Father that would like to keep custody of son

I think Gilly is right, in her last post, though I also agree with her that it is really quite possible that your wife might have post-natal depression - it can start late and can certainly go on this long. The sorts of things you describe are very like my own feelings with post-natal depression. Depressed people are very hard to live with, but they can and do get better and relationships recover.

Also if your son has not ever slept through the night and she is mainly dealing with it or is always woken, then your wife is quite likely to be long-term exhausted. If you've not experienced this (and with an active child it is also impossible to rest during the day as the baby books tell you to) then you can't imagine how awful it makes you feel about everything and how hard it becomes to deal with even slightly challenging behaviour. If you and everyone else think that only she can deal with your son and that her parenting is inadequate then that won't help. And actually it is much easier to get good or reasonable behaviour out of a child if you aren't the one dealing with him or her all day.

I would back off from putting pressure on her about your son's behaviour or about her feelings about you and see what happens when she has been to psychotherapy for a bit. I certainly wouldn't start taking legal advice or anything so serious at this stage.

Sadie

Hi Skippy , reading your post i know how your wife feels, i have a child that does'nt sleep he is now 9 , my son since the age of 11 months has been a real live wire breaking his cot , emptying the contents of my fridge and so on.I was left to deal with him alone whilst my ex choose to be out the house at work all hours.My son at times would have 45 mins sleep in a 48 hour period i was exhausted , i resented my ex as i felt there was no help or support from him as he only spent a litle time with our son, leaving me to deal with our son so he never see what i had to deal with day in day out.I even had to begged my ex to come to the hospital with me as our son does have special needs again he refused to come or to deal with our son's problems not that i'm saying your anything like my ex but when you are left as the main carer with a child presenting sleep and behaviour problems you do feel very alone.Don't forget kid's are cute they know how to play thier parents and they do need that gentle push back into line.I think you both need to go and speak to your health visitor as this cannot go on any longer they can point you both in the right direction of a sleeping clinic to get techniques of getting the child into a good routine , and also parenting classes, by which you both have to work as a team.There are alot of services and groups in your local area that deal with the under 5's your health visitor would have details of this or ring your town hall.I wish you the best.