**Collaborative post**
Having disabled children can put a strain on any marriage, so to save your marriage, there are a few things you can do…
Looking after a disabled child is no easy task, requiring a lot of planning, attention, and effort from everyone involved. Once you’re past the shock of the news, it’s time to embrace this new life challenge! But, if both of you aren’t pulling your weight to make it work, it could spell the end of your marriage.
If you’ve already come to the conclusion that your marriage is over, speaking to specialist family lawyers who deal with these types of divorces is your best bet. That said, if you want to save your marriage from this fate, we have some handy tips to help you look after your child whilst keeping the romance of your relationship alive.
Today, we’re going to cover the types of disabilities your child might have, and how these disabilities cause issues for the parents. Then, we’ll be sharing our top 10 tips to save your marriage, despite the challenges you may face…
What Types of Disabilities can Put a Strain on Your Marriage?
Before we get into the nitty gritty details of how disabilities can affect your marriage, and our tips on how to mitigate these affects, we’re going to quickly go over the types of disabilities children can have that may cause these issues.
Disabilities are quite common, with 1 in 50 children having one. They range from disabilities children are born with, ones that develop after birth, and ones caused by injury.
Children with disabilities could have special needs which require a lot of support. Common disabilities such as autism, Downs syndrome, and other intellectual and physical disabilities create challenges with behaviour, thinking and skill development. The main types of disabilities a child can have are as follows:
- Congenital disorders: one that is present from birth, including intellectual disability, Downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, and Fragile X syndrome.
- Developed after birth: these include hearing problems, heart conditions, and blood, metabolism and hormone disorders.
- Autism: children aren’t usually diagnosed with autism until they’ve turned 2, and although its causes aren’t clear, it has been linked to genetic factors.
- Brain injury: brain trauma can cause physical, mental and behavioural disabilities. This trauma can be caused by impact, loss of oxygen, infection, stroke, or medical negligence.
- Severe physical injury: such as spinal cord injuries or losing a limb in an accident, causing a physical disability.
Developmental delays are when a child develops skills more slowly than their peers. They’re different from disabilities because the delays can be short term, and the child can catch up. However, disabilities such as autism or cerebral palsy will last for the child’s whole life.
How These Disabilities Can Put a Strain on a Marriage
Now that we have an idea of what types of disabilities children can have, we’re going to discuss how these can affect a marriage before sharing tips on how to save your marriage.
When a child has special needs, it can create issues around which parent carries the caring responsibilities, and how both parents handle their emotions. Unfortunately, couples who have children with disabilities have a higher divorce rate than the rest of the married population. Here are some of the reasons why:
One Parent Does Most of the Work
One of the reasons for this higher divorce rate is the division of labour. It’s really common for one parent to become the primary carer, with the other heading to work as the “breadwinner”. This creates distance between the couple, and can sometimes cause resentment to build up.
Emotional and Mental Imbalance
Some parents cope with the stress of having a disabled child more than others. If one parent is handling the situation really well, and the other isn’t, it can lead to a lack of understanding between the two. So, if you want to save your marriage, it’s important to treat each other with compassion and understanding.
Child Requires More Attention than Your Relationship
It’s no surprise that a child with a disability requires more attention than other children. When parents pay all of their attention to their child, they rarely have any left for each other. Time for themselves and time for their relationship goes out the window, and parents can forget why they’re with each other in the first place.
10 Top Tips to Save Your Marriage
Now that we have an idea of how children with disabilities can upset a marriage, it’s finally time to share our top tips to save your marriage.
1. Communicate
If you don’t know how the other person is feeling, you can’t help them through any issues they’re having. Sometimes the issue might even be with you, and you’re not aware of it because you aren’t communicating. This is why communication is the cornerstone to any good relationship, whatever stage you’re at.
Any cracks in this communication will start to widen when you’re looking after a child with a disability. If you end up arguing as a result, those bad behaviours could be picked up on and mimicked by your child. So, speaking to each other is one of the most fool-proof ways to save your marriage.
2. Remember why you’re together
Another way to save your marriage is to try and think back to when you first got together. What caught your attention about your partner? Why did you carry on seeing each other?
You could write a letter to each other and answer these questions, just to remind yourself of why you’re together. When you have any child, it’s important to think of your life before you had them and use those memories to motivate you.
3. Have fun
Once you’ve spent some time remembering why you’re together, make sure to find some time to make more memories. When you’re looking after a disabled child, it’s easy to start acting like business partners instead of romantic partners. So, try and do something for yourselves; book a babysitter, go out on a date, and rekindle that spark.
4. Make personal time
As much as you need to do things together away from your child to save your relationship, you also need some time alone.
Have your partner look after your child for a while whilst you go off and do something you enjoy. You could even meet up with some of your friends and do something with them, so you have a life outside of being a parent.
It’s also nice to hang out with friends because it’s someone else to talk to your life about instead of your partner. It also gives you something else to talk about with them when you get home.
5. Learn something new
Taking a new class, or learning a new recipe together, can be good fun and gives you something new to bond over. You could learn something that will help you parent your child, or just start a new hobby together that you can work on outside of looking after your kids. If you want to save your marriage, it’s all about building new, happy memories together.
6. Have a bedtime ritual
This tip might seem a little different from the others, but it’s just as useful a way to bring that spark alive.
If anything terrible happens during the day, and your child does something unpredictable or difficult, this can cause a lot of upset and strife. You may even have a big argument over it, and not talk much for the rest of the day. But, it’s really important that you at least reconcile by night-time.
Having a routine before sleeping is so important for this; be sure to forgive each other and kiss goodnight every night, without exceptions. Just having that set bedtime together to show you love each other can make all the difference.
7. Respect each other’s opinions
With your child being physically or mentally challenged, you have to make more decisions for them than you would for the average child. It’s easy to think that your way is the right way, especially when it’s over something as important as your kid. That said, you need to respect each other’s opinions.
Even if you disagree with your partner’s approach, talk to them about it and find out why they think it’s the best option before you decide to shoot it down for your own idea. Respecting each other is one of the best ways to save your marriage.
8. Play to each other’s strengths
Like we said in the last section, the division of labour can become very one-sided when you’re looking after your disabled child. One of the ways around this is to take on tasks that each of you are more comfortable with.
For instance, one of you might be better at playing with the child and the other at teaching. Of course, you can’t always do what you’re good at, and will sometimes have to do things you don’t like. But, the more you can divide the tasks by preference, the better.
9. Make light of stressful situations
It might sound a little crude, but trying to laugh at a time of stress can nullify it all instantly. Some parents place bets on when their child is going to throw a tantrum or turn every outburst into a game for their child and themselves. It’s not always easy to do, but if you can find a way to make light of the stress when you can, it will help you on your way to protecting your relationship.
10. Leave notes
This last tip falls into the ‘small things make a big difference’ category. Leaving little notes around the house to pep each other up is a brilliant way to make it through raising a disabled child.
Also, since your partner is the one writing the notes and making you smile, it’ll help you feel more connected to them, and make for a series of happy memories. If you can, try to make them personal.
Ready to Face the Challenges Ahead?
Today, we’ve covered what types of disabilities children can have, and how those disabilities might affect a marriage. We’ve then shared some tips on how to save your marriage if you are struggling with juggling the challenges of parenthood with your relationship.
The tips we’ve shared here are all from people who have raised disabled children together and made it out the other side. If you follow these tips as closely as possible, there’s no reason you can’t save your marriage too.
Thanks for reading, and good luck for the future.
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