Reunification Archives - The Autism Dad

What life is like 365 days after my wife moved back home

June 5th, 2017 was a milestone day for our family. It has been 365 days since Lizze moved back home, with me and our boys. This move ended our almost two year separation. You can read earlier posts about what life was like prior to one year ago. I'll try and give some brief background for all those new to our story, before updating on our current status. Our separation basically resulted from a combination of caregiver burnout, along with both mental, and physical illness. Lizze went through a very difficult period, and we later discovered this was in large part due to caregiver burnout. Essentially, she ran herself into the ground, caring for our family. Caregiver burnout is very real, and results from someone putting so much into caring…

10 Comments

June 6, 2017

Gavin / General Update / Lizze / My thoughts / Reunification

General Update: We have 2 important things to talk about

There are two things I need to touch base on in regards to our day today. By far, the most important update has to do with Mr. Gavin and his eating of the raw chicken. I kinda joke about the ridiculousness of this but it's actually pretty serious or could be very serious. Gavin has gone well over twenty four hours without any signs of him getting sick. He's fighting headaches lately but I think that's related to his vision getting worse. We are so grateful that he's doing well and we thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.. ☺ The final thing on the agenda tonight is also very positive news. It's only less important because it's not potentially linked to Salmonella... We celebrated my Mom's birthday tonight.…

1 Comment

February 5, 2017

General Update / My thoughts / Reunification

UPDATE: Seven months after my wife moved back home…..

It's been seven months since my wife and I put our family back together. For those tardy to the party, we spent about twenty months apart after she suffered what our marriage counselor calls caregiver burnout, along with what turned out to be undiagnosed bipolar disorder. I'm not going dredge through the past at this point but it's important that we're all on the same page. Since Lizze moved back into the house with myself and the boys, things have been going well. There hasn't been any downside to having our family back together as far as we're concerned. The boys have not had much trouble adjusting and Gavin is still doing phenomenally well on a behavioral level. Lizze and Gavin have a relationship now that is amazing. It's healthy…

4 Comments

December 12, 2016

General Update / My thoughts / Reunification

Positives and Disappointments: Four months after my wife moved back home

I've tried to be as transparent as possible during the almost two years my wife and I were separated. I focused on my personal struggle with the monumental loss, as well as how the boys and I were managing on our own, with me as a single Dad. I wanted to try and set a positive example of how to make sure the kids come first, despite my personal feelings. When my wife and I reconciled about four months ago, I began sharing that journey as well because it's not easy to move past something going like that but we did it. As we approach our fourth month back together, I want to take this opportunity to sorta share how things are going. There's a great deal of positive but…

6 Comments

September 27, 2016

Reunification

What life is like three months after my wife moved home

I guess it's fitting to do an update on how life is going, since Lizze moved back home. It's been almost three months now and frankly, the time has just flown by. The physical act of moving Lizze back into the house hasn't caused any significant issues for anyone, aside from the expected hiccups as a result of there simply being a change. Any type of change in a house full of Autism, is bound to create distress. That being said, the boys are happy and I mean all the boys, including Gavin. That's probably been one of the biggest and most positive things to come out of this whole thing. Lizze and Gavin have a normal, healthy relationship now and that's incredibly positive. Lizze and I are doing really…

20 Comments

September 3, 2016

My thoughts / Reunification

I think the cookout went okay

We got home a couple hours ago from our first family cookout/get together since Lizze moved home. I think all things considered, it went pretty well. It's going to be a work in progress as we move forward but move forward we must. The boys had fun, although our stay was almost cut really short because Gavin had really bad cramps and nothing could provide him with relief. He said that it was hurting before we left but he thought there might be pop at the cookout and didn't want to ruin his chances of having some. We do allow him to occasionally have something other than the water his autonomic specialist has told him to consume. He's only supposed to drink 2.5 liters of water per day and…

0 Comments

August 21, 2016

My thoughts / Reunification

Today will mark a major milestone in our new journey as a reunited family

There's a cookout at my parents house today and it was at Lizze's request. She's worried that the awkwardness won't be gone and it will make ruin Thanksgiving. This will be the first time Lizze and my siblings will be in the same room since she left. The whole idea is to just get everyone together and try to break the ice, so to speak. This hasn't been an easy process and my hope is that we can finally begin to put this behind us and move forward as a family. I'm looking forward to this but at the same time, I'm really nervous because I want this to go well. We could use some positive through in our direction. If you don't mind sending them our…

0 Comments

August 21, 2016

My thoughts / Reunification

Two months after my wife moved back home

I wanted to do a general update and share how things are going, since Lizze moved back home. It's been roughly two months since we decided to put our family back together and it's been a journey. When I say journey, I don't mean to infer anything negative. Anytime your life takes a new direction, it's a journey. Since the last time I spoke about this specifically, another month has passed and we've had even more time to sorta transition into this new family dynamic. Overall, I think everyone is doing really well with this significant life change. I think that the change is hardest on Lizze and at times, she's overwhelmed by all the little blessings in our life. I can imagine the difficulty in going from…

8 Comments

August 3, 2016