Why I Love My Kid More Than My Husband
I love my daughter more than my husband—and he's OK with that.
When your three-year-old climbs onto your lap and asks, "Do you love me the best, Mama?," what do you say? "Well, yes, but not as much as I love your Daddy?" I don't think so.
And yet, when I got pregnant I received some not-so-gentle advice from the older women in my life: "You're going to love this baby more than life itself. Just don't tell your husband," said one. "You don't want to neglect your husband, dear. Let him know he's still the most important person in your world," said another.
But, I didn't take their arguably sage advice. Here's why.
Since the 1980s, at least two-dozen studies have posited the idea that the quality of a marriage drops once the couple has kids. These studies say that marital dissatisfaction comes from parents' loss of freedom and their childless status quo. And when kids leave the nest, studies show that parents are happier than any other time in their relationship. Although they miss their kids, they revel in their new freedoms and revisit old marital activities, sometimes ones they haven't experienced since before the first child was born.
All this should have terrified my husband and I when we started The Talk—the one about trying for a baby. After all, I'd heard for years that kids could break a marriage. But instead, my husband and I talked about money. My biggest worry was that the mounting cost of diapers would revive our old checkbook quarrels, so we agreed not to fight about spending on the baby.
Research shows that parents who plan ahead avoid the relationship-ruining discord the old studies talk about. A recent study by professors at the University of California at Berkeley found a flaw in the bulk of the "kids ruin marriage" studies: they didn't take into account parental mindset before baby made three.
Parents who disagreed about making a baby, parents who were complacent about the process and parents who never had the chance to plan (the so-called "oops" pregnancy) were much more likely to struggle post-birth.
Professors Philip and Carolyn Cowan report that parents who walk in with their eyes wide open and all their wits about them are in for a pleasant surprise. Planning parenthood makes for happier parents, in other words.
When I gave birth to my daughter, we weren't looking to fix our marriage with a baby. We weren't on two different pages, one of us baby-hungry and the other just going along for the ride. We—both of us—wanted to be parents, which left us both open to falling in love; this time that all-consuming love you have for your child.
Discussion
I would love my child or children more than the children's father because they are a gift from someone that I love or loved. Of course you would teach them how to love, honor and respect. During their innocence, they will learn from what's right and what's wrong, and of course, they will decide whatever is right for them when they become adults. It is just the cycle of life.
I am sorry, but the love I feel for my child, is untouchable, only is it akin to the love I feel for my own mother. I am madly in love with my husband, but there is no love in the world like that a mother feels for her child. While he is my husband, he isn't my flesh and blood. She is my world, and I am her home, and there is no one above her, no one. Husband or not...
Can we quantify love with an amount? I don't think we can. The two loves in question are completely different. Maybe she'd be better off saying "I love both my husband and child incredibly, but I would sacrifice most for my daughter." And that's how it should be. Is there a parent out there that wouldn't go into a burning building to save their kid? If you'd willingly sacrifice your own life for a child, it's not a leap to imagine that if the choice had to be made, you'd sacrifice a spouse to save a child. Losing a life partner is the second-worst thing that can happen to a person in life; I think losing a child is the absolute worst thing that can happen to anyone in this life. It's not a matter of 'degree' here, but priorities. We have to love ALL of our family as much and as well as we can, while we've got them. Children have to see mom and dad love each other every day; when it comes down to the wire, their security rests in knowing that BOTH their parents would do anything for them, including giving up each other.
Its a different kind of love...I think. I know for a fact that my mom didn't love my dad, the same way she loves me. She loves(loved) my dad for being the man she created me with, but the type of love you have for a child is one that is totally indescribable. Its a different kind of indescribeable than the one you have for your siginifcant other though. It the kind you can't explain, the kind that makes your heart warm when you see a piece of yourself, embodied in another little person. My mom would go to ends of the earth for me, my boyfriend(husband), I'd like to hope so, but I know for a fact my mom would. There's something about a connections between a parent and child that can't be compared to that of a wife and husband(significant other).
I want my wife to love me the most. If that isn't the case how we can we teach love to our children? Also, children grow up and move away, they're not toddlers forever, if my wife doesn't love me more than anything, I'll find someone who does.
Huh. It sounds perfect right now, but I don't know if that mindset works as you have more kids, as they get older, and as more love has to be passed around. Your man might be OK now, but in the end all you might be left with is a friendship. And where's the sex in that?
Well i have no kids but for me i don't think that you should choose.just be sure to tell your son that you love him every day.
I disagree. You will not always be a parent. There will come a point in your relationship with your daughter when you will need to step down from that parent role and into a new role as a friend. She will need to seperate from you, because that's healthy. Kids need their own identity. And when I hear people rationalize this kind of thinking, I worry that you are pinning your entire identity on only ONE facet of who you are as a person. Parenthood isn't all of who you are. Or it better not be, because the moment she leaves you, what will you be left with?
Loving your kids is different from loving your sweetheart, but it's not about loving one more than the other. Parents would do anything for their kids and we make all kinds of sacrifices for them. Our love is unconditional and often unreasonable. We're proud when they do amazing things like, you know, talk. We know that other people love their kids, but deep down we think ours really are the cutest.
On the other hand, my husband is a grown-up. He is the one who calls up and invites me to meet him for lunch when I'm feeling down. He's the one who talks to me about the book I'm reading or the interesting person he met at work. He's the one who calls me beautiful and kisses me and makes me happy.
We both adore our kids and that makes us love each other more. We have, however, found that we really need to put time into our marriage, hanging out together, fighting, having sex. When we had a newborn it was easy to forget this and put our baby first in everything.
At some point I think you have to move away from making baby the center of the universe for the sake of your marriage as well as your own sanity. This is hard to believe when you are a new parent and amazed by your baby. In the long run, though, the trite things everyone says are true. Happily married parents are better parents. Your kids will grow up and go away and you don't want to look across the dinner table and see a stranger.
And I definitely think it's not good for your kids to tell them you love them more than your sweetie. What are you teaching them about how much they'll love their own husband or wife? When they're older, will they feel burdened by the idea that they're central to your happiness? Will they wonder if you're going to get divorced since you don't love each other that much? What happens when you have a second child???? Well, we used to love you the most in the world, but NOW our hearts are big enough to love two people in different ways?
I've read a lot of very opinionated articles about this same topic that seems to cause a big stir amongst men, women, moms, feminists and so on. I appreciate the way you removed most of the drama and just stated something so simply wonderful, it makes perfect sense!
