It's one thing for grandma but I for one would not volunteer any longer. Too many good people out there to start families with. Can you imagine a 17yo doing this? Twenty five? These "disabled" kids are often coddled and keep around by parents - sometimes forever.

FYI in legal parlance you were battered. Assault being the threat. He didn't threaten you he just did it. In my mind I'm picturing a chimpanzee running amok in the house.

I will admit I know little about autism however I am unsure how your SO mother is qualified to conclude that 4 hours of physical violence from this 5 yr old was somehow your fault?! Was she somehow psychically present to witness what triggered this tantrum? Does she think, even IF you inadvertantly triggered a massively negative reaction from ss5, that its ok for you to experience this and to more or less inform you that you asked it? I am betting even the most experienced care worker in this field has had situations occur when a child has disliked something or other and has kicked off! The reason this child has so many professionals attempting to help ss is because he needs the help, its a work in progress and clearly as he has behaved like this for THEM (ya know the ones who have trained for years to understand)then its something that cannot be blamed on you. Sorry but your future mil sounds like a bit of a judgemental, uncaring bitch. What has SO said about this?

Personally I think you need to take a step back, having to experience a 4 hour long physical tirade even from a small child is NOT fun nor fair to you(got to say, the fact he kept checking for your responses tells me at some level he was assessing your reaction and had some understanding of the situation -but again I would assume your OH would have given you some professional insight into ss behaviour. I also agree that in some cases, not saying yours necessarily, that children with behaviour problems can be provided with too many excuses which does not help them learn what is acceptable and what is not in time!). I must admit I am unsure why your OH would risk this happening with you, he knows he is capable of sustained physical outbursts, although appreciate it only usually happens elsewhere, but there was still a risk and having him overnight when he is an early riser again increases the chances of you having to manage a situation you are ignorant of. Its not fair to you nor ss. I think you would have every right to inform OH that you are out of your depth, that it scared you (he scared you) and neither will you stand for being effectively blamed by mil when you were helping them out by choice. If this affects oh working pattern, then sorry but its tough as you do need to consider your own sanity and safety, as that is not acceptable!

I've got an ASD son and what you've been told about the difference between checking your reaction or not and whether it's a true meltdown or not is not in my view accurate. You can only judge each ASD person's meltdowns and what they exactly mean if you know them very well indeed, otherwise it's only an educated guess; and rules of thumb like you've been given don't apply generally anyway. I've not even heard that one and I'm heavily involved with this area both personally and professionally.
What's clear is that you were not provided with the equipment to deal with this behavior by your DH; you should have been warned of the triggers and the behavioral methods that worked to calm this kid. Every ASD kid can be calmed, often easily, but only with the relevant knowhow. You are totally not responsible for the situation you found yourself in and I'm really sorry that you were so unsupported. If this kid is high functioning and has not behaved this way before you ought not to be too concerned for the future so long as the kid is properly supported by your partner and any professionals he deals with. But it is fair to say that if this sort of violence is the norm for this kid even at this age, you are indeed going to face some risk as he grows older. Particularly in the early adolescent period a boy who is physically out of control like this can be very hard to cope with as a single carer. If it is a one off and not something the boy usually displays then I would be a lot more hopeful that your DH can arrange some behavioral training for himself as a parent such as to prevent too much recurrence. The beauty of autism is that it is often a very predictable behavior disorder and once the kids know the rules of the household then they are far better behaved than neurotypicals. Throughout my OBS's childhood (he's now a happy and well balanced 16YO going on to great things) all I had to say to him was 1-2-3 when things were going awry, and he completely obeyed anything that we as parents expected of him. Totally courtly. But the same child, if brought up without the techniques we used, would have been an antisocial brat by now. It's all in the parenting. Your DH has to sort that out.

Why didn't you call Dadw when hings got out of hand? So what if he was working? His kid was having a problem and it was on him to deal with.

I would walk away.

You should leave this guy.

Run...........

With all of the factors considered and the new information. Skid ass ... meet paddle.

Light his ass up when he pulls this crap. His ass will wear out long before your arm does.

IMHO of course.

As for taking on this burden at 50 with a 5yo.... I wouldn't. The age difference between my bride of 20 years and I is close to the age difference between you and your SO. I am 50, she turns 39 today. Fortunately the Skid is 22 and doing well on his own. His birthday was 2 weeks ago. Not that his birthday matters. We married the week before he turned 2 so we have had a long time to partner on raising the Skid to viable adulthood.

At 50 I am not sure I would have the energy to take on even a reasonably well behaved 5yo skid. Most definately I would not have the patience.

Good luck.

So tell us what was your partners reaction at what happened? Never ever put someone else in front of yourself to the detriment of your health and sanity...

Wow, what a shitty situation you're in. Personally I have no knowledge of autistic kids but what I would say is that you should carefully observe how your partner handles the situation and how he helps you and his son to ensure that both of you have the correct tools to deal with the situation again. He should also be understanding if you wish to take a step back from babysitting and other activities you are doing solo with the kid until you feel more comfortable handling him on your own (if at all). If you have any special requests to learn more or to talk to his therapists he should be understanding and accommodating. Poodle has some great advice and information. If you intend to stay with this man then you and he need to also become experts on his son's condition so that you can both cope with him and help him cope in the world. Your partner needs to be proactive in that and needs to be inclusive of you in that process.

If you feel that he isn't doing these things for you and his son then you do need to reevaluate your relationship. If he puts the blame on you without helping you find the correct tools to cope with his son, you need to reevaluate. If he doesn't listen to you when you have suggestions of things that may help his son and rather than discussing the options like a reasonable adult becomes defensive of his parenting skills, you need to reevaluate.

As others have said. If this behavior isn't addressed and continues as he grows, not only will you hate the child but he will one day do some serious damage to you.

Just want to add a couple of thoughts.

I have extensive personal & professional experience with kids with autism.

The idea that some behaviors are due to autism and some not is not accurate because you can't turn autism on/off. It is all encompassing. Everything they see, do, think, say, etc. is affected by their disorder. The process things differently.

There is ALWAYS a trigger- it is just often not something obvious. It is usually not the kinds of things that would set off a typical kid.

The behavior of a child with autism is rarely "personal". ie it is unlikely he was mad at you in the way you seem to be suggesting. In fact, you will likely find the next time you see him he will jump up beside you to read your magazine together like nothing ever happened.

It is VERY common for kids with autism to be able to learn things in a rote way (ie understand the consequences of particular behaviors in a therapeutic session) but not be able to apply that information to real world situations.

Most of the time the people close to a child with autism learn their triggers, learn how to calm them quickly, etc and it becomes so automatic that very subtle things they avoid or do in a particular way- they don't even realize they are doing it. So if he isn't having tantrums with dad, dad is probably very good about responding in subtle ways that avoid them. And dad, grandma, etc, probably couldn't quite explain how to do what they do.

So it is probably not so much that you did anything *wrong* just that the normal right/wrong of dealing with kids just doesn't apply.

So, all that is to say- what you saw is due to the autism. His behavior may improve over time or may get worse over time, regardless of the type and amount of therapy and intervention he gets.

Does this mean the relationship must be doomed?! No. I would say for starters, let your bf know that you are not able or willing to babysit. If you move in together, your bf has to be completely in charge of his child. YOU will have to be comfortable integrating yourself into their routine.

In a typical stepfamily, everyone has to make some adjustments. But this is an unrealistic expectation for a child with autism, so it will be all about YOU adjusting yourself to him in ways that may be inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Your post reminded me of this article:

http://markmanson.net/love/

Great link HE.
I get the impression you are very conflicted Sheila. At first I had the impression of someone not wanting to be blended but then you have put in later posts expressing all the pride you have experienced and all the hard work you have put into this kid.
Whilst I don't agree that most marriages producing a disabled child break up, I do agree it is very hard work parenting them and a lot of partnership has to go into parenting, often romance is the loser. But then so it is with co-parenting many children. But with ASD in particular, it's actually easier than not to build a non-blended partner relationship to a parent of a disabled child because, once you've explained verbally the boundaries and the "rules" of disengagement to the child, and that child has processed that information, you actually will have a lot fewer boundary issues than in a neurotypical setting. So, in my view, distance from the child whilst maintaining the adult relationship could actually hit all the spots for the couple -- so long as the dad has the financial resources to support this lifestyle and the dad also has the maturity to not pass the buck onto the female partner.
As Tommar says, once "difference" is accepted it all gets a whole heap easier. The kid knows they are seen as a freak from very early, perhaps from about 6 or 7 years old they know they are shunned by others, and there is a big autistic community out there now that makes it finally ok to lay that out to the child, who usually experiences such discussions as a big relief. There's a good book for teens by Luke Jackson called Freaks, Geeks and AS that's along this theme, and there's also the website Wrong Planet where adults get a lot of support. But taking this difference theme back to your adult relationship, it would be a precondition to a successful relationship that you accept that your setup with this dad is going to be unusual, be tailored, be based around his need to parent this child, and that as the child grows up when you go out together as a group you are ALL going to be seen as oddballs... can you accept all this? If you can it can work, and I sense that you are quite unconventional already, what with your refreshing honesty about your approach to marriage itself. But if you can't then don't beat yourself up about it, it's not a failed relationship, simply a set of requirements of your partner that are really too much of a tall order for most of the female population.

Your man sounds like a real treasure.
The boys also sound generally well-behaved and very well brought up.
If this incident seemed out of character for your SS then likely that is exactly what it was.
Maybe sit down with your partner, go through the whole incident in huge detail and see if he can spot where the trigger was -- there will have been one. From what you've written thus far I'm getting the picture it was the disciplining that made it flip worse but it may just have been seeing the "wrong" face on waking up. Whatever, the initial trigger escaping you has spooked you. Maybe once you can work out what it was you will feel less worried. The guilt you feel is also completely unjustified as you were put in a difficult spot by having sole care and not getting the trigger -- which could have happened to anyone even a bioparent or someone expert in that condition. That caused you to over-doubt your abilities with managing this child which are clearly very high indeed.
My aspie son aged nearly 5 threw a heavy phone handset at me in a rage when I had a newborn in my arms -- he was finding the whole new brother thing very stressful and was out of control for a period. He came round the corner of my bedroom door with it and threw it right at me but it hit the baby's head by mistake. You can imagine how I felt. But such a thing has never ever happened again, and I'm confident now he's 16 that none of his family members are in any more danger than had he been a completely neurotypical kid. So if you want to leave, don't do it just for this incident but get a clearer picture of where the kid is on the spectrum and what the support services are. This kid does not sound likely to be dangerous to me but a reason for breaking up the relationship would be more that, as the other parents of ASD kids have frequently said on this thread, it's immensely hard work micromanaging these kids around the clock. The rewards are great but that's speaking as a bioparent. The stress is also great.
I still think your man sounds like a real darling though so it's a tough one.

Respite is an important issue with ASD. I've not taken much of it myself as where I am you would have to pay dearly for it but it is acknowledged to be an essential part of any educational or parental support package. So the people dealing with your skid will be very clear on this with your partner although it sounds as if he's not pressuring you anyway. TBH it sounds like he needs it too given he is doing nights in order to support this boy.
Good on you, you are absolutely right to get away and weigh up the pros and cons well away from the lot of them. If the SS notices you did not go to the park and asks after you (which may not happen depending on his ASD), then that's the ideal opportunity for his dad to explain the effect of his behavior to him. But again, I'm worried that his mom needed to step in and go. did his dad really need 1:1 adult present for each kid? If he did, would it not have been better to have involved one of the carers? She does not sound the best of influences and if you decide to keep on with this, that sort of intervention may prove an irritant.

oh of course, it was your partner's mom who went... sorry, lost the plot.
Your partner has taken a great line with the BM over the arrangements. Totally official. Excellent.