Both of our families live 3+ hours away and are not interested/able to help care for our three children for longer than a weekend once or twice per year. Even if we lived closer I'm fairly confident our families would come up with an endless number of creative excuses to avoid being around despite being retired.
Our eldest has special needs and our children are collectively too difficult for hiring someone to care for them— for longer than a date night here or there —to be on the table.
We're not really in a position to change jobs and/or downsize, so it feels like we're stuck having to deal with this burnout in motion, so-to-speak.
Has anyone here managed to work through a similar situation?
Have you joined a support group for families with special needs kids?
There's no substitute for interactions with other folk in a similar position to yours.
Disclosure: Two difficult kids, no outside support while they were growing up. Seven years ago, around the time our eldest moved out, our youngest had their first hospitalization for a psychotic episode and is now formally diagnosed as schizophrenic. Loving them ain't ever been easy and it's meant giving up on most of our personal ambitions but I wouldn't want either of them out of my life even if you put a gun to my head.