[spitfire008]

Anyone else on here where they think autism was a leading cause for a marriage breakdown?Inhave a thirteen year old autisic boy who to this day sleeps with his mother.I the father will wait for him to go to sleep put him in with his brotherand he always comes to his parents bed. Wife is already asleep and son kicks all nite .i go to spare room to get sleep ,wife in the morning will always come in room and ask "how's the man room"?She used this as main cause for calling divorce and totally blames me. It was here late nite parties with guys that ruined marriage and autism has so much stress.but she blames me.Why didn't she put him to sleep? Why didn't she start a flirt with her husband instead of going right to sleep? We are in court next month.also it shocks me how 75 percent of women call of the marriages.i mean who is breaking up the family unit?
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[blueskies30]

I'm really sorry you are going through this and I can sympathize. I have 3 children and all are on the spectrum. My husband and I last year went through a seperation with the intent to divorce. I made the first move to divorce him, but it wasn't what I reallly wanted. I just had so many people telling me that my son, who has the most severe autism, would improve if he wasn't always around his dad.

My husband and I did argue a lot pre seperation about our sons care. He constantly arguid that the sypmtoms were not autism, they were just his mother giving him everything he wanted. We never had the sharing the bed problem with our son, but we do have it woth our youngest child who is 4. My husband is not home to share the bed with me though and my children are not in their family home, so my oungest daughter will not sleep alone in her bed. We didn't get a divorce and my husband did move back into the family home New years, but because of the seperation and divorce proceedings my husband did not pay our morgage and we lost our house in May. My husband got laid off from his job 30 days after moving back home and there was no work in our state. So he we are now living with his parents and my husband is living in another state where there is work. We have planned to move where he is, but our credit stops us from renting a house until we can improve it and save some money.

Autism is very very stressful on a marriage and each child has different obsessions, fears and behaviors. My husband and I were lucky that we were able to see before we actually got to the divorce date that we really did still love eachother deeply. He fully accepts autism now way more so than his parents do. We still have problems in our marriage though and the kids and living situation is very very depressing and stressful.

I hope you and your wife can come to an understanding and work together on your sons care whether you go through divorce or not. There are a lot of support group out there that can help you. I joined a support group right before my seperation and it has helped save me and make both my husband and I feel not so alone with children with autism

[Mizpah]

I work in Autism therapy, and the stress on the families can be intense. Is your son currently in therapy? If so, the sleep tolerance could be targeted in his programming if it hasn't already been. I don't think it's fair to blame the Autism or your son, even though I know it is central to your issues, the bigger issue is communication with your wife and seeing eye-to-eye on how to raise your son, care for his special needs, and maintain your marriage and intimacy. I wish you both the best.