What happens to the marriage of a family with autistic kids? It changes everything, I can tell you that. Disillusionment. A long hard look at what we thought would be versus what is actually taking place. Grief. We've actually needed, and been through, counseling for the first time for this one. The loss of a dream, and a coming to terms with a wildly different reality. Eventual acceptance I suppose. I keep hearing that. These things are simple in concept. But, it's a real live process in motion. An unfolding of the unknown.
In honor of Valentine's Day, my husband and I got into an argument over who should do the dishes. It made me wonder if God's sole purpose is to turn me into a person that can't be irritated by anything.
Shane and I have always lived with a fundamental difference between us. It's always been there and we've always both known about it. We both want drastically different things with equal intensity. He really wants to experience the whole world, meeting as many different kinds of people as possible. I really want to move to some small town, stay there for the rest of my life, and get to know the people of that town as well as the back of my own hand.
Shane likes to have lots of surface friendships, letting very few people in where it counts. I like to have a few close friendships, disregarding everyone else. In fact, I'd really like to lock my closest friends up in a little shoe box and keep them close to me at all times, rarely, if ever, letting them out of where it counts. Now stop it. You won't fit into a shoe box.
Happily for everyone, something sort of in between has happened. We live in a city of five million people. Not another country AND not a small town. You could say that neither of us are full-filling our dreams. That is true from one angle. It's a good thing God doesn't limit anything to one angle.
Things definitely aren't going the way Shane thought they would go. Obviously, the burdens of having special needs kids are partly to blame. When Shane went to Thunderbird, he had this dream of joining the foreign service and working over seas some day. However, the Autism resources in say...Nigeria, are quite possibly lacking these days. Phoenix is the number one city in the country to live in if you have autistic kids. The resources here are top notch. It looks like we may be in Phoenix for a very long time. And Phoenix was never anywhere near the top hundred places we wanted to visit someday, let alone live.
Shane's plan included international business, with emphasis on the word international. His intention was to use his languages and see (and better) the world. Instead, he works in a cubical with no windows, doing tedious detail work on the world's slowest projects.
His job goes something like this: Shane changes a detail, vice president reviews the change, corrects him, Shane changes the detail again, vice president reviews it again, corrects him again, etc. Once the detail is approved, it goes before a committee, who corrects it, then sends it back to Shane, who changes the detail again, vice president reviews the change, corrects him, Shane changes the detail again, etc. Once the detail is approved again, it goes before the committee again, who corrects it again, then sends it back to Shane, who changes the detail again, etc.
This job only requires one language. English. It has nothing to do with foreign countries, nor will it ever, and I'm quite certain that it is not what my husband had in mind when he wrote his letter of application for Thunderbird. Now, I should mention, that we are grateful for the job. It provides everything we need, and he loves the people he works with. So it wouldn't be right for me to say he's unhappy there. It just wasn't what he thought would happen.
I too, look around sometimes, and wonder what happened to my plan. I've never, ever had ANY interest, what-so-ever, in learning about Autism. Now, I'm having to not only learn about it, I'm having to create and implement make-shift, in-home therapies for two autistic kids, do research I'm not particularly interested in, keep them from harming themselves, plan special diets, find professionals (good ones), apply for state assistance, attend I.E.P.'s, find alternative therapies, fill out endless piles of paperwork, etc.
This is all on top of the other countless duties that come with being a regular stay-at-home mom. It's my full-time job, and it was only supposed to be that for a little while. Now, I'm facing the possibility of this being my full-time job forever. Not until they're eighteen. No. There's a good possibility that it will be forever.
Back when Shane and I had lots of time, extra money, trips to Paris, turn-of-the-century houses to restore, and lived in a place we loved, it was easy to be happy. We had five fun filled years of these things before we had kids. We had a lot of really good, happy distractions. We could do what we wanted, when we wanted, and we've always had a lot of things in common that we really enjoy. Come to find out, there was just one little piece of the puzzle missing. Others. It was all about us, and only us. It was a self-centered relationship.
It's easy to be happy when things are going our way. But, our true colors come out when things aren't going our way, don't they? When it's not easy, and it's not fun. This is the test of personal integrity, so I suppose it makes sense that it's also the test of the integrity of a relationship.
What's left when the dreams don't come true? When there are no more happy distractions, and nothing seems fun or easy? Do I still treat him like I love him? Can I still treat him well? Will I fight him, trying to get what I can out of him OR will I support him through this time, trying to help meet his needs? Can I be a real partner? Can I accept him for who and what he really is, and not what I think he should be? Can I really? And, of course, the BIG one: Do I want to be right OR do I want to be happy? I know I can't change him to fit what I think I need (nor would it be healthy if I could), so is it possible for me to change me (the only one I really have any power over) to fit the relationship?
The survival of our relationship doesn't necessarily depend on my being able to answer these questions in a particular way. It does, however, depend on my consistent asking them of myself. My personal answer to all of these questions, by the way is, "sometimes." Alas, I'm still a human being, trying to live up to spiritual ideals.
I can tell you that our current circumstances have brought out our true colors. Some of Shane's colors are prettier than mine. Some of mine are prettier than his. But, you know what? I don't think I'd change things. Not because it's so good. It's not. It's scary right now. But, if we weren't in the midst our current circumstances, we might still have a self-centered relationship. We wouldn't have our kids. We wouldn't have our newest friends. We probably wouldn't even have kept our old friends (distance has saved, nourished, and strengthened a couple of my oldest friendships). We wouldn't be who we are now, and we certainly wouldn't know each other like we do now.
I do admire Shane. I know it seems like I say that a lot, but I do. I just can't get over it. I mean, here's a man who has had every dream he's ever had (everything he's worked so hard for), shattered. The idea of International anything might just be over forever. He might be in that cubicle for the rest of his life so that his kids are taken care of. And you know what he's doing right now? He's laughing. He's on the phone, helping someone else. Isn't that amazing? There are others. And they're in where it counts. And somehow, this feels more valuable and more real than time, money, dreams, etc.
I've grown a little also. I can no longer ignore the many because there are too many to be able to ignore! And I can no longer possessively love only a few because there are more than a few that I want to love. So, my new plan is to try to possessively love everyone. And I love that!
What a deal. Through the darkness comes the light, in every area of my life.
Fundamental difference worked out? I kind of doubt it. Shane has a way of adapting his dream. Who knows. Maybe we'll pack up Cale, once he's all grown up, and all move to a small town Nigeria. God's pulled crazier things than that in our lives. If we do go, I'll take my little box of friends with me. Luckily, for you, that little box is my laptop.
