Parents take advantage of one night without children per week separately to decompress

Parenting, especially in a family of Neurodivers, can be consumed. Sometimes my husband and I each take a night off. No dinner preparation, no bedtime routines, no negotiation that handles the bath time or the last minute “I need water!” Requests. One of us is completely out of service while the other directs the show.

It is not always transparent, but this simple practice was essential to our marriage, our friendships and our personal well-being.

This practice reduces the risk of exhausting constant care by giving us time to reconnect with ourselves and do things that will give us more peace of mind and more margin, whether by seeing friends, working late to catch up or simply sit in silence.

The result? We show the nights better in which we are. Our friends were amazed at the idea, and some even tried it themselves.

The idea presented itself naturally

We did not start this intentionally. At first, I just noticed that we were worn – still on our phones, short with each other and generally drained. I juggled our children at home, consultant, writing and leading peer support groups for other parents of autistic children. My husband had his own work stress, as well as the obligations to our community and our family. We were stretched. We cure logistics, but we rarely connect.

One night, I told him to take a little time for himself. Not in an aggressive passive way, but with compassion. I could say he was exhausted and I wanted him to find a way to recharge. I knew he needed time to feel more like him.

Then it became something bigger

This little gesture turned into a bigger question: what if we structured this? What if, instead of tightening in the time of decompression sporadically, we had planned it? We started with fixed evenings – I took Thursdays and he took on Monday. At the beginning, we have everyone to leave the house and we did not move away from these defined days. It helped us draw the lines between being “off” and “on” more clearly.

Over time, our actions have become more flexible. When he was in a more busy work season, I adapted to give him more margin, sometimes taking time on weekends instead of Thursday evenings. Now we can just register. He will send an SMS: “Hey, I need a late work evening”, and I will say: “I need a friend evening this week”, and we make it work.

These nights have improved us together. I will not claim that everything was smooth. Giving yourself space meant that we also had to face difficult conversations. Being autistic and parental of autistic children is intense. The same goes to be an extrovert married to an introvert.

When we go out together, my husband needed time alone between our dates. At the beginning of the wedding, I went out with friends while he was at home. But once parenthood has entered the image, especially with all the additional needs of our household, it has become more difficult to cut this space.

Structured holidays have given us permission to bring this rhythm back to our lives and to offer each other without guilt. This made us more patient, more communicative and more grateful.

I no longer needed that I did not realize

This arrangement has also changed something in me. As a parent who is most often at home, I am generally myself in research – therapies, evaluations, how to best support our children. It sometimes made me feel that I knew the “good” way of doing things. But leaving helped me publish control. I don’t need to micride my husband’s parenting. He’s an incredible father. He and children have their own relationship and they need this time without plan.

By letting go, we all won something. And we have fun more.

These nights of leave gave me room to rediscover myself. One night, I took a poetry book to a bar. I ended up playing music bingo from the 90s with two mothers during a girl with girls. We laughed and exchanged stories. As an extract, most of my social life revolves around parenting, whether groups of studies at home, game dates or autism support groups. It was good to connect with people outside this context, just like me.

Since the start of this, I have also picked up pastels for the first time since I was a teenager. I started writing more. I deepened friendships. My husband and I use time differently, but we both return to our family more anchored.

These breaks help our whole family prosper

Friends often ask how we operate it. The truth is that we are fortunate to have a certain flexibility in our schedules, but a structured leave does not have to look like a full evening. Sometimes my “night’s leave” is on a Saturday morning while my husband takes children to breakfast or in the park. It is less the format, and more intention. It is a question of becoming curious to know what you need, to speak with your partner and to build a rhythm that supports you both.

In our marriage, we think that if one of us does not prosper, none of us is. When we realized that we barely held it together, we decided to try something different. At first, it was only a few nights to take a break. Then it became a habit. Now it’s a rhythm we trust.

We communicate. We adjust. And because we have built this foundation, there is no resentment, just mutual care. If I need space, I ask. If he needs time, he takes it. We support each other so that we can present ourselves fully for our children and for ourselves.

This weekly break does not concern perfection. This is an intention. And that made all the difference.