Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, I am a woman and I am almost exactly in your shoes. Caregiving takes lots of my emotional energy away. My marriage has been partly of convenience. Separate beds and physical recoiling etc. Therapy is BS and hasn’t helped. Cannot get divorced because of logistics and finances. No desire or time to open the marriage. He still wants sex from me. I don’t know where we go from here. Just wanted you to know you were not alone.

You know the answers would be different if you wrote it. In your case it would be blamed on the man for not being there, only wanting sec, etc. in this case, since a man wrote it it needs to be twisted to he hides at work and doesn’t want to be a parent. It’s DCUM, always the guys fault.

I saw some posters clearly projecting their own situations on to yours.

OP, are you possibly ASD yourself? Are your own neuro limitations a driver (ASD, ADD, etc.) and to avoid that you are projecting it onto your wife as justified? That you have difficulty forming attachments is something to work on for your benefit and that of your kids. Is it that she expects adult behaviors of you that you have trouble delivering that you resent her so much?

Anonymous wrote:It’s really hard to know what you want. It sounds like you have made up your mind and you avoid your wife as much as possible already. Are you hoping for a different relationship at the same time (open marriage?) because it sounds like things are pretty much what you are resigned to already?

I have a child with SN (though I’m guessing they are milder than your child’s based on your description) and there were periods of time I really didn’t think our marriage was going to make it. It is really hard to pour yourself into your kids so intensely and have anything left for your spouse. But I think it’s kind of BS to stay married and live together and give up entirely on the marriage. It’s terrible for your kids to see you stay with someone who you feel repulsed by. I wonder if the medication you are taking is affecting you sexually (?) and that is leading to repulsion? Not saying you should go off them, obviously, just that your reactions sound really extreme.

Agree. SSRIs can impact attachment, Scientific American did a piece on it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you blame the special needs on her behavior or her genetics? Did her physical appearance change?

You're stating contradictory things: you can hardly stand her physical presence and you can't bear the sound of her voice, but you're cordial roommates who can sometimes even go out jointly with friends? How does this compute? Doesn't sound cordial.

Are you in therapy, OP? The PP who suggested a depression screening is not wrong. Antidepressants can be a total game changer. SN is very hard on the parents and on the marriage, I really empathize as a SN parent. But you can't let that implode everything forever, by and by you gotta be able to dig yourself out.

Acknowledge to her that she wants something else. Tell her you're not in a place to provide that. Tell her what you're willing to do to improve things, even if it's 5% of what she wants.

OP again. Your last paragraph is exactly where we're stuck. We've had that discussion a million times. But how do you deal with someone that won't accept that and doesn't want a divorce?

What’s your problem?

Your wife wants a home with a family in it working together.

YOU don’t.

Stop playing some weird game where you try to convince her to divorce you and want a divorce.

It takes ONE to divorce.

I don't want a divorce either. I get that you don't like the idea of a parenting marriage, but there's no reason every marriage has to look like what you envision.

DP. Your marriage doesn’t have to look like the traditional marriage that your wife envisions, but it doesn’t have to look exactly the way you imagine it either.
You seem completely unwilling to compromise on anything at all.

If nothing else, you should at least recognize that you are a rigid and difficult person who needs to have things your way. You accepting who you are would probably go a long way towards her accepting it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any living situation can work, if you are both on the same page.
You seem to want the roommate/coparent option, which is valid. I’m not getting g what spouse wants - you say you both have ruled out divorce - to work towards getting back to a real relationship?
I guess you can talk more to diss out if spouse wants something. Maybe they are on the same page as you are, but are just grieving the loss of relationship/options.

Yes, they want some sort of relationship, but again, they acknowledge things have gone too far to ever be like a traditional, loving marriage. I guess they still want some degree of intimacy and emotional support that I'm unable, or at least unwilling, to provide.

Can you fake it? Just to make the marriage more bearable since you don't want a divorce.

We can fake it fine in front of others, but I physically recoil at her touch, and her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I can't fake any actual feelings of emotional connection to her beyond resentment.

Is this about looks?

Why do you resent her so much, OP?

Do you have childhood trauma or family of origin issues coming into play? What was your parents' marriage like?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s really hard for me to say anything because I don’t know what kind of conflicts led you to this place. At some point you loved this person and married, and you have a special needs child which makes divorce harder.

What positive outcomes do you think are going to come out of a divorce?

I can’t comment on your situation either without knowing what kinds of conflicts happened and if reasonable or not to come back from.

Stress and anger, neglect and ignorance, black & white thinkers versus gray, lack of empathy vs empathy.

Simply put, even if our situation were possible to come back from, I'm not interested in that.

Ok, you might not *want* to return your marriage to a loving place, but it seems like maybe in your circumstance you actually need to.

Look, a lot of us sort of dragged ourselves through the process of reconciling with our miserable spouses. It's not easy but for the sake of our kids it was something we felt we had to do. You might have to do the same.

This.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s really hard for me to say anything because I don’t know what kind of conflicts led you to this place. At some point you loved this person and married, and you have a special needs child which makes divorce harder.

What positive outcomes do you think are going to come out of a divorce?

I don't want a divorce. I think it would make things harder for everyone.

I guess my more specific problem is that every month or two, usually after talking with her therapist, she seems to go through a phase where she wants something closer to a traditional marriage. It is hard to say exactly what it is she wants, though, because she will also acknowledge at those times that that is not going to happen.

I mean, you're saying this, but you are also saying that you find her physical presence unbearable. I think when you say you don't want a divorce you mean that you still want to co-parent with no expectation of a marital relationship.

I don't know what to tell you to do, but in your situation it seems like the arrangement where the kids stay in the same house and the parents rotate to an apartment might work (is that nesting?). Or if the house is big enough one of you leaves the marital bedroom and you basically separate while under the same roof. This can work. You just have to both be committed to the parenting relationship above all else.

Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

We've had separate bedrooms for a long time. The nesting concept wouldn't work for both financial and logistical reasons. As I've said, the one child's support needs are significant.

The issue is getting more complete acceptance that the marital relationship is gone and never coming back.

You don't control if she finds someone else for support and files.

If you truly think it is best for your child to not divorce, you need to be working to fix the marriage.

Did she have an affair? What is the source of your anger and rejection? Most will not live with that indefinitely. It seems that you want to push her to be the one to trigger a divorce?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any living situation can work, if you are both on the same page.
You seem to want the roommate/coparent option, which is valid. I’m not getting g what spouse wants - you say you both have ruled out divorce - to work towards getting back to a real relationship?
I guess you can talk more to diss out if spouse wants something. Maybe they are on the same page as you are, but are just grieving the loss of relationship/options.

Yes, they want some sort of relationship, but again, they acknowledge things have gone too far to ever be like a traditional, loving marriage. I guess they still want some degree of intimacy and emotional support that I'm unable, or at least unwilling, to provide.

Can you fake it? Just to make the marriage more bearable since you don't want a divorce.

We can fake it fine in front of others, but I physically recoil at her touch, and her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I can't fake any actual feelings of emotional connection to her beyond resentment.

Can you give more of a sense of what led to this point, OP? Did she have an affair?

As someone divorced, not my choice, with a SN child, it can be devastating. My child suffered additional anxiety and EF issues due to the change in lifestyle. Some therapies could no longer be afforded and the planned for special needs trust never was funded. It's hard to live with that. Ex cheated as a form of escape then left to be with one AP (didn't last and also put job and insurance at risk).

I'm not sure being roommates is tenable over the long term. Attempting to repair the marriage would be optimal. Have you tried a Gottman trained counselor? SN marriages have so much extra stress and that ideally is addressed head on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s really hard to know what you want. It sounds like you have made up your mind and you avoid your wife as much as possible already. Are you hoping for a different relationship at the same time (open marriage?) because it sounds like things are pretty much what you are resigned to already?

I have a child with SN (though I’m guessing they are milder than your child’s based on your description) and there were periods of time I really didn’t think our marriage was going to make it. It is really hard to pour yourself into your kids so intensely and have anything left for your spouse. But I think it’s kind of BS to stay married and live together and give up entirely on the marriage. It’s terrible for your kids to see you stay with someone who you feel repulsed by. I wonder if the medication you are taking is affecting you sexually (?) and that is leading to repulsion? Not saying you should go off them, obviously, just that your reactions sound really extreme.

Lots of DCUM moms are repulsed by their husbands to the point of denying them all physical affection: what’s so extreme about that? That this is a guy?

DP. I think most people believe that’s pretty extreme as well.

So I have a child with profound special needs, and I’m happily married (we did have one rough 18 months period years ago that was completely tied to caregiving). I’m the wife, but I think all this nonsense of “you’re the man so you just don’t want to caregive by yourself” is not fair at all. Of course, that is my view without all the facts. I also have a kid that would be so difficult to deal with without two humans sharing the load daily plus another kid who deserves time. The idea of not staying married in this scenario is pretty untenable to me as well.

That said, I’m going to come at this from another angle to start. First, are you using every resource available for this kid? I’m going to assume you are well educated on the Medicaid waivers available to you, but you are stuck on a horrendous waitlist (as we are). That said, once your child is 18, they should go on Medicaid because they have no income. At that point, your ability to get all kinds of help (including respite) should increase. I realize there is still the problem of not enough people wanting to do these jobs, but you should be able to find some help. You can also start looking at intermediate care facilities to place your child in (assuming that is the level of care you need based on what you have said) That can take time, but let’s assume you can solve for that by age 22 when they age out of the school system.

You need to start thinking about this as a problem until age 22 and you will divorce then. There is no way you can be roommates until this kid is 40 or so and then hope the sibling steps in (and I strongly disagree that there should be any expectations on siblings other than some minimal oversight). This has to be a time bound situation so start thinking of it that way.

That said, it seems like your actual issue is that you just want your wife to leave you alone as much as possible other than your joint interest of caregiving for two kids. And you simply cannot control this. If you won’t divorce, then you have to try to gracefully exit the room or house when she decides she wants to tell you about her bad day, etc. You have to literally leave to create the boundary. She may hate this so much that she files for divorce, but you just have to wait and see.

What drew you to her when you first met?

I am in a parenting relationship. Never got married. We basically parallel parent in the same house. Separate bedrooms and separate finances. Kids know. But they don’t remember anything other than this state of things. It is not what I envisioned but it is what it is for now. I am not willing to see my kids only 50 percent.

Anonymous wrote:Op, I am a woman and I am almost exactly in your shoes. Caregiving takes lots of my emotional energy away. My marriage has been partly of convenience. Separate beds and physical recoiling etc. Therapy is BS and hasn’t helped. Cannot get divorced because of logistics and finances. No desire or time to open the marriage. He still wants sex from me. I don’t know where we go from here. Just wanted you to know you were not alone.

You know the answers would be different if you wrote it. In your case it would be blamed on the man for not being there, only wanting sec, etc. in this case, since a man wrote it it needs to be twisted to he hides at work and doesn’t want to be a parent. It’s DCUM, always the guys fault.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the significant needs of your child mean that they will continue to need a high level of support and be living with parent(s) into adulthood? There is a difference between an arrangement that lasts for 12 more years vs. the rest of your lives.
Perhaps couples counseling, so the two of you have a space to try to really define what the arrangement will be.

Yes, his support needs will continue throughout his life. It's unclear what will happen when we're not physically capable of caring for him. I hate to say it, but that will depend on how the silbing wants to do.

No it doesn’t. You set up trusts and govt programs while the kid is little:

While I wouldn't say we're poor IRL, we're apparently poor by DCUM standards. Government programs aren't nearly as good as you seem to think they are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you blame the special needs on her behavior or her genetics? Did her physical appearance change?

You're stating contradictory things: you can hardly stand her physical presence and you can't bear the sound of her voice, but you're cordial roommates who can sometimes even go out jointly with friends? How does this compute? Doesn't sound cordial.

Are you in therapy, OP? The PP who suggested a depression screening is not wrong. Antidepressants can be a total game changer. SN is very hard on the parents and on the marriage, I really empathize as a SN parent. But you can't let that implode everything forever, by and by you gotta be able to dig yourself out.

Acknowledge to her that she wants something else. Tell her you're not in a place to provide that. Tell her what you're willing to do to improve things, even if it's 5% of what she wants.

OP again. Your last paragraph is exactly where we're stuck. We've had that discussion a million times. But how do you deal with someone that won't accept that and doesn't want a divorce?

What’s your problem?

Your wife wants a home with a family in it working together.

YOU don’t.

Stop playing some weird game where you try to convince her to divorce you and want a divorce.

It takes ONE to divorce.

I don't want a divorce either. I get that you don't like the idea of a parenting marriage, but there's no reason every marriage has to look like what you envision.