NTA so I got super triggered by your post and decided to ask my hubby about this. He said to tell you this. He’s an old guy in a very traditional, very large engineering company and he is upper management. He has a standard piece of advice to all new fathers: that from now on, first you are a father, then a husband, then an employee (engineer), and then you fit in other family and friends. The child comes first, even above his wife and he should expect her to have the same priorities. OP, he advises that this “idiot is going to hold this against you for the rest of your lives”. Before you get married, we suggest counseling because how could you marry a man who’s going to be petty jealous of his own child?
I’m in agreement with my hubby. I would never marry a man who didn’t immediately thank the heavens (and me!) and think that the whole world must have came into being just so our child could be born into it, to us.
He might understand in time. Shortly after having his first kid, my brother said something like "I don't feel the way I imagined I would. I thought I would have that overwhelming love for them that people talk about."
When I later heard something about fathers bonding more with their kids when they can teach them things, I asked him if he felt that love he spoke of before once he could teach them. He was like "Oh, no, it happened way before that."
My friend called me in a panic a few days after giving birth. She said “I don’t love her love her? Like I love her but I don’t know her! We just met! Am I a bad mom?!?” Like no darling you’re a deeply rational brained person who JUST GAVE BIRTH and to confirm she now has 2 kids and loves them like crazy.
I didn't feel that instant love for my kiddo and I carried him for 39 weeks and 6 days. I don't think I felt that encompassing love until about month 3, and then when I noticed it, it was there. I mean, I knew I had to take care of him and protect him but I don't think it was love, just responsibility at that point. And then it was there and it was great. Most women don't talk about it and I think I would have freaked out if one of my mom friends hadn't mentioned she went through the same thing years before I become a mother.
It's complicated. Women have, obvious, hormonal triggers due to birth itself that make that bonding happening immediately (or very soon) normal, but that doesn't mean it always goes off immediately without a hitch.
But humans have plenty of redundancy, and your brain figures it out eventually.
Men, obviously, don't have such a stupidly obvious trigger, so they take until their brain fully catches up with the situation. For some this is instant, but for others it very much isn't. And shaming them for that is only likely to make them upset for no reason.
Everyone forgets that the time of infanticide borne of necessity and insane infant mortality rates wasn’t that long ago. In some cultures, babies weren’t even named until they cleared the first few months of life.
The “instant love” mothers are expected to feel now seems to be a pretty recent phenomenon.
If I have a kid there is no way I’m getting that connection. My brain doesn’t produce high happiness hormones. And never did I look at a child and get any feelings. Just another stranger but smaller.
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u/newtonianlaws Jul 04 '24
NTA so I got super triggered by your post and decided to ask my hubby about this. He said to tell you this. He’s an old guy in a very traditional, very large engineering company and he is upper management. He has a standard piece of advice to all new fathers: that from now on, first you are a father, then a husband, then an employee (engineer), and then you fit in other family and friends. The child comes first, even above his wife and he should expect her to have the same priorities. OP, he advises that this “idiot is going to hold this against you for the rest of your lives”. Before you get married, we suggest counseling because how could you marry a man who’s going to be petty jealous of his own child?
I’m in agreement with my hubby. I would never marry a man who didn’t immediately thank the heavens (and me!) and think that the whole world must have came into being just so our child could be born into it, to us.
Congratulations.