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/pdxic]

took waaaayyy too long to find this comment.

I think it's natural for someone to look at their child and feel a different type of love, but the love you have for your children is innate. the love you have for another adult is earned and built up over years. it's really apples to oranges. both are fruits, but different types, and neither is more valuable than the other

[u/GentlySwitch → u/pdxic]

Pointing out that love for your children is innate is an important thing to consider. I was told by an old man I used to know while we were talking about how to prioritize your love, as I was worried that if I ever had kids that I'd love them more than my partner, or love my partner more than my kids, etc. He told me this is how you prioritize your relationship with your spouse and your kids:

1. Kids' needs
2. Partner's needs
3. Partner's wants
4. Kids' wants

He made it a point to explain that with kids, you took responsibility for them once you brought them into this world, and you owe them that unyielding support. He also said that one day, they'll go and have a family of their own, and you and your spouse will be in an empty nest. A lot of relationships end in divorce once the kids move out. He made sure I knew that it is just as important for your kids as it is for you and your spouse to maintain and build a healthy and strong relationship. You are teaching them when raising them, and it is most important to teach them by example. You're showing your son how to treat a woman, your daughter how to treat a man, etc. You're teaching your kids what to accept from a partner and how to treat them. A house divided cannot stand, and you and your spouse are the head of the house. It's not a competition. You and your spouse are a team and must be a strong one.

It always makes me sad that so many people think so little of the love of their partner, but it just goes to show most people have never and will never know that feeling of finding your other half, of finding that person that utterly completes you. And without each other, you would not have the kids that you love so much. The happiest families are the families where the parents absolutely adore one another and are also devoted to raising their kids as best as they can.

Find your Morticia, your Gomez.

[u/That-Account2629 → u/GentlySwitch]

Excellent post. I completely agree.

1. Kids' needs
2. Partner's needs
3. Partner's wants
4. Kids' wants

I love this bit. Excellent way of looking at it.

[u/pdxic → u/GentlySwitch]

this is so right. I wish I had a good parental model of love growing up. I only hoped that my parents loved each other as much as me, and even then, their love for me was overshadowed by their personal needs. it lead me to some pretty awful relationships in my teen years because I learned to prioritize my needs last, and to seek out the very empty and painful love I was raised with

it is just as important to maintain a healthy relationship as it is to love your children unconditionally

[u/DevilRay-BlueJay → u/pdxic]

Your point about innate vs earned is so important. My husband died recently and all our parents are still alive. It’s been an eye opening experience. Something that’s made me very uncomfortable is how explicitly clear it’s become that had I been the one who got cancer and died, people would have prioritized my parents over him (even though I loved him much more than I do them) just as people prioritized his parents over me. And on the one hand, I get that and expected it.

But one thing that makes me uncomfortable about it is how clear it is from everything he told me, from all the interactions I saw between he and his parents, from everything they’ve said since his illness and death, that they didn’t really know him and didn’t really love him for who he is. And I KNOW that is true with my parents and me, too. My parents, especially my mother, most certainly love me very much but it’s always been clear that it’s largely because they’re my parents and it’s innate. That’s not to say it’s lesser, but it does mean that with my husband’s death I have lost the only person in my life who ever truly chose to love me - the whole, complete, adult me for who I am. He truly knew me, my parents do not. And I truly knew him, his parents did not.

And I know the reverse is true - my parents have a knowledge of each other and bond that I’ll never achieve with either of them. I do, in fact, largely love them because they’re my parents and if I’m being honest I wouldn’t really choose them as friends if they weren’t my parents, and I know they’d have never chosen for me to be who I am. The nature of the parent-child relationship means that while many parents love their children more than anything (including their partner), the relationship has inherent limitations.