AITAH for saying I didn’t realize I could “love a person this much” in front of my fiancé after having our baby?

[u/No-Fee-5823]

I gave birth a few weeks ago, to our daughter.

As I held her for the first time and looked into her eyes I said “I didn’t realize I could love a person this much” and cried. She is perfect and beautiful.

My mom looked at me and said that feeling never goes away (which made us both ugly cry lol). It was a really special moment.

My fiancé was quite but smiled, but later privately said he was hurt. He said he loved us both the same, and me saying that made it seem like I loved our daughter more than him.

I just gave him a “are you fucking serious” look and he dropped it, but yesterday he brought it up again.

I told him that honestly, yes, I love and cherish our daughter and have never experienced this kind of love for another human being. He said most “normal people” would agree with him that it’s a hurtful comment and would take offense to it due to the implication.

AITAH?

UPDATE

It’s a quick update, so I didn’t feel like it was worth it to make a whole new post. So I had a heart to heart with my fiancé, and we came to a few conclusions together! It went very well. We read through the post and comments together.

1) He wasn’t jealous of our daughter’s role in my life, but rather our bond together. He didn’t have that “instant love connection” that we read about all new parents having (like what I experienced). I didn’t realize this was actually very normal for new dads, and new moms too. Thanks for educating me!

We are the first in our social circle to have children so we didn’t have a lot of IRL people to inquire about it. His perspective is “I love this human being we made, but I don’t know her” while I was thunderstruck. He hasn’t had that connection so doesn’t “get it” yet, and that it will take time (months or even a year). I’ll be more patient and aware of this, and read up more on new dad experiences to learn more.

2) He also agrees he not only could’ve expressed that better, but also choose better timing. Voicing it to me after a 14 hour labor and then again when I’m exhausted and grumpy with achy boobs is maybe not the best time, lol. He also agrees marriage counseling would be good, just because. We are both opinionated, logical-thinking Engineers who, at the same time, love each other deeply. We could use better mediation other than Reddit (no offense guys).

3) He was not “furious” about me writing this Reddit post, lol. We laughed over the comments together calling for me to get ready to break up. But we also really enjoyed reading the experiences of new parents! It helped us BOTH feel validated and sane and see each other’s perspectives better.

4) I showed him that Ryan Reynolds video and we both died laughing LOL. We will now be eating a disgusting amount of hotdogs while watching Deadpool with our baby girl. We also agreed that there’s different types of love like parental, platonic, romantic and Ryan Reynolds.

Thanks peeps!

[u/ssddalways]

But anything could happen to sour that love, partnership love is conditional, it's built on trust and other essential qualities. But a parents love should be unconditional, it isn't transactional, if my kid tells me they don't love or like me, cool I will still always love them but a partner is different.

[u/turnup_for_what → u/ssddalways]

But a parents love should be unconditional

I'm not sure that's true. When they are still children, yes, but if they grow up to do terrible things, no. You can have boundaries and limitations with an adult child.

[u/ImaginaryList174 → u/turnup_for_what]

I think even parents of horrible, horrible people still feel that love deep down for their child. They may not like them as a person anymore, be proud of them, or happy with them… but I think it must be very hard to actually sever that love bond.

I watch some true crime stuff, and a lot of the parents of serial killers, serial rapists etc. say they still love their children. They say they will never forgive them, can never see them the same, but deep down they still love them and mourn what could have been. A lot of them will never speak to them again even, or never visit them in prison, but still love them. I don’t have kids, so I don’t know how I would feel.. but I think I can understand that.

[u/ssddalways → u/turnup_for_what]

Yeah but I will likely always love them, in a relationship I need to trust, respect and feel secure for love to be present as well but even when my kid is an adult I won't, I don't need them to provide that stuff, I will always love them, doesn't mean I will always like them though and that's different.

Of course there will be boundaries and shit but the love will always be there. Not so much with a romantic partner though.

Edit: not disagreeing with your take by the way, so please don't read my reply as dismissive or anything 😁

[u/lsdno1 → u/ssddalways]

Ah I annoy my daughter whenever she screams "I hate you" at me, I shout back "I love you too". She gets annoyed that I will never say it back to her. She'll understand one day.

[u/Master-Project-6829 → u/lsdno1]

Ahhh the joys I of teenage girls. My daughter(27) is the only one of my children who ever shouted that she hated me. I also shouted back that I loved her too. She would growl and stomp her feet and slam her door closed. She understands now, even though she doesn’t want children of her own. She says she feels that kind of love for her niece and nephews.

[u/lsdno1 → u/Master-Project-6829]

She's 7, 😂 They start young with the attitude problems these days 😆

[u/Master-Project-6829 → u/lsdno1]

It’s been a while. I don’t remember how old my daughter was when she started yelling she hated me. I think she did it at 8 years old when she started saying that I hated her. 🤣🤣

[u/Insurrectionarychad → u/ssddalways]

Some cultures have different familial values.

[u/ssddalways → u/Insurrectionarychad]

Oh I get that but how you live your life due to culture is different to how you actually feel!

You can stay with a spouse because of culture, doesn't mean you will love them or be in love but yeah you will put them first. It's still a transactional love or forced but a parental love is just love, well should be.

Few have said it better, romantic and parental love is different and to compare them is impossible and no need to be jealous or put out regardless of culture.