy child who is in a good place because him loving, determined mother didn’t give up and strived to find a fit for him - and for your family. I have to imagine that his mind, body and emotions are oh so happy with his school. This is wonderful, wonderful news!
I don’t want to leave out S2 - I hope he is doing well and also benefitting from a calmer, more satisfied brother and mom.
Your husband…what you describe is what you have described before. I don’t know if you’re going to get hands on parenting from him. He seems very driven - for certain things - including his work and well, his life! And seems to be willing to help with concrete things that are sort of emotionless…like insurance. But just as your kids shine and thrive when they have the things in place they emotionally need, you do too.
I don’t have a lot of advice to offer but many smiles and congratulations on this period, which for now, seems smooth. None of us know when the bumpy roads are coming…but the smooth roads in between give us hope!
For context and to sort of speak to your question at the end: My kids are 25 and 28 and both out of the house. I was always a SAHM, DH was military with the absences (no post-9/11 deployments, thank deity) and preoccupations that went along with that. Oh, and multi-day hikes kept him sane. When our sons were elementary / middle-school ages, we went through a Disparity Lite version of what you seem to be facing. We spend years of hard work and emotional generosity to make things better. Much of the hardest work DH and I did separately on our own lives; it made us a healthier couple.
It’s wonderful to see your post and feel the relief and happiness your whole family must be experiencing with your older son’s situation. You speak about his well-being, meeting your younger son’s emotional needs, and the things your husband is doing to meet his needs. But I saw very little about how things are going for you (you the person, not you the mom or you the wife). Looked as though you started a new job a few months ago – working from home? At any rate, you sounded optimistic about it. Are you happy with it, do you find it gratifying? Is the pay helping alleviate some stresses about not being able to get household help? How is your health? Have you been able to get as much physical activity as you wanted? Do the improvements for your S1 give you a chance to catch your breath?
Be selfish. Let the contributions your husband does make help you feel better if you can. Mourn what he’s not contributing and tend yourself accordingly. If it works for you, find a supportive individual therapist. Do without what your husband’s not giving you, and honor what it’s costing you.
Congrats! How wonderful to have children HAPPY and sounds like thriving. I carried more of the parenting and medical and ed duties in our household but fortunately we could afford for me to be a SAHM for many years.
I was the one who found the specialists when our existing healthcare team didn’t have the answers we needed. I was the one who scouted the schools and helped our kids they the testing and app process. I was the one who attended the meetings with all the teachers and admins, as well as taking them to and participating in all medical meetings. I also got insurer to pay for what we were due.
H was the breadwinner and provided medical benefits. He also engaged with the kids as well as he could and loved all of us unconditionally. He never once complained about the costs or travel we spent on medical care and cane with us and drove for all our medical trips.
I could not have held a full time job and did all that was needed for our health and family but tremendously admire you and others who have been able to. Working part time while balancing as best I could is all I could manage and stay sane.
Make a list of all the jobs that the two of you do- laundry, lunches, transportation, cleaning, bedtimes, insurance calls, playdates, dishes, cooking, doctor visits - and assign duties. List A and List B. They swap every month.
Be prepared for things to not go as smoothly as when you are doing it. There will be a learning curve.
You permit him to get away with this. He does evening yoga. The next night you have your “yoga time” even if it is reading a book in the library. He is announcing that his well being is more important than the kids or you.
If by “great provider” you mean he makes more than you do and that requires you doing more, rethink that.
^^^Making a list and assigning duties only works in theory and in some households. If he was someone who responded to this type of “assignment” he wouldn’t probably be where he is now - doing his own thing most of the time.
I also feel its not fair to day “you permit him to get away with this”. I can ask my H to do tasks till I’m blue in the face - and they don’t get done. Some people don’t take “orders”! (and I have to say, presented to me that way - as an assigned job - I wouldn’t want to do it either!
OP doesn’t have magic powers to change her H. But she can think of tools she can have at her disposal to get the help she needs - like hiring things out, carving out time for herself using babysitters or family or friends. That’s where she can be empowered.
@abasket thank you for the kind words. The first two weeks were so bumpy I barely breathed but the school really knows their profile and, to use their words they ‘hooked him on school.’ They ‘get’ him. He’s been a proud member of the school community since.
@HouseChatte The new job is more than I bargained for. I have a lot of responsibility, the environment is fast-paced and the science is intense (and not my field, I’ve had to do a lot of bootcamping). My boss is a genius but she is high maintenance and I do a lot of emotional tending (which is the last thing I was looking for but it is what it is). I am IMing with her on Friday night at 10:30. I can work from home but do only rarely. If I could ween myself from helping with the morning routine and letting H run the show, I could hit a gym every morning. I can’t (yet). H can get overwhelmed in the morning. Sometimes it goes smoothly, but sometimes he gets lost on his phone, loses track of time, then yells when he realized how late it is, forgets to serve breakfast… NOT a good way to start the morning. S1 and S2 are still way too young to be independent and so I’m in a holding pattern. Actually, S1 LITERALLY tonight said that I was ‘stuck in a loop’ because of ‘two variables: your job and having children.’ So there you go. I could work out at home with a youtube video while directing air traffic control. I’m not sure I could pull that off.
That’s why I asked about long term effects… I’m ‘all in’ with the kids – nurturing and supporting them financially. And it takes all of me. I’m not sure how ‘enduring’ this for the next decade is going to impact my relationship with H long term. I’m just not sure.
To be clear so I do not appear a martyr, we have a housekeeper who does all the cleaning, laundry and a decent amount of cooking. There is no way I could manage a household in my current work+kid care ‘loop’ as S1 calls it.
I think that may be all you get from him, and I don’t know if it’s worth fighting for. Sometimes you just need to accept how people are. You can ask for more, but if you’re not getting it, it’s not worth the cost. And the reality is, just having a dad around (even if he’s uninvolved), if he’s kind and paying the bills, is better than a divorce, isn’t it? This won’t last forever, the kids will get older, need less support and you will have time to do what you need for yourself. Trying to cut back on work hours might be useful.
It sounds like your husband has a stressful job, working long hours? I don’t see that begrudging him his marathon training is useful. If you need to hire more help, or cut back on work hours, do it.
Realize that your choice to be “all in” with the kids, while it is obviously working well for them, is not what many people would be capable of doing. Maybe you don’t need to do every possible thing, every single second for them. Maybe they’ll still survive if everything isn’t perfect, and maybe you don’t have to give them every last bit of your time.
OK, I will say it–Tell him to leave.
Men only change when their woman is divorcing them.
The problem is that woman think and think and think and plan.
Then they make a decision and suddenly the man is willing to change and save the relationship.
But she is done emotionally.
It sucks. Do a quick google search to read this.
Long term staying if you do not get more from him? You will look back in 12 years and feel bitter.
No, this is not a wonderful proposition for any of you. But put your faith in yourself
and tell him you are done and mean it and watch things change.
And if they do not—a couple of decades saved because if nothing changes you will
live life after your kids with resentment.
^^ Wow.
It sounds really hard right now, but probably not as hard as it was before you got your son into the right school. I think the situation you describe where your H just has not stepped up into a difficult parenting situation - is not unusual. When you’re the one so involved in the day-to-day specialists, therapists, finding the right schools etc., AND he travels a lot, it’s hard for him to be on top of the situation.
In your therapy has he ever expressed that “he comes last”/his needs are met last in the family? Aside from the fact that he’s an adult who can actually meet his own needs - maybe he sees his exercise, etc. as making sure his own needs are met, – working towards a fun non-work goal and exercise. We all need our own outlets and self-care, etc. – although most of us do not have the luxury of such a time-consuming one! It’s hard to find time for yourself and your own thing when you work full-time and your kids are at a very needy time in your life. I’m sure others have told you this, but you need to schedule in your own personal time on a shared calendar, and either he’s home with the kids then or you get a regular sitter. Even if you sit in a coffee shop with a book.
I respectfully suggest that you probably need to focus on what the two of you like to do together and make time for that. Now that your son’s school situation is better, make time with just you and your husband a priority. The kids will eventually leave (hopefully), and then it’s just the two of you. You need to have something already in place for when that happens. Get a sitter/friend/family member, and regularly schedule evenings where you do something together where you are not talking about your kids - like you used to do before you had kids!
I wouldn’t tell your H to leave unless you mean it. Because instead of changing, he might decide to leave.
You know what they say, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. This is him and that’s how he is going to be. You need to decide if you can tolerate it and how.
I have a friend who has a very very similar husband. She has decided to stay with him. The upsides are better than the downside. They do not have any special needs children but she had a lot of help when the children were younger, and was fortunate that they could afford help. Now that the kids are out of the house, she does leave things for him to do. The fact is that he does his thing and she does hers.
But this was true for me, my husband was not as helpful as he could be when the kids were young. Most of the childcare and household duties went to me. But he’s a kind and loving person and the children didn’t stay young forever. Once we got through the initial elementary years, things got better. And once the kids went to college, things got great. And I became more tolerant.
^ my experience has been very similar to that of @deb922. I did most of the heavy lifting when the kids were young, but the older they got, the more he did/does. He is much more comfortable doing things like helping them with figure out how to manage money, rent apartments, handle other young adult and logistical stuff. As the kids got older things shifted and it seems is if he did more of the work.I really don’t think it’s an unusual situation.
Good for you having a housekeeper. If you need to hire more help and can afford it, I would recommend that , too.Remember that your kids can also do their part to help. Don’t be afraid to have them do a few things for themselves. I would not recommend leaving/threatening to leave unless you are really, really serious and have thought through the consequences.
My husband was no help when the kids were young.He was focused on himself, his job, and did feel like his role was to be an economic provider. He is full of regrets now that they are out of the house and almost grown. He is sorry he missed their childhoods and didn’t establish a good relationship with them. There were times when I wondered if I’d be better off without him, but as the kids got older and the work load got easier, I decided to stay. It is good now, at least for me, the one who has the good relationship with the kids.
I think that in previous posts, the op did think that her H had aspie tendencies.
I know that with my friend who has a H who is similar, that I would not classify him as having aspie tendencies. He is very, very bright. Has a very demanding job and is very competitive. His extreme competitiveness has manifested itself in athletic competition.
I think you can be single minded, selfish, thinking about only yourself and your self care. And not have Asperger’s.
Sounds like a tough road. It is wonderful that you were committed and successful in getting your son into a program where he is thriving.
In terms of your H, I don’t like to comment on other people’s relationships. ( It’s just too complex). But here is what my experience has been. My spouse also works incredibly long hours (started a company several years ago) and still makes time for coaching two teams, making it to every practice and really being there for the kids. EVERY day. At one point, the marathon running also came into play. It took a lot of family time. I said, hey, I recognize that it’s great for your health but we have very little down time. There was a bit of a struggle and two marathons were run. Then one of my kiddos decided to run too so they would go together in the morning and run various 5K’s together. That’s where it stands.
During a tough health crisis ( rare disease diagnosis with one of the kids) I shouldered the weight of living a life with a child in constant pain and long term crisis. I battled the insurance, collected the data, went to all the specialists and held it together ( barely). My spouse just wasn’t as emotionally vested. I was shouldering the emotional weight of the family as you are now. The focus for my spouse was on keeping the business together so we wouldn’t have financial difficulties too. I was angry about this.
Ok, and the only thing I just cannot leave alone re: your husband is yoga. Really? Taking time out to unwind when the basic needs of the family aren’t met is fill in the blank (not anything nice).
BTW, your sons are always going to know that you are there for them. You are an awesome parent and they are lucky to have you as a mom.
