Reshaping the Container
How cycles of breaking and repair sustain our family through loss and change
Cycles of Birth and Death in Family Life
Over nearly 24 years, my wife and I have lived through many versions of our family—each one its own birth, each one carrying its own death. Relationships, like people, are always in flux. They begin and end, literally, when people are born and when people die. But they also transform figuratively as we grow and change, becoming new versions of ourselves. If the container of the relationship is flexible and resilient, it can stretch to hold those changes and offer safety from which to expand. If the container is rigid and fragile, change can threaten its very structure, leading to fracture. Fear of change can also make the container brittle, forcing it to cling to the status quo at all costs.
My wife and I have weathered many defining iterations together: from dating and marriage before kids in London, to new parents in London, Lima, and New York. Then came the long struggle to have a second child while my muscular dystrophy was progressing. After nearly nine years of heartbreak, our daughter was born. Years later, our family shifted again when our son left for college and we became three. I could name smaller cycles within those, but each of these marked a major turning point in the life of our family.
Each version of us has been distinct. Our son was an only child until he was nine, and our daughter has had more of an only-child experience since she was eight. The dynamics couldn’t be more different in the respective versions. With our son, there was an ease, a rhythm that felt natural. With our daughter, we’ve had to relearn how to function—how to parent, how to communicate, what to expect, and how to make meaning of our days.
The Breaking Point
Recently, things hit a breaking point. Our daughter was upset because a change in plans meant she didn’t get to do what she expected. Change is especially difficult for her, and she got angry. Soon she and my wife were shouting across the table while I sat eating, frozen. I didn’t grow up in a house with yelling, and I don’t like it.
This wasn’t an isolated moment. Many weekends unravel into some version of meltdown. It’s exhausting, depleting, and it sucks the oxygen out of our home. That night it became clear: we cannot continue like this. Even the resilient container we’ve built is being stretched and contorted into unnatural shapes.
The stress landed directly in my body. I sweated through my shorts and had more trouble getting up from my chair than usual. Every “no” seems to trigger an explosion. That is not sustainable. We ended the evening with a tearful discussion and collapsed into bed.
The Reality of Loss
This version of our family is not what we expected when we set out to have a second child. Because it often feels constant and unrelenting, there’s little space to breathe, let alone soften into the grief of what we’ve lost. I love my daughter more than words, and I am endlessly devoted to her, but making space for the loss that accompanies this reality is elusive.
My wife and I often call it a marathon. There’s little ease or flow—only an outpouring of love and patience, constant learning, judgment from others, and being misunderstood by people who think it’s just a matter of entitlement or firmer boundaries. There’s so much more happening under the surface. Co-regulating a sensitive, neurodivergent, overstimulated nervous system is a full-time job, and it is exhausting.
Research backs up what so many parents of neurodivergent children already know in our bones. A 2009 University of Wisconsin-Madison study found that mothers of children with autism experience stress levels comparable to combat soldiers, marked by physiological changes and relentless daily strain. The reality of that stress, and the grief that comes with it, often feels taboo to acknowledge—just as it can with my disability. But denying it carries serious consequences: burnout, resentment, and even marital crisis.
The fact that my wife and I can face this together, even while disagreeing on the details, sustains us. She helps me when I get rigid; I help her when her boundaries grow too porous. We hold each other when it feels hopeless. We learn together, encourage each other, give each other space, and witness each other in the march forward.
The Importance of Repair
The morning after the blowup, my wife woke early and wrote a letter to our daughter. Our daughter, more apologetic than usual, slipped into the role of victim—something familiar when she’s faced with our disappointment.
I reminded her that I know she cannot help herself in the heat of the moment, but also that she is growing and will continue to grow. I told her how much I love her even when I am angry, that my love doesn’t waver when I am upset, that it lives in every cell of my body. I told her I will always fight for her, behind her, and sometimes with her. And I told her that what happened felt like the death of something.
It feels like the death of this particular iteration of our family, which means the birth of something new. Not that meltdowns will vanish—of course not. But together we must reshape our family container into something sustainable. We must let this burnout be both a death and a birth. It has to be.
What is dying in your life or relationships right now—and what might be waiting to be born?
Even being patient and flexible with your own iterations - ups and downs and changes. I need that advice; guess I just got it!