New mom says she 'didn't realize she could love a person this much' in front of fiancé. AITA? UPDATED

"AITA 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 f--ing 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. AITA?

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

offbrandbarbie said:

NTA. I’ve heard both mothers and fathers express a similar sentiment to what you said. The love for a child is unlike anything else.

Difficult_Process_88 said:

NTA Actually, most “normal people” would NOT agree with him (as you can see by the replies). There seems to be a lot jealousy involved.

newtonianlaws said:

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.

SmellingPaint said:

Gonna be a little controversial here, but I think that a parent's love isn't necessarily stronger than romantic love. And it doesn't need to be. They're different things, and that's fine, really.

When I think of my parents, I'm thankful for both of them, since they showed me love and care, and I am who I am because of them.

I'll never forget all the talks we had where they consoled me after getting a bad grade at school, or when dad spent an afternoon with me, teaching me a new thing, or when mom cooked my favorite meals for my birthday. Each of those is a precious memory, and I'm sure that they, too, must have felt so much love for me during these moments.

But at the same time, as I get older and am now beginning to plan life on my own (haven't left home yet, but probably will in a year or two), I can also see that there is an entirely different world of love that only adults can share with each other.

Financial discussions, troubles at work, grief after losing family members, plans for the future, so many intimate things that mom and dad relied on each other for, that I, being a child, was unable to offer any real assistance with. And, as I said, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not reasonable to expect a kid to help you manage these things.

I guess my point is that you don't need to understate a certain kind of love to praise another. My parents have a relatively solid marriage, and I'm sure they'll remain together even after my brother and I leave, and continue to build a life together spending precious moments as husband and wife.

So the idea is... I just find it a little shallow to treat "parental love above all else" as an ultimate truth. Love is love, and as long as you're not neglecting anyone, I'm sure things'll get there one way or another.

Update: I'm glad you talked it out and understood each other's perspectives better! Communication is key, and it seems you're going to do just fine as long as you work together as a family <3

suekadik said:

NTA. What a weird thing to be jealous of.

IntroductionNo7686 said:

NTA. I’ve been with my husband for 40 years and to this day, I love my two adult daughters more than my husband. He knows it and is ok with it. It’s a different kind of love. It’s not romantic like with a partner. It’s endless, selfless, without conditions, it’s to the soul kind of love. Your husband needs therapy to get over being jealous of his own baby.

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!