My story of going thru divorce with autistic children

“Recovery begins from the darkest moments”

John Major

I was married for 15 years to the same woman. She is the mother of all three of my children. This post is not about that relationship in anyway or how to deal personally with divorce. This post is about how having autistic children can make divorce especially challenging. Divorce and autism is an incredibly fragile topic. While it impacts all children to watch their parents separate, when it comes to autism, there is difficulty in having your child comprehend why mom and dad are no longer together and why they only see one at a time.

In our situation, we tried our best to figure out how to disrupt our kids’ routines the least. We both love our children unconditionally and want nothing but great things for them. Because of this, I had to make some choices that were incredibly hard.

The first choice was to work out a way with my ex wife to not have our kids in two seperate homes. We felt that having two seperate homes, at least initially, would be very difficult on our boys. Our daughter who is 14 could handle it, but the boys would be a different story. It was important to us to keep consistent on their home life. So we agreed that I would move out into an apartment. I refinanced the home in my name, paid her out of the equity and allowed her to live in the home for a monthly rent that is less than the mortgage. As part of this arrangement, when I get the children, I stay in the home and she has another location she stays at. We felt this was both a fair way to do it for each other, and the best solution for consistency with the kids. This arrangement will be this way until she decides she want to purchase on her own and move elsewhere.

The second choice that was hard was custody. In Arkansas, the father gets joint custody unless they give that up or the courts decide that is not the best option. In our case, joint custody was obvious in the beginning. After some deep thought though, we found a solution that we felt was best for the kids. I’m blessed to make a decent living, while in no way am I rich, I have enough to live. In my wife’s case, she worked full time but the salary is much less. Some of that is because of time she took off raising children and other things. It was important to me that the kids had a similar lifestyle after this divorce as before. So we agreed to let their mother have full custody so that the child support would be higher. I get full say legally on all decisions concerning kids still. We worked out a visitation schedule that was more lucrative for me then the standard one. I get them extra weeks a year. Also we don’t use our children as weapons to hurt each other, so the reality is I get to see them absolutely anytime I want or they need me.

I realize many will question these decisions. One being, why would you buy a house you can’t live in? Two being, if you love your kids how can you give up full custody of them? I hope I answered those questions above. Divorce and autism is something I never thought I’d go thru. It was emotionally draining and a pain I wish on no one. We navigated it as best we could while putting the kids as forefront as possible. If you are going thru divorce and you have autistic children, remember it’s going to be ok. I promise it will. Make decisions based on a long term view and not short sighted. Like we did, you will get thru it.

For more resources check out https://www.survivedivorce.com/