Keeping Love Alive

By Debra Foster McElhaney, M.Ed.

Parenting a special needs child often puts tremendous financial and emotional strain on a marriage. By recognizing the potential stressors and opening up the channels of communication, couples can reconnect and emerge from the journey with an even stronger bond.

The journey through parenthood is sometimes rocky, occasionally difficult and frequently joyous. Parenthood begins, most often, with great anticipation and excitement. The journey leads us down many roads as it meanders, bumps and rolls through triumphs, challenges, pitfalls and accomplishments. It pushes through hard times and glides through calmer ones, culminating some 18 or so years later with the appearance of a full-grown individual eager to spread his wings and take solo flight. The journey is not without surprises, but it can be more unpredictable than we might have imagined.

What happens to the family when the journey takes a detour? What happens when the highway abruptly throws parents a sharp curve? When parents are left stranded without a road map or even a sign, what do they do?

After the birth of a child, it is easy to spend time focusing on the needs, desires and milestones of the infant—relishing that first smile, first step and first word. Just as easily, parents often become weary and irritable from lack of sleep and personal time, and worry sets in about finances and the family’s future. Parents begin to face the reality that they have placed their spouse and that relationship low on their list of priorities. When the family is dealing with the diagnosis of a child with special needs and learning challenges, these stressors multiply tenfold. Caring for yourself and your marriage often takes a backseat. Finding time and energy for each other becomes, at times, a seemingly impossible a task.

Realities of a “Uniquely Challenged” Marriage
When coping with the emotional and financial pressures of raising a special needs child, parents expend incredible energy each day just to “carry on.” Often one parent will hit the ground running as the primary caregiver and advocate. This role might include not only caring for, playing with and nurturing the child, but also driving him to various occupational, speech and physical therapy appointments, special classes, therapeutic recreation activities and a potpourri of educational and medical specialists who might be beneficial to the child’s development. The other parent might dive into a career with fierce determination. Greater attention to income and finances can become urgent as the parents realize the possibility that their child might have long-term needs such as speech therapy, occupational therapy or tutoring. Any “spare” time often is spent dealing with insurance companies or researching therapy programs, schools and techniques that might help their child succeed. Many couples have more then one child, each with their own set of needs, thus leaving even less time and energy to focus on the marriage.

Parents caring for a child with special issues often experience feelings of helplessness, anxiety, denial, resentment or guilt. There is often an overwhelming sense of responsibility and urgency to do everything possible for the child. Parents of special needs children often come face to face with their own grief and sadness. Recognizing the loss of the “ideal” dream is important in the ultimate acceptance of your “uniquely challenged” life. Acceptance is not a plateau of total peacefulness, nor is it a place of giving up hope. Rather, it is a place of absolute realism from which parents can guide their efforts in raising children who face learning or developmental challenges.

Five Ways to Help Strengthen Your Marriage The first step in reconnecting with your spouse is recognizing that both of you are doing your best with the resources you have. Secondly, make a sincere commitment to take the time to focus on your relationship. Some simple guidelines are: 1. Listen to each other. Really listen. Hear the other’s ideas, hurts, fears and longings without judgment. Begin communicating again without shame, blame or criticism. 2. Acknowledge your spouse’s efforts and express appreciation to and for each other. Though it is easy to focus on the negative and the things that are not getting done, it is far better for the marriage to have a positive attitude. 3. Identify the strengths in your partnership. Acknowledge and use those strengths to your advantage. Recognize and appreciate your differences. A different perspective might offer a new point of view. 4.Focus attention on your relationship rather than avoiding it. Make the time for a date with your spouse. Go out and have fun, and remember the things that brought you together in the beginning. If going out is a challenge, put the kids to bed and find time to do something special at home, just the two of you, without interruption. 5. Decide to have reasonable expectations of yourself. Ask for help when you need it. Parents often work themselves into situations where they feel indispensable. Finding balance helps alleviate stress and goes a long way in finding the time to reconnect in your marriage.

Every person moves through personal grief and struggles in different ways and at different times, and it is important for each partner in a marriage to be respectful of these differences. Anger, denial, guilt, bargaining and acceptance are all stages of this process. The stages are not a linear process and can overlap, coexist and reemerge from time to time. In a marriage, one partner might be consumed with anger while the other has moved into a place of acceptance. Perhaps one partner is still in denial while the other is full of remorse and guilt.

In a marriage where such stresses exist, it is easy for one partner to become so wrapped up in his grief that he becomes blinded to the actual experience of the other partner. One spouse might imagine that the other is unavailable, uninvolved or overly focused on the child, when in reality he is simply handling the situation the best way he can at that particular moment. Again and again, couples will express how their lives and their marriage seem so different from what they had anticipated, and they often relate stories of anger and bitterness toward their spouse. Many times, this anger stems from unmet personal needs and feelings of not being appreciated or valued by the other.

Parents of children with special needs might be at greater risk for marital stressors and communication breakdowns. They are more susceptible than most to feeling overworked, overloaded and overwhelmed. These parents often experience great demands emotionally, physically and financially that can lead to a feeling of disconnection from their spouse. Under stress, couples will often respond with natural survival instincts, which include fighting and arguing, avoiding conflict by pulling away, giving in out of exasperation or becoming emotionally frozen. Recognizing these instincts as a natural response to a tough situation is an important step toward healthy and effective communication.

Making an Effort to Reconnect
By reopening the channels of communication, couples often learn they haven’t had their needs met or understood because they haven’t taken the time to talk, listen or ask for help without criticism or judgment. Often one spouse will assume that the other should know what he thinks and wants, but in reality the other doesn’t have any idea. Even if the one spouse does understand what the other needs, he often hesitates to deliver it for fear of not getting it right and facing rejection.

Learning ways to handle the stress is essential to the success of the relationship and the family. Couples faced with special challenges might sometimes become emotionally frozen, feeling shut down and numb, because of a sense of isolation. Pressures on the marriage might intensify, and couples might then find themselves approaching their situation from different points of view. If it has become impossible to talk with each other, how will you ever be able to make important decisions such as which specialists to visit, which schools or treatment options to consider or how to navigate the course of your lives? Couples should remember that the goal is to have a partner who is an ally, not an adversary, on this journey.

Recognize that life is a process. A relationship is a process. You don’t have to accomplish everything at once. No individual has it all together all of the time, even if it appears as though he does. Try not to compare yourself with how well you think other couples or parents might be doing. Have compassion for yourself and your spouse, and be gentle with each other. Perhaps most importantly, nourish your spirit, and find time to have fun as a couple. Finding humor and laughing together goes a long way toward relieving the daily pressures and keeping that heartfelt connection of love alive.

Debra Foster McElhaney, M.Ed., is a licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed professional counselor and certified Imago relationship therapist practicing in Sandy Springs. She works extensively with special needs families, conducts seminars for couples and individuals and leads support groups for fathers and grandparents of special needs children. McElhaney, a member of the Families of Children Under Stress advisory board, has two young adult children, including a “uniquely challenged” daughter. She can be reached at 404-847-0906 or through her Web site familyresourcelink.tripod.com.

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