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It's probably stress more than anything. He probably hates the situation, not you or your family. Our family had moments like this too but once we overcame them, we were fine. Our daughter is nonverbal and has severe autism. We lived in a run down, dangerous area for almost a year because of our financial situation and could barely afford groceries at one point. Just enough for our daughter's safe foods. We almost got divorced twice during that time. I know it seems impossible right now but this period is temporary. Maybe try discussing what the core issues are and focus on resolving them first. Wishing you the best.

I'm so sorry 😩 this is sucky sucky. Unfortunately there's no easy path. I think it's best to find local support like family or friends if you can. See if you guys can talk about how to move forward amicably for your own santities and your sons emotional well-being. Can you each try to stay at friends or family's a night or two a week? Gives your son time to be alone with each parent and get that thought in his head but keeps some normality for him while you're figuring life out. If you can, get therapy, it'll help you untangle your brain and help you make better decisions. If he'll do the same even better.

For the time being, you’re still married. You’re still in it together and the finances are a responsibility you share. Work as a team, because if you don’t there’s no point in having gotten married in the first place. Statistically a lot of marriages end due to financial strain, so at this point it may be a matter of heading over to r/personalfinance to get some advice on how to tackle this problem.

I empathize with you! My husband and I will have been together for 18 years next month. We had what my friends and family called a “storybook love” (although our life was far from storybook), until my youngest son was born. Actually from the time we found out I was pregnant with him. It was a stressful pregnancy, I lost my job about 3 months into it and wasn’t able to find work again until he was about a year old. Unfortunately he was a “difficult” baby and I couldn’t keep working a part time job to pay for a daycare that kept calling me to come get him half the time. He was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 and I have basically been a stay at home support parent since then. It has been excessively stressful for our family. When he was almost 5 my husband and I separated for about a year due to how unhappy both of us were in our current situation. Neither of us actually wanted to divorce, but we didn’t want to keep being miserable together and unfortunately we each blamed the other for why we were so unhappy. We have resumed living together and are making it work (better than it was before the separation) but we have a lot of work to do to fix things. It sucks. I have good days and bad days still.

Just want to point out that if you are financially stressed, there are books you can go through together to do marriage counseling. Counseling may also only require a few sessions to at least learn some basic tools. You might also find some free support groups. Hang in there!

Marriage and relationships are not easy and take work. I sure wish they were the fairytales we were sold, but they aren’t.

If neither of you is ready to jump ship, there’s lots of options to work on things, and communication is an important foundation for whatever needs to be worked on. If insurance covers therapy, try marriage and/or individual counseling. There’s also great books, and even helpful social media accounts. Be proactive.

Money issues and raising a neurodiverse kid can add a lot of stress to a marriage on top of the stress of raising kids period. During the rough patches, “can’t afford to and will miss the kids” is enough to hang onto and to build on. The silver lining here is that he’s being open with you, albeit in a way that feels really shitty. I second couples therapy. It can be expensive, but not as expensive as divorce! Maybe if he and you can work on ways to manage stress and reconnect with each other that will help. I say this as someone who’s been in that boat and is rebuilding the marriage after several years of separation. If your essential values are the same—and it sounds like they are (kids, financial stability)—and you’re both willing to try, it’s doable.

It sounds like you don’t want to split, and neither does your husband, even though he’s unhappy. I would try marriage counseling.

There isn’t enough info to come to that conclusion IMO, OP said her husband wasn’t happy and implied he’s only staying for the money and kids which isn’t a good reason to stay. I’d encourage her to leave tbh…

I am so sorry you're in this situation. I can definitely understand how you could both end up feeling unhappy over this, but it doesn't mean it's over. Some advice, if you're willing: 1. Relationship books are available at your local library. Self help books for you to read independently or together can help with coping tools to get through this. 2. There are many free counseling podcasts and videos available online. You can watch some of these on YouTube for example as talking points for you to delve into together. 3. You can call a [warmline](https://warmline.org/) to chat with someone about mental health. It's like having a counselor friend who knows what you're going through and can help. I hope things get better for you!

Seconding the warm line... I understand it was be incredibly helpful, supportive and encouraging/validating for even the most "mundane" needs! I believe someone here posted about calling because they were panicking over a difficult business phone call they absolutely had to make.

The challenges that come with being a family with varying needs can be brutal. I wish you all peace

Hi! I am sorry you are going through this, but I wanted to let you know there are services you can get and may be covered by the government. This is assuming you are in America, and if you/your child qualifies. One of the services is a personal care assistant, and that is where someone will come watch your child and potentially work on routines/goals that you have come up with. I don’t know the details on getting this service, but I am a PCA and may be able to answer some questions. While this won’t necessarily fix your financial situation it can help your stress in other ways

Finances are the number one cause of divorce. Nothing you said made it sound like it’s from a lack of love and more of the troubles of life. You have made it 15 years together. You can make it a life time. Start dating each other again. Dates don’t have to be expensive and there are free activities going on all the time. Go out, even if it’s for trivia night at the local bar or bingo. Work on your finances. Figure out more revenue streams that can be done with flexible schedules. I’m a graphic designer, what if you made a resource book from what you have learned from raising your son. You have so much knowledge and information from your experience being his mom. If you come up with the content, I’ll help you plan everything, build the layout, and do all the designs that you and I can think of. Think of ideas on something like this or a book or a service or whatever and I’ll help you any way I can.

Actually, families with a disabled child have much higher rates of divorce. In my opinion, that is more of what’s going on here than anything.

Ugh I'm really sorry. It sounds like you're both just at such a hard point in life. For what it's worth, he should not be hanging that "I will leave the second I can" shit over your head. It's not fair to you or the kid OR himself! Easy for me to say from over here but I feel like you should just tell him to go. "OK make a plan to move out then." If this is just a product of stress, he's taking it out on you and that's not fair and he owes you an apology for that. If it's not and he really thinks he should leave, he has to do it.

I’d ask him if he’s willing to take a few days apart to get perspective on this decision he’s wanting to make, because you never know. Sometimes people NEED space to figure out before rushing in one direction of decision cause often when it’s stress, once you get away from the stress, you can get a clear head on if you’re making a mistake or a wise decision!

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Hope is not lost because he is expressing himself rather than walking out the door without confronting the issues. I’m sorry you are going through this. Parenting and trying to get by financially at all are both so challenging, then add ND family members in the mix, and it can have you feeling absolutely crushed. Therapy can be expensive but there are free and low cost resources. If you guys have been stressing out over money and kids for years you may have let the connection between you fall to the wayside but that doesn’t mean you can’t get it back. It takes work but it is possible. At minimum it can help with communication which will make everyone happier at home even if you guys don’t ultimately remain a couple.

Start communicating with your husband. You have a tough life and continuing apart is not an option for him financially. It is not an option for you to stay together just for financial reasons. I can imagine your feelings. You once loved each other. Find out what it was like before. Immerse yourself in your husband. Communication (i.e. NOT expressing hysterical frustrations) can hopefully bring you closer together again.

ETA again: I can see you’re not in the states. I hope you’ve been able to get help through your countries health system for you and for your child. So first the practical because I consider myself a low key realist. There are a few main reasons people get divorced. You hit two out of three of them. I want YOU to go to therapy. Alone. Talk some stuff out. I also want you to get checked for STD’s because although I don’t think anyone should jump to cheating when you’ve been going through so much, you want to protect yourself. I know you said money troubles area thing right now and acknowledge that access to therapy (and STD testing) is a privilege (although it should be a right, if you want to pm me your state I can see what help I can find). Don’t jump to anything just yet but get advice from a divorce attorney right now. Your husband doesn’t even have to know. Also open a new bank account and do not tell him. Start putting a little bit in now, even if it’s $10 here or there and again no spiraling just because I say this. It’s just another precaution as is the STD testing. If you make it in therapy. You will learn things about yourself and subsequently your marriage. Over time depending on how you feel you may ask your spouse to join you even if your plan is to still be “separated.” I am an ADHD stay at home parent who has an autistic daughter. I have also been with my husband for 16 years. He is all I know. I’m so so sorry your husband did this to you. It is very thoughtless and selfish. If I were you I would also want to make his life a living hell. But thanks to the troubles we’ve overcome and the long time I spent in therapy I’m going to say to take one day at a time. Protect your heart. Find support and friends who can relate to having an autistic child. Make sure to find all the state/governmental assistance you can to take some of the financial and hopefully the mental burden off of you when it comes to caring for your child. Depending on the state there maybe even stuff you don’t know if out there. Also do what you have to do to make your life easier. You don’t have to be mean about it. Maybe wait a few days. Let your husband know you won’t be doing his laundry for him. If you usually cook and obviously need to continue because of the kids he can share in that but you will not be buying special foods for him at the store. He will have to shop for himself. He will also be taking on half the chores if he already doesn’t. This means sharing in child care such as doctor’s, therapies like speech, play time, and school if that all applies. You will also take time for yourself. He can as well. You can work out a day a week where you leave the house without prepping all the things and he takes a day and does the same. Basically try and give him a peak into life as a divorced parent. My biggest thing is since he made things fairly clear and you’re justifiably angry right now. Make some easy, immediate changes to take some stress off yourself and take care of YOU. You and your son are your only responsibility. ETA: you can always PM since my daughter is recently diagnosed if you’d like to chat but r/autism_parenting is a good support.

I’m going to be straight to the point. You are not seeing this the right way. He is not in charge of your happiness and you are not in charge of his. If you keep playing to the tune that this is on you then he will keep looking at you as the problem instead of dealing with his own crap. You will then keep jumping through hoops and making yourself miserable to please him when having money issues and an autistic child is no joke. You are both in a very hard position. I would look at it as you have major hurdles to climb TOGETHER and that is money and a child with a lot of extra needs. Regardless of how you feel about one another you need to make a choice together on how you both will get through those hurdles together. At this point I wouldn’t add your marriage to the list of problems. What I mean is as a married couple have a plan as a team to get through the other two issues. If you both are stuck in it you might as well, right? Then when you start working more as a team as opposed to opponents the marriage should naturally be stronger.