flowmom | shifting from devastated to rebuilding

[flowmom]

On the "logistical" side of things you must (and it sounds like you are working on this, very good!) find childcare for your children so you can begin earning a stable income.

This is really a win-win. If you and your H do divorce you will have a good start on the next phase. If you and your H reconcile the detachment is a healthy place to be AND your extra income will help with the money troubles.

All makes sense, and it's also very very clear that earning a serious income is one of the only 180 actions that would have a faint hope of making H sit up and notice.

There are reasons that I haven't done this already though. "Finding childcare" is not so simple. My S6 has autism and behaviour issues and it's really hard to make childcare work. Right now we have 6 hours a week of childcare and there are many factors that contribute to making it work that can't be easily replicated. I know it's not impossible, but it's hard to find childcare providers who can actually do the things that S6 needs (big nature outings, including driving there), not just the easy stuff (short time periods in a mellow part of the day). D3 is also a sensitive child who is showing a lot of fragility. Finding childcare is a serious stressor for every single work-outside-the-home mother in my geographic area...the cost of living is high, making it hard for childcare providers to afford to live here. Realistically, I would be looking at approx $20/hr for the calibre of childcare provider that my children would need. And in order to earn enough money to make it worth it to pay out that much, I would have to continue to work as a self-employed consultant, which involves a lot less predictability in my schedule and work timelines. That's always been a challenge. That and my brutal procrastination issues.

Actually addressing my procrastination issues with my self-employed work is my #1 thing that I need to do to take care of myself right now. I believe I have ADHD and this is the only way that I can explain why this is such a problem for me.