Contemplating divorce or separation

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Today my son was laughing and running around with his older cousin from out of state whom he rarely sees. After about 15 minutes, his cousin got him engaged and they were playing and having fun. I'd say 98% of the time, he had a big smile on his face. When we got home, he said he didn't like his cousin, he made him mad, he hit him on the head, he wouldn't let him pick a game on his playstation, etc. He had a little checklist of wrongs, when it didn't look like anything was going wrong at all.

I'm worried that he gets this from me, because we just got back from the in-laws and I kind of grit my teeth and pretend I'm okay when I'm not. I do that a lot with my husband, too. Acutally I think that is where he sees it the most, on a daily basis.

I have often contemplated the pros and cons of a divorce or separation. I really am not okay with my husband, but I have tried to stick it out because a children's therapist told me that divorce is worse than having a parent who is spaced out. But what about when the other parent is going nuts trying to raise the child alone and deal with the spaced out parent? And I am seeing a LOT of negative attention-seeking whenever my husband is around. I would guess that that would only get worse... I am very confused right now.

I have started seeing a counselor on my own, but my appts seem few and far between. It is helping me to get a little clarity on the situation, which is I guess how I have gotten to this point I'm at now.
I'm just trying to figure out if my son would be better or worse off with or without him living in the same house. I'm afraid that sticking around is only prolonging the disfunction of his family that should have been resolved ages ago.

You've got three relationships going here... perhaps four....
You and your husband
Your husband and son
You and son
You/Husband/Son and in-laws

Here's what I see from your post...
your son plays well with his cousin at times and has moments when he says he does not like him.
Sounds like normal kid's stuff to me.
Our daughter and her cousin could get along well for a little while, then things would fall apart.
Part of that I would attribute to the cousin feeling a bit possessive of her mom and dad and not wanting to share them with anyone else.
Today and for the last several years, these 14 y.o. girls now get along great. Maturity helped make things better.

You have difficulties relating to your in-laws. I'm not sure if it's just the mom and dad, or sisters/brothers, uncles/aunts, etc..
I fine these relationships can be difficult because of the three-way strains... you - your husband - and his family.
What I've seen before is that when there is a difficult relationship between a spouse and the in-laws, this puts the third party in a difficult position... defending spouse or family.

Finally, you're relationship with your husband.
I'm not sure what it is about your husband that you are 'not okay' with.
You need to determine if this is something you think should be changed with him, if he is willing to change it, or if he should change it. Just because you are not okay with some aspect of his personality, does not mean he needs to change.
Neither does it mean you have to accommodate something that is making you life hard and possibly unbearable.

Your son should not have to live a life in between his parents strife.

Divorcing was the best thing my wife and I could have done... she could not accept me, I finally realized I could not live happily with her.
Our daughter was 12 when this all came to a head. We never had big 'knock-down-drag-out' fights, but there was tension for many of the final years.

Today, although our daughter will say that she wishes we were all together, I do believe she understands how much better things are and can be now that her mom and I no longer live with each other.
I do not talk bad about her mother... I actually praise her mother's artistic abilities, etc.

The child's therapist who told you what you wrote above sounds like they did not have the full story of what's going on between you and your husband.
It sounds as though it's not just a case of your husband being 'spaced out'... it's a matter of how you feel about him and how you two relate to each other for yourselves and your son.

Divorce isn't an instant black mark on a child's life anymore. What's important is that the child feels loved by both parents no matter if they all live together or not.
It's important that the child is able to have both parents in their life.

In support of our daughter, she is told constantly that we three are, and always will be, family.
Just because her mom and I are no longer married does not mean we are no longer family.
We are! Mother, Father, and Child.

I do hope you can work out these issues for the best in regards to all three of you.

Divorce shouldn't be the first resort because of all the upheaval it will cause eg. might have to move to a smaller house, once legal people get involved things turn nasty, and so forth.

Christmas is stressful for many people so this needs to be factored in too. It seems that a major problem is feeling unsupported by the spouse. I think once you marry a person, they should be number 1 and if your family gives them a hard time, you need to tell them to stop (this is unless they have genuine cause for concern that goes far beyond unease about different ways of doing things).

First, to clarify my position... I really hate the idea of divorce, I'm very anti-divorce.

There's a reason you got married, hopefully it was love. If so, it may be possible to find that love. Councillors may work, but the thing that helped my marriage was a programme called Marriage Encounter. If you want to make things work, seriously give it a go.

Divorce is also very hard on children.

That said....

Children see all.

If you're going to fight and/or backstab all the time, then that's worse than divorce. If you can't get along and you're not willing/able to fix it, then get out. Bringing the kids up in a war-zone is no good.

The best advice I can give is... Figure out what side of the fence you're on and do whatever is necessary. The sooner, the better for the kids.

Laplantain, you emphasized that you grit your teeth with your in-laws-meaning you fake it when you're with them to appear pleasant. However, you omit what you do once you're away. You said you're son appeared to be having fun and then went through the "checklist of wrongs" about his cousin. If you suspect that he's copying you, then this implies you also have a "checklist of wrongs".
Perhaps he is misinterpreting why you are complaining. Maybe you're not wanting to admit that you complain that much.

Either way, he is seeing and copying unhealthy behavior. Either he is faking being happy or he is faking or exaggerating the complaints.

Please don't take this as a singling out. I complain all the time. But for me, it's a way of talking and thinking. My husband (hopefully my son too) knows that I'm not harboring hostility. I just accept the positive and point out the negative. I don't even know I'm complaining.

I don't know why you're thinking about divorce. It's pretty serious stuff. I'm really lucky that I didn't go through with it. I love my husband and we're best friends. The hard stuff was just that, hard stuff. No one else has stuck with me like he has.

I will say that divorce isn't worse than being with an absent partner. Unless your therapist knows something about your relationship that we don't. A partner that is absent isn't really a partner.

I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this. In the long run, you have to consider what is best for all of you. I can't help you decide what is better, only you have the answers to that. The question is, is this something you feel could be improved by couples counseling? A lot of times miscommunications, stress and arguments build into resentment and distance over the months and years. Adding autism or AS to the mix complicates things further, as I'm sure you know. All marriages hit difficult patches, and sometimes they look insurmountable. Often, in hindsight, they are just a big bump. If your situation is more serious and your relationship is more damaged, the picture changes. Divorce is never easy, not for the couple and not for the children. However, staying together just for the sake of the kids is no healthier.

I'm glad you're seeing a counselor to help sort things out. That would be the first thing I would do in a situation like this, just because I know I would want some help sorting out my thoughts. But be careful - a good therapist helps you arrive at your own decisions, and tries to help you make healthy ones. Anyone who says any one decision is always bad is not one you necessarily want to listen to; their opinion on the matter may be too strong.

Whatever happens, I sincerely hope that you all are able to find comfort in it. Sending good thoughts your way.

Well, I feel a tiny better because I talked to my husband and he agreed to go back to our old counselor #3.

I don't complain in front of our son, but I know he knows there is something wrong because he can sense everything. Plus, when I talk to my friends or my sisters or mom on the phone, I go in the other room and start talking about our holiday with the in-laws, etc.

The thing that really freaked me out is that my sister-in-law confirmed on Christmas day what I thought I had heard before at some point, that their mother is schizophrenic. I thought that my husband or someone had told me that once, but of course, nothing is ever written in stone with him, and he has been denying it on and off ever since. He had me wondering if I was paranoid and somehow made it up in my head on my own. I even said to him that maybe I had dreamed it or something, because I could swear that someone had told me that sometime. He just nodded his head and agreed that maybe I had imagined it. How bizarre is that? I feel like I don't even know what is real anymore. Now I feel like we could've been doing something different to help our son.

I am really upset that I have had to deal with our son's delays on my own in the first place, when he knew the whole time there were things going on with him and his family that could've helped us understand and help our son a lot better from the very beginning. Since we found out about the delays, I have been focusing on Aspergers and thinking the whole time that the PDD-NOS dx was pointing that way. Now I feel that this is a whole new ballgame. Thank God for all the therapies he has been receiving, because he is doing super well. I'm just praying that he will continue to do well.

But I am not sure that counseling can help save the relationship between the two of us now. I have really felt alone in raising our child. All of it was hard enough as it was, but I was trying to deal with it. But this whole schizophrenia denial thing thrown in after everything is just too much.

Divorce won't solve any of these problems. You will also carry your problems and mentality into your next relationship, if you do have one, and it will probably go the same way as this one because you will still be the same. I am not a big fan of marriage, but if you do it, make it for life. Marriage is supposed to be very hard work, don't kid yourself that divorce will solve your problems.

laplantain said:

Well done. A great step forward.

What worked for my wife and I (and might or might not work for you) was not the councillor, who just kept things stable but a weekend away with a group called Marriage Encounter.

Here's the web site address of World wide Marriage Encounter. You should be able to find a local branch from there.

Now... the bad news (?) is that it's run by a group from the Catholic Church - you don't have to be religious to go and they don't shove things down your throat - though they do hold a mass during the weekend which could be embarrassing to not attend.

The good news is that the weekend is all about renewing communications with your partner. It's very hard work but very worthwhile. You also don't have to share with others - it's very private.

I was really skeptical about going myself, but it healed a terrible rift in my marriage and could do the same for you.

Oh yeah, on other thing... cost is donation - you pay $50 to go, then at the end, what you feel it was worth / what you can give to help them run more weekends. It's very private and nobody will know what you donated.

Best of luck.

I can understand carrying issues into the next relationship, but I think this goes way beyond that. There is untreated mental illness in this family. None of my past relationships have ever been this crazy or ever will be this crazy. My husband and I come from the same culture. This is the most screwed up family from our country that I have ever run across in my entire life. My family is screwed up, but nothing even close to this.

I do agree that divorce won't solve all our problems, because there is no getting away from them because my son is part of that family. But just day to day living will be tolerable, and I think that will help a lot. Look at me. I am typing this at 4 in the morning because I cannot sleep. I used to sleep very well in blocks of 8 hours. I feel like I am getting lost in my husband's ever changing reality. I just need to survive and try to raise a child, and he is not only not helping, but making everything worse.

Maybe I am just thrown by this whole schizophrenia thing. I will try to find out more about it and maybe I will feel a little better. But right now it seems like something so huge. I was dealing with just about all I could deal with before.

Thanks g (and everyone who posted as well.) I actually have an aunt and uncle who went to Marriage Encounter years ago. Was wondering if it was still around because I used to see their bumper stickers way back when.

Well, I will bring it up to my husband. I really want to go to the counselor that he picks, as we have been through a few already. But finances are definitely an issue as we are spending a lot on our son's therapies and classes already.

Communication was a biggy between my wife and I.
I thought we communicated pretty well.. she didn't.

I hope the counselor helps as well as any other options you have available.

I can't recall if you mentioned your son's age, but have you been discussing this with him at all?
Kids seem to be able to pick up things quite readily when the adults think they've got it hidden just fine.

I'm guessing that your kid is younger than our daughter was when we started our divorce... 12 y.o.?
We kept her in the loop, trying to explain it in ways she would comprehend.
What we did not want was to shut her out and leave her guessing as to what was going on.

If you divorce, you will still be tied to your husband until your youngest child turns 18. I'm divorced, however, my exh is still very much around. He still says that our son is not autistic in anyway, even though he was present at every IEP meeting and a party to every evaluation ever performed on our son. He denies that there is anything wrong at all and I have to rely on my own instincts concerning therapies, etc... I feel so lonely in this responsibility. I have a lot of guilt and often feel like I haven't done enough for our son. (i think that's fairly normal "mommy guilt")

It's interesting that you say that your husband's mother has schizophrenia. So does my exh's mother.

Schizophrenia shouldn't throw you for such a loop. It definitely reinforces the fact that this family has problems with denial and disclosure. But it's unclear how it could affect your son's outcome.

In the past autistic people were diagnosed with schizophrenia, the stimming and talking to self and the so-called "behaviors" were viewed as psychotic episodes. I'm not talking 80 years ago, I'm referring to people my own age (38 ) and younger. Your mother in law may have been misdiagnosed (and thus, mistreated). There are stories on the internet floating around that autistic people treated for schizophrenia actually have developed psychosis from the drugs given.

Schizophrenia is genetically correlated to autism, as is depression and bipolar disorder.

If treating your son as if he is AS is helping him, I don't see a need to panic. You mentioned that his father had his same childhood issues. It's likely AS and nothing else.

Your husband's denials and lack of reality don't seem to be stemming from AS traits. He may have some massive PTSD. Sometimes the ramifications of both appear the same. My husband's grandfather (who lived in the same house) was schizophrenic while Grandma (his "mother) was unemotional and "crazy". His mother was unfit and crazy as well (likely PTSD). My husband assumed all his developmental delays and social problems stemmed from PTSD and neglect.

On a related note, your husband may be so used to insanity that he may just expect it and not see the reason to be more sane. My husband was married twice before and he didn't understand why his wives treated him so poorly. He just expected fights and yelling without realizing that wasn't healthy or even fun. He may not see why you're so upset and trying to change things.

glad to hear that your hubby is willing to seek counseling. best that you both work things out to some sort of agreement you can both live with.

Those are good points!
I just finished writing in another thread on the parent's forum about something that might fit in here.
I was writing about how I have lashed back in defiance or defense when I have gotten tired of always being the person who is wrong, who is being weird, who is not trying hard enough, and who needs to be 'fixed'.
It gets wearying even with my diagnosis of ADD/HD.
It's just a level of frustration I reach knowing there is something different about me, yet I don't fit in with everyone else.

This also has come up about my family.
My family is riddled with mental issues (I am adopted by the way), large/loud fights, drug/alcohol and physical abuse.
There have been times when I talked down about my family with other people.
I just let go and made my family look like a bunch of losers and tried to feel better because of it... because I wanted to somehow make myself feel better... more sane...
Then I would start feeling bad about what I had done.

Then there are times when I support my family and defend them against examples of 'better' families.

I don't know if any of this applies here to your situation... but maybe some of your husbands and his familie's behaviour stems from these sorts of feelings along with whatever other issues they have.
That's all I have right now.


I forgot to add that in my family... we argue really loudly, disown each other (actually that only comes from my father and a sister), shift allegiances... all the time.

My former wife's family stuffs their anger, their resentments away and never mentions them to each other.
Everything seems all hunky-dory, everything's just fine, until one day in the future... one episode brings it all out.
I've seen that happen more than once with her family.

Taking these two situations into consideration... I always thought my wife and I communicated REALLY WELL!
She thought we communicated HORRIBLY!
Who was right? Both of us... but for our own individual selves... not our relationship together.
I have always expected that yelling, stomping around, being shut out from another person's life, were just normal ways families got along.
My wife's experiences taught her differently.