My husband refused to engage with our daughter’s autism – now we’re divorcing

Divorce, once rare and stigmatised, has become mainstream – 42 per cent of marriages now end this way, meaning nearly half of us who get married can expect to experience it in our lifetime. Just as every marriage is different, so is every divorce. In this column, divorcees reflect on their life-changing experience. Helped by the benefit of hindsight, they share advice and reflections. Here, Megan* reflects on how the effort of raising a neurodiverse child found her husband lacking. I always wanted to be a mum. My husband Martin and I were over the moon when I finally got pregnant at 38. Martin works in TV, and his hours are unpredictable, so I was always the main carer, and spent long days and nights at home in Clapham with our daughter, Sienna. I found it hard, but my mum lives nearby and she often came over to help. I got pregnant again, when Sienna was three, and we had Ronan. Our family was complete. Even back then, I felt really isolated, having two children and looking after them on my own. I look back on those days, however, and realise they were far easier than the situation I’m in now. We didn’t notice anything unusual about Sienna until primary school. She was a bright, happy baby and spirited as a toddler. However, once she started school, we started getting calls about her outbursts. “We think she has anger issues,” a teacher told me after Sienna had attacked another girl and pinned her down in the playground. I felt mortified, but soon got used to teachers calling me to tell me she’d done something wrong. She interrupted teachers during lessons. She’d shout in assembly when she was told to listen. At home, she was demanding and wouldn’t listen to me either – if she wanted something, she had to have it immediately. “Don’t indulge her,” my mum used to tell me as Sienna lay face down on the sofa screaming, because I wouldn’t buy her something she’d suddenly decided she needed. I knew mum was right. “You were the same,” mum added. “It’s just a phase. It’ll pass. Look at you now.” It was true, I was a calm person. A tired person, but calm. Sienna was so demanding that Ronan rarely got a look in. He had a very different personality. He just took care of himself, I guess. We bought him a games console, and he would play on it in his room. I still monitored the screen time, but as long as he had a couple of hours a day, and could play football after school, all was well. “I’m worried about the dynamic,” I’d say to Martin, but he was often tired after long days filming. He would work for 10 days in a row and then climb into bed for a day to recover. The kids would try and wake him up, but he’d get angry and tell them to leave him alone. When I pointed out my worries about Sienna, he was dismissive. “Ronan is just like me. He’s quieter. Sienna takes after her mum,” he said. I felt insulted. Not only was Martin leaving me alone to deal with the kids, he was blaming me for the fact that we had this unruly child, a child that only slept for three to four-hour shifts, and then woke up screaming. I had got into an unhealthy pattern of buying her stuff. When she was in the midst of an outburst, I’d go on Amazon and order her something to calm her down. By the time she was 11, she was obsessed with slime, so I spent hundreds of pounds ordering slime kits. She’d leave the slime all over the house. It was stuck to the carpet, to the wallpaper. “It’s getting out of control,” mum said on one of her visits. “You can’t go on like this.” But I had to keep her busy. If she was making slime, then she wasn’t screaming – but her demands never stopped. When Sienna entered secondary school, she picked at the skin around her nails until her fingers bled. She was constantly fidgeting. She picked her face, too, and had started getting angry welts – she said she had spots and was squeezing them, but the wounds looked terrible. She would become obsessed by some small thing, and couldn’t stop thinking about it. One day, she got some glue on her school bag and she woke me up at three in the morning. “Mum, you need to help me get this out now. I’ve done what I can but I think I’ve ruined the bag.” I was bleary-eyed, but knew that if I ignored her she’d never go back to sleep, and would keep on coming into our room. Martin was snoring next to me, oblivious. When I got to her room, the lights were on. The radio was playing on her Alexa, and it was obvious she hadn’t slept at all. She had dark circles around her eyes. She’d cut her bag into small pieces with a pair of scissors – at first to get rid of the glue but then… well, who knew? Her behaviour was often manic at night. I had tried different diets and cut out sugar. I had tried upping her exercise to tire her out physically. I couldn’t even cuddle her now because if I moved closer, she’d pull away. Her language was often really bad. I told her off but it worried me that she didn’t seem to show any concern. She was also getting bigger, and when I was alone in the home with her, I’d worry about what might happen. She’d slapped me a couple of times when angry and was constantly fighting with Ronan, who seemed to be getting even quieter. I contacted Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and we eventually got an appointment after months of waiting. Martin didn’t come with me as he was away with work. I had been reading articles online about ADHD and autism and recognised that Sienna definitely had some of these traits. “What do you think?” I asked Martin one night when he was back home. “I think you’re overthinking as usual,” he replied. We had a massive row. One of many. “My mum is more of a parent to these kids,” I spat at him. “You’re useless. Never here. Never present. What’s the point?” I knew we needed money coming in, but I’d given up my career in publishing for the family. I’d planned to return one day, but I’d had so much time out of work that most of my experience was now out of date. Martin was stressed as he wasn’t getting as much regular work as normal and he was having to agree to poorer paid projects. He had a giant tax bill and hadn’t got the money to pay it. Our family life was chaotic. There was no joy or fun. It was just shouting and conflict. I didn’t have any friends. Finally, when Sienna turned 14, she got a diagnosis. She had ADHD, OCD and autism. We are awaiting a follow-up appointment for Sienna so we can find out about medication. We can’t continue living in an environment with violent outbursts and swearing and no sleep. I can’t sleep either; the years of being woken up have taken their toll. One night, Sienna wandered into the street and was making her way up the road. It was 4am and she just had a T-shirt and pants on. And because she doesn’t sleep – she is on sleep medication, but it doesn’t work – she is in a terrible state and constantly overwhelmed. Ronan hates her, and is now starting secondary school. He says she’s a “freak” and I tell him off but I know that he’s had to always put his own needs to the bottom of the pile. He’s now out all the time. I think he’s embarrassed because the house is a mess, so he won’t bring his friends home. I struggle to even get proper meals made because Sienna is off school so often because she refuses to go in. Last month, Martin went to stay with his parents in Suffolk. He said he couldn’t cope with the “bad atmosphere”. I have told him that I want us to separate as he’s never been supportive. It has always been just me and my mum. I feel like divorce is the only way forward – I do all the parenting anyway. It’s always me battling to get help and resources for Sienna. So in many ways, nothing much will change.