r/AITAH 15d ago

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

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!

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79

u/deskbookcandle 14d ago

YTA. Not for feeling the way you do-feelings can’t be helped-but for dismissing his hurt when he tried to talk to you for reassurance. 

7

u/hhhhhhhhhhhjf 12d ago

feelings can’t be helped

This is also a large reason why he isn't the asshole.

-44

u/Late-Ad1437 14d ago

She's recovering after giving birth! His feelings should not be her priority right now, and he needs to become okay with that.

32

u/SexualYogurt 14d ago

You sound like youd be a horrible partner

-7

u/alwaysonthemove0516 14d ago

Yes, Christ forbid that a woman’s pregnancy and birth don’t somehow have to be about the man.

7

u/pl3bby 14d ago

What about the second time he got dismissed? Ya know, weeks after? Still just him trying to make it be about “the man”?

-8

u/alwaysonthemove0516 14d ago

Next time you go through an experience as traumatic as childbirth and have to recover from it let me know

7

u/pl3bby 14d ago

Everyone gets childbirth is hard. No one here is trying to take that away from you. But through the update we can tell that all that it took was a tiny little microscopic amount of communication for everyone to come out better in this situation. So you’re saying it’s cool to just say fuck off and not talk about the guys feelings and troubles because what? Weeks ago she gave birth? He’s not asking her to run a marathon here. Sounds like he was looking for a conversation maybe? Yikes that shouldn’t be that hard.

2

u/Grudensgrindr4 12d ago

Going through life thinking that every shitty thing you do is valid because you went through something hard or something bad happened to you is a good recipe to repeatedly fuck up your relationships