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Personally, not for one minute despite all the difficulties we’ve faced with our kids and in our marriage. Parenting our kids is hard. It’s not like regular parenting and I don’t think that’s made clear enough to prospective adopters - my opinion. Two out of our three have additional needs - it’s not attachment or trauma based but adhd, ASD and other possible stuff. It’s been years of battling to get their needs understood and met and, yes, it’s meant our marriage has had to take a back seat to a huge degree. We did separate for a time and - in our case - that gave my husband the kick up the backside he needed. I’m not for one minute saying this is what’s happening for you but my husband was brought up to hold certain views courtesy of the way his mother parented and unfortunately that way was not going to work with our kids. It’s not plain sailing now some years later and he has to be ‘encouraged’ at times to consider the needs of others as well as his own. Our views on parenting are different. He was happy to parent his kids the way he was parented. I wanted - needed - to do it differently. Had he been open to talking it might have helped however talking through issues wasn’t something his family did! Anything awkward or tricky or slightly embarrassing was ignored. Hence I taught my kids about puberty, sex etc whole he stuck his fingers in his ears and did la la la. I think you both need to figure out what you need from each other. What your wife needs from you and vice versa. Often those things will be completely different. I’m not convinced spending time apart is necessarily healthy - just my opinion - nor do I think separate bedrooms on a permanent or semi permanent basis is the answer. Do you talk? Can you talk once the kids are in bed? Be honest with each other and listen to each other. Any chance of a date night? It can get easier - my three are teens now and life is easier in lots of ways partly because we’ve both accepted that this is how it is. We may have wanted or planned to go to Italy ... but Holland is perfectly lovely too. It’s just different. As a PS - my eldest is now at home with his lovely girlfriend dog sitting. Hubby is the pool in Center Parcs with the other two whilst I’m relaxing with a G&T after a jacuzzi bath! You have to try and find what works for both of you and it might be completely different for both of you.

Counselling is a good idea - it doesn’t necessarily have to be together - you have to figure out what’s going on for you first and what you want before doing couple counselling - in my view. It is as Donatella says desperately hard and no matter how hard you are finding it I’m sure your wife is feeling bad too. If your mental health is affected she may well be feeling she has to do it all and protect you from a lot of stuff (again just my personal view / experience) How much do you plan? With the holiday for example did you plan what each person / child needs to be calm and get something from it? A lot of planning is often needed and things rarely fall into place without it. Maybe that’s a good place to start with the communication - in working out on a day by day / activity by activity what would work best. That may get you working together a bit better and begin to take the pressure off and help you feel in control. That then can have a knock on positive effect on your relationship. Do you get help for the kids - do they have special needs that have been identified or any therapy or just activities they enjoy that raise their self esteem even. If it’s not working perhaps it’s the wrong sort of help. Perhaps you could sit down and work out a plan to get more appropriate help. Try and build on the activities they enjoy too. If you are having treatment for depression your GP should be able to arrange some initial counselling for you - don’t feel embarrassed or negative about taking medication - you wouldn’t for any physical condition - and if you get the right sort of help it should only be temporary. The medication should take the edge of what you are feeling till you are able to deal with the changes you need to make - if it’s not working go back to the GP - a different one might work better for you At the end of the day if you are desperately unhappy you need to make changes and if that means facing the fact that your marriage might be over then you need to be able to do this - but you will still need to work out what it is you want and talk to your wife about this

I don't think there is any point in regrets. It is always better to make the most of what you have. I speak as a parent of one extremely difficult son and several other adopted children who are all doing very well - so I appreciate the tough aspects of adoption but also the rewards. My son would certainly have been better placed as an only child, but no-one knew and it is what it is. I don't underestimate your situation though. It sounds very hard. But if you are contemplating divorce or separation, consider whether your lives will really improve. You will presumably be sharing the care of the children, so each managing two children at once, but at least getting regular respite while the other does the parenting. Why not start doing this now? Either each take one child, if they are better apart, or take turns to have both so that the other parent can have respite. It can be hard when they morph into teenagers and go to bed later than you do - but could you have a time, at least on some evenings, when they go to their rooms, with TV, computer games, whatever it takes, so that the two of you can have some time alone? As for longer periods of respite, instead of trying to have a family holiday and it being miserable, why not send them on a PGL type holiday while you and your wife have a child-free break somewhere? The After Adoption charity also runs short breaks for adopted children I believe, which could be another form of respite for you as a couple. It might be better to book a few days off work Monday to Friday here and there during school terms, for you to spend regular child-free time together while the children are at school, rather than attempt conventional family togetherness which is doomed to failure. Do you claim DLA and carer's allowance? Spend it on making your lives easier, not on the kids! A cleaner, an ironing service, a gardener, whatever helps to lighten the load. I vividly recall a debate on Woman's Hour years ago when a single woman bitterly criticised an infertile couple who were grief-stricken at their childlessness. "At least you've got each other. You don't know how lucky you are." Don't lose each other. Why not start by each writing down what you most want and miss? Finally I find that Sally Donovan's books are the best for telling it how it is, but with some really practical ideas and perspective. Reading her books definitely made me feel less alone, more than anything else I have read.

Hi We are survivors at the other end now. We see three generations below us , and it has been difficult. Use whatever you can to help yourself .... as Fruitcake advises, look into benefits due. Take tablets when you need them. Use Summer playschemes. Share respite between you. It is not easy. It is not called Planet Adoption for nothing....It really is a topsy turvy world which is understood by others in the same situation but not generally. Successes are measured differently too. I know that once I found this site I felt a lot better because people understand. It does change people though and change can and does alter relationships. If you feel supported then you can handle stress better. I do not know how your family story will pan out. I know that for a long while we lived day to day. Wishing you and your wife well. Johanna x

Short answer 'No' but I can see where you are coming from. When I read 'all I wanted was to be a Dad to normal kids' I thought about loss of expectation and grief so I have bumped up something I posted recently which may or not be helpful. You sound totally exhausted. DH and I went on a course run by Adoption UK and the facilitator (an adopter herself) talked about adopters being in a state of 'overwhelm' which is not quite the same as being overwhelmed. It is overwhelming living with these children. Some of them some of the time. Yours sound extreme. How old are they? We have a very complex boy but there's only one of him (we have 3 BCs though and they have not all been straighforward). Life with our AS who is now 13 is TOUGH. You've had some good replies (IMO, but its your opinion that matters!) One thing I would say is, being on anti depressants is the least of your problems. If you can stop feeling bad about having to take them, that will take a tiny bit of the pressure off, IMO. I can't believe there's no time for sex. the children must sleep sometimes. Where there's a will there's a way! Is it that there's no will? Is your wife so exhausted she doesn't feel like it and if you are bickering that isn't very romantic. Moving into the spare bedroom is not a good move IMHO and I've been married 32 years and believe me there have been times when I could have walked away if that had been an option. But the bottom line is, in our case at least its not an option. I have read somewhere that divorce never solves the problem. I mean if there was domestic violence (between the married couple, as opposed to child to parent violence) then that would be a case where life would improve but (again IMHO) in many circs a marriage can be saved and divorce isn't the answer and is often regretted afterwards. I like Fruitcake's idea of divide and conquer/giving each other respite. Got to go DH just arrive home with fish and chips back later....

It appears that for you everything is spiralling downwards. Once the negativity creeps in to the point that it has with you, it is very difficult to turn things around. The children will be picking up on the atmosphere and downhill spiral and this will manifest in their behaviours and this will not help the situation. So as the responsible adult you need to ask yourself Do I have regrets? Is my marriage worth saving? Is my family worth saving? Only you know the answers to these questions, only you can make the decision in how to move forward in a positive direction.

Decided to wait until after you reply to above posts before adding to my waffle :-)

I think you need to take certain steps before you come to conclusions. How old are your children and how long have they been with you? What is 'wrong' with them. Those kids need to have full assessments if that have not been done already. It is so much easier if you know your child has learning disabilities, autisme, adhd, fas, whatever. Than you can let go of the 'therapeutic attachment' parenting and concentrate on parenting 'the autistic child' or 'the learning disabled child' etc. There are support groups, special schools etc, etc. Therapeutic parenting is one of those words what mean something else depending to who you talk to. I have no idea what you do when it comes to parenting but what you do does not work than try something else, even if it does not fit your idea of therapeutic parenting. Are the children 'splitting' you2? You need to work together parenting those children. I would start to look for a paid child minder and go ones a week out together, with the rule: not allowed to talk about kids. It sounds easy but you need to change to make this work out, the children can not change but will become easier to parent when you feel better in your skin. Some trouble you need to prevent, a child smearing deaces, you put it in a suit with closure at the back so it is impossible to do. If children can smear it works addicted. You need to sit down and make a list with the difficulties, than think deep how you can prevent this happening. I realise very well the solution is often 1:1 and bounderies, keeping them apart etc, than so it be. Put the children early in bed and see the evening as respite. Get assessments for the children organise one evening a week to go out together. make a plan how to prevent things going wrong. treat the children a few years younger than their actual age, have expectations for a much younger child. try to accept that your children are special needs children, this does not mean it's not worth it. Just you need to adjust and find ways to make this work.

Sounds like things are incredibly difficult for you at the moment, but in answer to your question, yes I do think it is worth it. You have opened your lives and given your love to two very vulnerable children. That in itself is amazing. It may not seem it at the moment but you have made and will make an incredible difference to their lives and futures. Personally I think you need to put yourself and your wife first for a while and focus on your self care. You need to make time for each other and for the counselling. I’d also go back to the gp and ask for a review of your medication , just to check if you are on the optimum dose/medication. There is absolutely no shame in taking anti depressants. Plenty of people do! Holidays are stressful particularly f0r,our kids who find it so hard to manage the change in location, routine. I’ve had to cut a holiday short and come home early before as behaviours have escalated...but they are nearly over now. Only a couple more weeks. You are nearly there, and will have some respite and time to yourselves with school in September. Please find time for each other and talk to your wife. And do the counselling. As for the intimacy, I think you will find that with many, many couples intimacy levels will drop dramatically with the arrival of children, adopted or not! Maybe your wife is simply exhausted and doesn’t feel particularly attractive or confident or special. Talk to her... Take care

Thanks all... I will chime in shortly again and reply but I am short of time right now. I just stopped by to check in.

My answer is yes, sometimes I do regret choosing to adopt. It’s hard to admit that but somedays it’s the truth. Also google ‘secondary trauma’ and you may see that You and your wife are holding your children’s trauma and it’s urgent that you two prioritise your self care or couple care at the moment. Speak to your Adoption support team about getting regular respite hours each week. Some adopters are able to use clubs like disability challengers to get some down time at the weekends. We paid for our AS to go to a drama,dance,singing club for 3 hours on a Saturday. It’s highly structured so my son has managed to form good relationships with the other kids as there are always adults there to support. We can’t afford this any longer but our LA is now offering to fund half of the annual cost to give us respite as I am really struggling at the moment. I’m on anti depressants too and they have tripled the dose over the last 2 months but it isn’t making a huge difference to be honest. I think if you live in a war zone it’s actually a normal response rather than ‘depression’. Honestly, who would cope with all that without having an emotional response; you feel like shit because your life is shit! Sorry to be so blunt, that’s what I think about my situation tbh. Also the pressure of it all often sends each parent back to their own coping mechanisms which may be very different e.g. I tend to fight problems, my hubby tends to flight from problems so we end up having the same arguments over and over. It does your head in.

There were times about two years ago when I wished we hadn’t adopted AD, things were awful here she was responding badly to some therapy we were getting, school was complaining every other day about behaviours, I was under a lot of pressure with work hubby had been in a bad accident which has left him with minor but life altering disability. AD was acting out in every way possible at home and I couldn’t see an end to it at all. Hubby and I didn’t get anytime to ourselves and we were drowning under all the pressure. Roll on two years later and were doing so much better, so what changed we found activities that AD could cope with and we signed her up to them, last term she did three activity clubs at school plus guides and rehursal for a show. In total this gave both me and hubby 10 hours a week when AD was happy doing and activity and other than being a taxi she didn’t need us. We would just curl up of the sofa and watch tv, chat or cook a meal together. We have accepted that some of the negative behaviours are just part of ADs make up, one habit that used to grate on me was she shouts a lot even when having a conversation with someone who’s two feet away she shouts. Now we live with it, we ask for a quite voice indoors if it doesn’t happen then we tell her she has 1 minute to get her point across then we get to talk. She’s nearly a teenager so we get hormones as well this involves a lot of shouting, stomping and slamming, again we asked her to stop if it doesn’t then we have natural consequences, at the moment all of the doors have those foam over door wedges that you use with little ones to stop them shutting fingers in the door, they work just as well for teenage door slammers. My point is if your child is continually doing something that gets under your skin find away to reduce the way it affects you, wether it’s a physical thing like the door wedges or an emotional one like the learning to live with the shouting. As for hubbys and my relationship, we have learnt not to let AD get in between us if she asks one of us a question then that person makes the decision and the other one lives with it. So the other day I walked in from work and AD was wearing the strangest outfit and eating cereal for tea, neither would have been my choice and previously would have caused me to make some comment to hubby which would of escalated into an argument. Instead I said interesting clothing choice and dinner to which he said she’s her own girl.

Sorry, I have come to this late, but wanted to reply. I feel for you totally, and completely understand where you are coming from. I have felt desperate regret many times - this is not to say I would go back and not adopt our AS - but at times life has been hell and I would say that I have at worst been almost suicidal - not in an active way, more feeling I would be glad if someone came along and wiped me and my family out!! At times it has felt unbearable and impossible to do all the things I know I should be doing to make myself feel better. But in actual fact I HAVE been able to bear it and things that have helped have been: making lots of time for myself... using screens to occupy my son whenever needed! He watches way more TV than I ever thought he would, but it helps! saying no to anything I don't have to do and that is not helpful to me or my family going to NVR training - this doesn't only address the issue of violent children, but any behaviours that are unacceptable or making family life difficult. It helped me and my husband put most of the irritating things my son does to one side, which helped enormously. The strategies really helped us and our son and I would highly, highly, highly recommend it. You also hook up with a little support network of NVR adopters, which is helpful. Other training has also been beneficial - even if only to have a chance to vent and meet other adopters! linking up with other adopters - for me, they are the only people who get it and don't get tired of you!! They are my absolute lifeline at times and I think I am for them too. making time for me and husband, also me and BD. This has been essential - I refuse to give up those relationships along with everything else that has to be sacrificed! This is mainly evenings, but also after trying out many clubs etc unsuccessfully, we have now found one that our son positively enjoys which also gives us Saturday mornings. Amazing how much difference that makes, though I was quite despairing at some points that he would ever manage to go to any outside activities. time in general - my son is more secure and easier to manage as time goes on, and we are more confident in our parenting of him, and that makes life more enjoyable. I know not all children are the same, but at times I absolutely did not feel my son would ever be in the (relatively) positive place he is now. I know all these things have already been said, but life is much better for us these days, so I know these approaches can work. I hope you are feeling a little better and have a chance to think about how you can make life more positive for all of you - but just to say, I get the intensity of that awful feeling and am sending you virtual support xx

It’s all about loss isn’t it? Actually Adoption is all about loss and managing it. The loss of whatever your hopes where, loss of faith in professionals, your children’s momentous losses. All loss. People who have experienced huge loss need to get help to get through. Look after your marriage. It’s starving and maybe you could do some kickstarting. I believe adopters as a group are particularly poor at self care. Buck the trend. Get better at it, notice one another doing something right and comment. Smile more and if you aren’t smiling then do something on your own to laugh with and then something together to giggle about. Try learning a new skill caking making to sailing to archery to sign language. Whatever but GO. Make sure you buy Mrs a course to do. Give her something she enjoys. Parenting children who hurt is nothing like other parenting. It’s exhasting and at times soul destroying. Other times just about ok and even funny. These kids have complex needs due to early trauma. I guess therefore predicatably tough but it’s hard to convey how hard it is until you’re living it. Look after one another.

I hope this is not presumptuous but from what you describe it sounds as if your wife is not on the same page as you. You don’t sound united and your traumatised children will see this and drive a wedge between you. I feel for you. I often wonder what on Earth I did when we adopted. We had a couple of crap years at the start but it has largely settled down now. I think the problem for me was losing the life we had together and the solid bond we had as a team of two. We faced lots of adversities over a long marriage as a single unit and now these two narky, disagreeable, sometimes violent, thankless, ungrateful, monsters want to get their own way all the time and never listen to a single word we say. They play us off against each other and play favourites. They divide to conquer and much like yourselves we struggle to be intimate. I can’t help looking at my wife and seeing a mum and frankly even though she is just as beautiful as the day I met her that does something to sex appeal. ( I am now going to put on my tin had and await the incoming). Frankly she feels the same way. As soon as she had someone else to care intimately about, her libido dropped and our relationship became of secondary importance. We never had an argument before we adopted but now we don’t seem to see eye to eye on anything and it usually stems from a disagreement over parenting styles. Although things are normalised now I can’t help feeling left out when my friends, all retired early and with grown up kids, plan a party or weekend away or something and I’m the only one who can’t go because of the kids. Do I regret it. I regret not being fully prepared for what was to happen. I regret not being fully informed of the potential disaster the adoption could have been. I regret the two years of hell we went through at the start. I don’t regret the two lovely kids they are turning into and I don’t regret how happy they make me most of the time. However I, like you am wondering if I’ll ever have a sex life again and I do regret that.

I think the intimacy and sex thing is an area of difficulty for all parents, birth or otherwise. Children sap your energy. They take over your lives. There’s physically not enough hours in the day to be all things to all men/women. Yes, it’s harder when you have tricky children and babysitters disappear - I suspect that would have been the case for us regardless of adoption because we were older parents so by extension my parents and his mother were older grandparents and so didn’t have the energy required for babysitting kids. And as mum to two teens and one rapidly approaching her teens ... it doesn’t get easier in that respect. They stay up later. You have less time together as a couple That’s not to say you can’t make time to be together ... but you need to be creative and adapt. We’ve opted to eat together - just the two of us - during the week. He works long hours and the kids need to eat when they come home from school. So they eat then, we eat later. Bit of a pita at times but we get mostly uninterrupted time even if it is only for 20 minutes or so. But most importantly - communicate. Talk to each other.

If only time was the problem.

Short answer yes - and sadly I know of many adopters who do....adopting is extremely hard work and often all hopes and dreams around parenting are shot to bits. One thing that really strikes me about your post is that you sound as though you have succumbed to secondary trauma (also called vicarious trauma/blocked care) - it happens to those who care for traumatised people as they take on the other person's trauma and its usually the most empathetic people who are at highest risk. It is curable, but you do need to seek help - your GP, an experienced counsellor, PAS all may be able to help. I got it and am mostly better - I tried AD, I've had lots of counselling and I now prioritise self care.