Potty training hellscape

I am looking for moral support, advice, anything. My son is coming up on 3.5 years old. We've been at potty training for a year and a half. Yes, really. And he's still. Not. Potty. Trained.

We've tried EVERYTHING.

  • Huge celebrations when he uses the potty
  • High fives
  • Candy
  • Showing him his toys use the potty
  • Two different potty seats
  • Getting to call grandparents and tell them he did it
  • Multiple sticker charts (he fills in the charts, gets the prizes, makes no progress)
  • Rewards
  • Timers (first optional with a reminder "hey, do you feel like you need to pee?" and then mandatory)
  • A special book he can only read on the potty
  • Underwear

You name it, we've done it. NONE of it works. He has all the knowledge and all the skills - I've literally watched him be in the bathroom, realize he has to pee, climb up onto the potty by himself, pee, and get back down. He speaks just fine, he knows how to ask to go, he knows if he doesn't potty train he's not going to be able to keep going to preschool next year (they require potty training for certain ages and up), eeeeeeeeverything. It's killing me. It's absolutely destroying my mental health. Every weekend is a nightmare because we spend the entire time in a battle of wills. When we just put him in underwear, he will simply pee himself. And then he'll happily keep running around in pee pants - he doesn't ask to be changed and doesn't seem to care that he's in soiled, wet, cold, smelly pants. I feel like I'm losing my mind, I feel like I'm turning into a parent I don't want to be on this issue, I'm worried we're going to harm our relationship with him by continuing this endless battle. But I don't know what else to do. We are at a complete loss. He knows what he can gain by going potty, he knows what he can lose if he keeps resisting, he just keeps resisting anyway. I am 500% confident that he absolutely knows the entire process start to finish, what to do, what to say, and where to go, but he is just choosing not to. We're just at a loss. We don't know what to do. I know that all the advice says not to make it negative/not to punish for resistance, but we're at a point where we feel we've tried every method and it's not working and all we feel we have left is consequences - take away the tablet, take away toys, etc. and let him earn them back - but we don't even know for certain THAT will work because we've got no evidence that anything so far HAS worked. I've literally sobbed over this issue because I feel like we've failed him and we just can't get him to do this. He is SO smart and I know he wants to succeed with this but we just can't get him to make the choice to use the potty. Has anyone been through this? What worked for you? How long did it take? What did you do? How did you not go absolutely insane? I don't even know what I'm looking for anymore, I just needed to let this out and hope someone out there has been to the other side of this and can tell me what it was like for them.

And please, respectfully, I'm not looking for "he'll be potty trained before college!" type of comments. I know they're meant as encouragement, but it feels dismissive of the immediate emotions and struggle. TIA.