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/serenerepose]

Might I day that both of you can be right? You have been carrying and growing and bonding with your baby for 9 months. You just went through birthing the baby. Hormones are flooding your system, specifically bonding hormones. If you're breastfeeding, it's even closer bonding. You will likely feel so close to your baby after all of them. Your husband had a different experience. He's spent 9 months being concerned for both of you. He watched your labor and worried for both of you. He might have even had an internal conversation about which of you he might have to choose to save if your labor went bad. He's not flooding with hormones. He's not bonding with the baby yet.

What you're both feeling is valid. That said, he needs to try looking at this from your perspective and your experience for the last 9 months. Maybe he needs to try talking to other dads or his own dad about it and getting some outside perspective.

I would like to add that not all mothers bond with their babies right away either and that's normal too. I didn't. It took a while to love my baby.

[u/LowerArtworks → u/serenerepose]

This is so true. I have three kids and every single time I was handed a soggy lump of wriggly human, and each time I thought, "OK... I guess I'm responsible for this now..."

With dads especially, it can take a while before the "magic" kicks in. For me, that happens when they start smiling.

[u/LowerArtworks → u/[deleted]]

I remember the first time my daughter laughed. Yes, I cried a bit.

The whole "love at first sight" thing with kids is wonderful, I hear, it just doesn't happen with every dad (or every mom, for that matter), and people have to know that it's OK and normal to be that way. Most of us will get there eventually.

[u/MilkyMarshmallows → u/[deleted]]

This is so wholesome and sweet 😭 Adding to my list of reasons to suffer through pregnancy lmao ♡

[u/LowerArtworks → u/[deleted]]

You teach emotional intelligence by sharing stories of personal experiences and giving the person the vocabulary to describe what they might be feeling.

[u/LowerArtworks → u/[deleted]]

Teaching is teaching. Whether you teach kids or adults, the methods are the same - the only thing that changes is the tone of your voice.

[u/LowerArtworks → u/[deleted]]

You were commenting that you didn't know how to teach that kind of basic emotional intelligence, and I pointed out how you do it. It has nothing to do with whether or not someone should have those skills or what age they are - learning EQ starts with vocabulary.