When asked “which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?” I always choose the bad news first. I guess I always want to get the worst part over with and then start focusing on the positives. Which is why I’ll start this post with the negatives of marriage, namely the divorce rates. When searching the internet for statistics I found that the general divorce rate in the US is approximately 50%. While these are striking numbers, I’m sure they’re not far from the statistics in most western countries. For years, rumors of even higher divorce rates of parents of autistic children have circulated where numbers as high as 80% have been frequently mentioned. Not an encouraging thought and I could not help but wonder: is this really true?
Well, after a considerable amount of time spent online, it seems that the overall consensus is that these numbers are highly exaggerated. Contrary to the rumors, studies show that divorce rates among parents of disabled children are very close to those of parents of typically developing children. However, the risk still remains higher due to another reason; a prolonged risk.
Here is a nice part of an article from Journal Sentinel’s website that explains this well: “Both groups started out with high rates of divorce when children were young, likely because the day-to-day child-care duties exact a heavy toll on marriages. But once children without disabilities grow up, their parents get over the rough patch and start to enjoy their empty nest” [said Sigan Hartley, clinical psychologist at UW's Waisman Center, and a team leader for a research aimed to find out whether parents of children who have autism spectrum disorder split up more than parents of children without disabilities]. “If parents can really survive the first years of marriage when their children are young, their likelihood of divorce steadily declined until, in our sample, virtually no risk by the time a son or daughter was 30″, Hartley said. By contrast, parents dealing with autism continued to have a high divorce rate as their children entered adolescence and adulthood. It’s not clear why divorce rates remained high for parents of teenagers and adults with autism. But the group has some theories. ”For these parents, they don’t get the typical experience of the son or daughter gaining the same level of independence, there’s still a high demand for day-to-day responsibilities,” she said.
For me, despite the higher prolonged risk of divorce, it is still encouraging to hear that the fearsome numbers of 80% do not seem to be true. So now I’m going to turn the matter upside down. Despite the high divorce rates, the chances of parents of autistic children staying together is still substantial and that’s what I want to focus on. I want to do everything in my power to keep my own marriage strong. I have trouble seeing myself dealing with everything regarding the boys alone, without my husband in the picture. I would feel completely lost without him. I’m sure I could survive (don’t we always?), but everything would be twice as difficult. Not that the struggles are so overwhelming but rather the fact that you do not have someone to back you up, to take over and give you a minutes rest once in a while. That you do not have someone there at all times to provide you with support and encouragement when you are feeling down is a scary thought. And it makes me all the more appreciative of my husband.
In fact, the reason why I’m talking about all this is because today is our two year wedding anniversary. We’ve been together for almost 9 years and experienced loads of things during that time. Both our boys were born before we got married and there were many challenges on the way, the biggest one undoubtedly when JA, our older son, was born 6 weeks prematurely. 2 years later, V became part of the family photo. We always stuck together and pulled through the hard times while enjoying the good times. And for some reason, I always thought that after getting married, things wouldn’t exactly change but that we were probably over the roughest part of our relationship. I wasn’t quite right. Things have been eventful to say the least, since we got married.
Two months after our wedding, we left our comfort zone and moved to Denmark to start our graduate studies. It was very exciting but also difficult and it took about a year for us to reach a level of comfort. Last summer we were in great spirits, truly looking forward to the coming winter. We thought things would only get better. And then, in September last year, came the blow. To our complete surprise, JA was diagnosed with autism. It was a tremendous shock and our immediate reaction was unwillingness to admit it to be true. We started to read up on the topic which, to our horror, only led to the realization that not only was JA autistic but almost certainly V as well. We were devastated. Ever since, we’ve been dealing with this new reality, trying our best to accept what is. A dark period of low spirits followed this realization and while we’ve tried to support each other through it all, we’ve been dealing with things in our own separate ways. It has most certainly been the most difficult thing we’ve experienced, having our sons diagnosed with autism.
We are slowly emerging out of the haze. We’ve pulled through and tried our best to stay strong, if not for ourselves, then for each other. It hasn’t been easy but isn’t that exactly what marriage is all about; staying together through thick AND thin? I feel we’ve been experiencing the thin part of late. And still, we’ve managed to stay strong as a couple and be there for each other. As I am his, he is my rock. For that I will always be thankful. And my love for my husband is unwavering. Happy anniversary honey!
Our Golden Wedding Moment
The picture above is my favorite picture from our wedding and a true golden moment. You see, the bride kind of forgot to kiss the groom to seal the marriage, making the kiss more than awkward! The church was roaring! As you can see, so were we! :-)
Thanks for reading. As always, commenting and sharing is more than welcomed. -Ragga
Innilega til hamingju með brúðkaupsafmælið! Frábær mynd :-)
Takk kærlega :-)
Happy Anniversary!
Marriage is difficult, but it is also a joy. It’s a joy because we get to share everything — it’s difficult because we HAVE to share everything!
I’ve worried about those statistics too, and I’m glad to hear what your research uncovered. It makes sense to me.
But my attitude is this: I made a decision to get married “for better or worse” so I am going to stick with it. Aside from those horrible things that people do to each other like cheat and abuse, I have decided that nothing is so bad that I can’t work it out. On my worst day (or, maybe I should say, on my husband’s worse day!), I have to ask myself: would I divorce my children if they were behaving this way? Of course not.
Also, I want to be a good example to my children. Things can be mended, even when it seems easier to throw them away. Working out differences without leaving is SUCH an important example to demonstrate for kids with autism.
Thanks so much for your post! I hope you and your husband share many, many happy years together. (My husband and I are working on our 19th year of marriage!)
–Jennifer
What a beautifully insightful comment Jennifer. I agree with every single word! …and props to you and your husband for your 19 years!
-Ragga
I went through the exact state of denial when our oldest was diagnosed, she is 8 now, my 6 year old is neurotypical, but our four year old is most certainly on the spectrum. I think you have a choice as parents of children with autism, you can let it push you apart or you can lean on each other and let it push you closer together.
Word!
Innilega til hamingju með daginn ykkar yndislega fólk. Elska að lesa bloggið þitt þú ert svo mikill snillingur, dugleg og góð ert alveg einstök! Hlakka til að fá þig heim á klakann :) Knús
Steinunn
Takk elsku Steinunn mín!
What a stunning photo – I just love someone who can really throw their head back and laugh! A very special moment. My parents are about to celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary – I hope you and your husband can do the same some day.
Thank you. Your parents, as so many others, are a model to us all. Isn’t that what we all want? ;) I don’t think many things are more romantic than an old couple still going strong.
As you, I cannot imagine raising my children without my husband. His brand of fathering has helped establish the structure needed in our lives. I did the research and therapy visits; he set up the bedtime routine, the play routine, the gentle teaching of humor.
How nice to hear how you’ve divided the responsibility. We’re working on something similar and still working on it. After all, it hasn’t been too long since we became special needs parents! I hope we can figure out some nice structure that works for all of us, both for my husband and I as well as for our boys.
Hi Ragga,
I think it’s great that you’re raising awareness about the relationship between marriage and families who have children with autism!
We also has a lot of views on our blog about divorce rates, http://bethesdablog.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/divorce-rates-among-families-of-children-with-disabilities/, so we reached out to Sigan Hartley of the Waisman Center to put together a research paper providing more information about the topic.
Feel free to check it out and share it with your readers. It’s full of data and info, so you may find it helpful!
(at the top of the page) http://bethesdainstitute.org/page.aspx?pid=1014
Hmm it appears like your site ate my first comment (it was super long) so I
guess I’ll just sum it up what I wrote and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog.
I too am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any helpful hints for first-time blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate
it.
Wow, like my blog must’ve eaten your comment, it must have hidden it from me because I’m only seeing it now! Thank you for the praise, I hope you’ll come back soon.
As for blogging advice, my number one would be for you to always be open and honest. It’s not necessarily easy, you have to teak the leap and let people in, but still, it’s really worth it because you also have to go into a little bit of self-analysis while you’re at it and then you also gain from it personally. My experience also tells me that the most open and honest blog posts are the once that captivate the readers the most.
Best of luck,
Ragga
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