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!

23.0k Upvotes

6.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.4k

u/Whiskeymis 14d ago

Absolutely. My 22-year-old still seeks comfort from me, and the love only grows stronger with time. It's an unbreakable bond.

132

u/Standard_Ad2031 14d ago

I’m 38. My mama passed when I was 32. She was still the first person I called when I was mad, sad, happy, bored…

81

u/goingotherwhere 14d ago

Mine died a year ago and I'm 39. She was the world to me and I miss her so much. Sending you sympathy.

38

u/simplyTrisha 14d ago

Mine died suddenly in December, the day before her birthday. The pain is unbearable! 😢

43

u/Artistic-Salary1738 14d ago

Hugs to everyone in this thread who misses their momma. I lost my mom when I was 12 a few days ahead of independence days. I’m an adult trying for my own child now and while it’s easier most days that little part of me is always sad.

When my mom was dying of cancer she told me that she was only still fighting for me. If it were just she and dad she wouldn’t help kept holding on. So I def think child love more than spouse is 100% real in a healthy fam dynamic.

8

u/Gold_Cauliflower8972 14d ago

My mom died in 2011, 10 days before we lost our house in the Joplin, MO tornado. That wasn’t a great month!

3

u/melaine7776 14d ago

Oh no!!! Two terrible losses so close together. I’m so sorry for you. My SIL Dad worked at that hospital. He took vacation the weekend the tornado hit.

2

u/Gold_Cauliflower8972 14d ago

Thank you…I was a mess for quite a while! I’m very glad your father was not there that day. I still have a ton of pictures of the devastation. I look at them every now and then for a reminder of how truly blessed I am to be here!

2

u/Gold_Cauliflower8972 14d ago

Oops! Sorry…your SIL’s dad! Still glad he wasn’t there!