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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Loving your partner more than your kids?

356 replies

Windthebobbinup1982 · 05/05/2018 08:29

Aibu to think this isn’t natural? Most people will say they love their children either more than their partner, or at least equally.... However, there are some people who seem to remain so starry-eyed about their partner even once they have children they profess to love them more than their kids. (Queen Victoria being a example).

OP posts:
MyOtherUsernameisaPun · 05/05/2018 08:31

Different kind of love, surely? I don't even know how you go about accurately measuring love when the ways you love different people are incomparable really.

RedPandaMama · 05/05/2018 08:33

Sometimes DP will say things to our DD like 'you're the second most beautiful girl I've ever met' and I get really mad at him and say absolutely not. He's almost certainly saying it to make me feel good but it makes me annoyed so he doesn't do it as much now.

For me at least everything changed when I had a child, I never realised I could love or care about anything SO much. It's crazy.

I agree it's unnatural to care more about a partner than your children. Sometimes you might LIKE your partner more, especially when kids are being difficult, and I think some people mix that up with love, maybe?

x2boys · 05/05/2018 08:37

my love for my children is unconditional and if I had to pick who to save from a burning car for example over dh it would be my kids , we have discussed this and dh would pick the children over me too that doesn't mean I love dh any less but it's a parents instinct to protect your children surely ?

NewYearNewMe18 · 05/05/2018 08:40

Absolutely - children are as a result of the love in the relationship. I would die for my partner and with him, I know I come before everyone else too, including the children. That's how it should be, it gives children the knowledge they have a rock stead base.

It works for us.

Bluntness100 · 05/05/2018 08:43

It's a different kind of love. Love for a partner should be conditional
Love for a child unconditional. No one should ever make it a competition.

TheNavigator · 05/05/2018 08:44

My mum certainly prioritised her new husband over her children. I don't know if she loves him more, exactly, but we certainly did feel like an inconvenience at the beginning of her marriage. My dad seemed to put us first, though.

DH and I absolutely adore each other with every fibre of our being, but we created the children together so they are part of that huge love. It must be very difficult when your partner isn't the father of your children, like with my mum. I would hate that.

ConciseandNice · 05/05/2018 08:45

Once your children are adults you’ll realise that your love for them is very different and that you love your partner more. It’s them that you have chosen to spend your life with. I have both adult children and youngsters and I know this to be true. When they were all children I knew utterly that I couldn’t love anyone or thing as much as my kids. I know now that this changes. See how you feel once your kids are older - I think you’ll then understand.

Of course some people already feel more for their partner when their children are small. I can’t judge them for that. Those feelings are theirs.

But once your kids are self-sufficient your love changes.

LearnFromThePast · 05/05/2018 08:45

It is different love surely. Once your kids have grown up and hopefully moved on with their own lives, your partner is the one who is still there. You have chosen to be with this person. That sort of love takes work and effort and your love for your children is unconditional and fierce. Love is a complex emotion.

I know couples who were so focused on the children that after they left home, they ended up divorcing as the connection just wasn’t there anymore. Others I know were so wrapped up in each other that there was no space for their children and they struggled to bond with them. Surely it has to be a balancing act with the understanding that you will priortise the children in many situations, but that you remain invested in a life beyond the all consuming part

Bluntness100 · 05/05/2018 08:45

I know I come before everyone else too, including the children. That's how it should be, it gives children the knowledge they have a rock stead base

That's horrible. Proclaiming to come before your own children. It doesn't give them a solid base, it makes them feel second best. You can all love each other equally but in different ways. That's the way it should be.

You actually sound deeply insecure. To feel the need to come ahead of your own children.

OccasionalNachos · 05/05/2018 08:46

What are the benefits of comparing different types of love, particularly for your immediate family?

stegosauruslady · 05/05/2018 08:47

It is too different to compare. My love for my children is primal, protective and nuturing (with a dose of 'sod off to play with your friends'). My love for my DP is as an equal, my partner and is a choice.

One isn't better than the other, but they are very very different things!

Babyplaymat · 05/05/2018 08:48

The kids are part of me, I could no more put someone ahead of them than cut my own arm off. I love my husband very much, but if I had to ditch him to do the best for the kids I would. And I know/very much hope he would do the same thing.

DannyLaRuesBestFrock · 05/05/2018 08:48

I would die for my partner and with him, I know I come before everyone else too, including the children. That's how it should be, it gives children the knowledge they have a rock stead base

Knowing that they are not as important as you are to your partner and vice versa, gives them a rock steady base?

Can you please expand on this? Not being goady, just interested how it works.

Pickleypickles · 05/05/2018 08:49

I always remember when i was about 7 my dad came in from work and said "hello my second favourite lady" and i said "no most favourite" so he replied "no mummy is my favourite lady"
It was horrible. Please even you do love your partner more dont tell your children that.

DannyLaRuesBestFrock · 05/05/2018 08:50

Sometimes DP will say things to our DD like 'you're the second most beautiful girl I've ever met'

What a bizarre thing to say to your own child.

Oysterbabe · 05/05/2018 08:51

It's a different kind of love.
I'd pick the kids in the burning building scenario and hope he would too.

Babyplaymat · 05/05/2018 08:52

Knowing I married a man who loves our kids as I do, and would put them first gives me more security than some kind of competition with them

Lloyd45 · 05/05/2018 08:53

That is so true Concise, I love my children but as they have grown older my love has grown more for my husband. You have more time to spend as a couple and I'm starting to fall in love with my husband all over again.

tomhazard · 05/05/2018 08:54

I think it's a bit strange. I adore my husband obviously in a different way to the DC but there is nothing in the world that I love more than them. I am confident that this is also the case for DH and the DC are his number 1.

AjasLipstick · 05/05/2018 08:54

Different love.....Johnathon Ross once said that once you have children, there's a silent and unacknowledged understanding between you and your partner that if your partner and one of your children were drowning, you'd use your partner's head as a stepping stone to reach your child...and that both parents should be fine with that.

This is how DH and I feel. We both love each other enormously but would always put the children first.

BeyondThePage · 05/05/2018 08:58

thought of comparison of different types of love has never entered my head. I love my DH, I love my kids.

I love my parents and my siblings - am I supposed to love one of them more than another too?

Bluntness100 · 05/05/2018 08:58

Genuinely I'd be horrified if my husband said he loved me more than our daughter.

It should never be a competition as said, but it's more than that. As a mother you want to know that your child's father loves them unconditionally, because you do, and would hate to hear him express that he loves your child less. It's horrid.

I can't actually believe anyone is ok with that.

Booie09 · 05/05/2018 08:59

Love them both....why do people need to be in compertiton.

NewYearNewMe18 · 05/05/2018 09:00

You actually sound deeply insecure. To feel the need to come ahead of your own children.

Vey secure actually. I made my vows in front of God and community and the children are a consequence of that.

There that should give you something to get your knickers bunched up about

snewname · 05/05/2018 09:01

Love for a partner should be conditional. Love for a child unconditional.
That's how it should be, but you see so many people staying with their partner they should have left, that it's obvious they have dysfunctional thinking.
I wonder what newsyears relationship is like. I can't believe theirs is a normal relationship.

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