Marriages Are At Risk in At-Risk Families

When I started working exclusively with families of children with special needs, divorce rates were around 50%, so it was not uncommon for me to create treatment plans for kids from divorced families. Over the years, however, I have seen some interesting marriage trends. For instance, I saw a number of couples divorce almost as soon as their child was stabilized in my care and in school.

From what I can tell, couples who have children with special needs experience specific stress when it comes to marriage. In fact, I had one couple tell me the other day that they were in the middle of discussing who had to take the children when they divorced when they realized they were actually talking about divorce. Weeks prior there was a crisis with one of their children, and now divorce was on the table. They told me they kind of shook themselves, recommitted to the marriage, and then got to work on parenting. I can think of a couple of specific stresses that being a special-needs parent (i.e., having a child with special needs) that can put on a marriage.

No Manual

Special needs parents tell me all the time that there are no good parenting books for their situation. In fact, much common parenting advice is either not applicable or contra-indicated. The result is that many parents have to cobble together a plan that they can only hope will help. This puts intense pressure on the act of parenting and can often take important time away from marriage maintenance.

No One's Right

All plans for parenting special needs children are bespoke and much of such parenting is experimental. This means that there's really no right way to parent such children. On the other hand, there are tons of wrong ways to parent-lots of ways to do things incorrectly. There are also lots of opportunities to blame your spouse, feel abandoned by your spouse, or feel like you are trying harder than your spouse. Also, you can feel like your spouse is over-doing it, over-spending on care, or otherwise throwing resource away. There are so many things to disagree on or feel resentful about because there really is little standard when it comes to optimal parenting. It's easy to blame your spouse when things go wrong, and sometimes it feels like things are always going wrong.

Parents Need To Cope, Too

Spouses are rightly a big emotional resource for each other. Kids with special needs can require a lot of care and parenting, and the reality is it can feel like there is often not enough left for your spouse who is depending on you (and vice-versa). Both parents can rightly feel like they are putting in 100% for their kids and have nothing to give their spouse, and also feel like their spouse doesn't give enough to them.

Other People Have Easier Lives

It's hard not to compare your family or marriage to others and come up wanting. It's hard not to imagine that if your spouse would just... However you fill in that blank, these "little foxes" of complaining, resenting, suspicion, or doubt can creep in and cause emotional wounds to fester. In my experience this happens mainly in the cognitive background while you're busy meeting the needs of your family. When you finally get a breather or a "date night" these festering wounds are gaping and deadly.

Mistakes Are Big

I talked with a parent the other day who was relieved to find a psychiatrist for their son who identified a drug interaction the former psychiatrist had missed. This interaction caused an increase in autonomic arousal (i.e., high engine) and in the past couple of weeks the child, who had a pragmatic language disorder had been arrested and detained by police twice. As you can imagine this was a huge stress on the parents who felt they should not have canceled the previous psychiatry session because proper care could have gotten to them faster and there could have been less police action. They struggled with the thought that a mundane scheduling error resulted in police action. If you are not a special needs parent you might struggle to understand the cost of such simple mistakes or oversights. The potential for such costly mistakes increases stress exponentially in special needs families. It's easy to unjustly take the blame, or to blame your spouse.

The Point

Parenting special needs children does not cause divorce. I'm not even sure it necessarily increases the chances of divorce. So, if you're a child with special needs, or were once a child with special needs whose parents divorced, it's not your fault in the slightest. That's not what I'm saying at all. Here is what I'm saying:

• The marriage relationship should be supreme in your family life. If there's work to do on your marriage, that must come first. I use the lifeguard example where the lifeguard is trained to put the person he or she is saving between themselves and any obstruction. If the lifeguard is injured then two people die. If the marriage hurts, the children hurt. Tend your marriage.

• Parenting special needs children is a master class in humility (I initially wrote "futility," which is true, but more negative than I want to be). Humility is a good and useful quality because the reality is there is much of our life that is important but out of our control. Some parents never see how truly out of control they are, and this is the good news and bad. Good, because they don't experience that existential threat (it's stressful). Bad, because the reality is we're not as competent as we think we should be. I choose reality, but it means I really have to tend my marriage.

• As much as you resent your spouse and believe it's their turn to work at the marriage because you've already done enough, I would like to encourage you to consider tending your marriage.

• Finally, having a person who can observe the individual needs of your child and the corporate needs of your family (including the marriage relationship) is more valuable than gold or silver. It's worth it to keep looking for this person, and when you find them, consult them before you get divorced. If you ask then hopefully can suggest ways you can tend your marriage.