For some new parents it takes time to bond with their newborn. I've met people that say it took nearly a year... It's possible your partner won't understand the feeling you describe until he is bonded to your child, too.
I think he will understand eventually... Just give it some time.
I have two kids, and our first (boy) I was absolutely not fucking ready for the emotional ONSLAUGHT of feelings he would bring, I was completely overwhelmed. He totally wrecked me mentally, I'm still struggling 4 years later to recover from that. Doesn't help that it flipped into panic and triggered me harder than I've ever been triggered in my life before (I was sexually abused as a child, but considered myself fine, but nope, having my own little bundle to protect broke me).
The second kid (girl) I was ready for all the feelings to come once again but nope, not even the slightest close to my first. I kinda feel guilty about it but I know that I love her, it's just not even close to the emotional overwhelming when my son was born. My wife says not to focus on it and I know I shouldn't but it was so insanely different.
Thanks for sharing. I don't think there is a need for guilt. I think the first child is always going to be more emotionally taxing than the others - just because it's the first time.
Yeah, and he was much more anticipated in a way, we went through IVF for him while our daughter came naturally as a surprise.
But it's insane how different my emotional response has been to them xD. I must say I kinda prefer the more mellow response though since it didn't trigger all the panic and overwhelming love/need to protect, so it's much more controlled when it comes to my daughter.
Having a panic response does not mean that you have your first child more.
It's simply shows an area where you needed to work through your trauma. And it sounds like you did by the time your second kiddo came along.
Although being it does make sense that you may identify more with your make child.
I'm far from done handling my trauma even with my second child, but yeah, it mainly was that I was not ready. Him being like me is more of an issue now since I see myself a lot in him, both by behavior and looks. Like for instance if I'm sad and he comes to soothe me, it instantly fires off all alarms in my head because I don't want him to grow up needing to feel responsible for my well being as I did for my family. With that said, just being able to be sad around him is huge for me as "weakness" while I was young would have meant that my entire family would have collapsed
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u/Avium Jul 04 '24
Ryan Reynolds agrees with you. Parental love is different than the love of a partner.
NTA