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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you love your DP or DC more?

330 replies

MamaDane · 29/01/2019 21:56

Sorry if this question offends in any way or if it's painfully obvious.

Thing is, I'm pregnant (FTM) and in a relationship with the love of my life.

And I keep wondering how it would be possible to love my kids more than my partner.

I see my partner as my soulmate and the kids with eventually move out and have their own lives, where again it will just be the two of us, growing old together.

Anyone still with their DP and love them more?

Or still with DP and love their child/-ren the most?

OP posts:
GoddamnCars · 30/01/2019 23:15

When I was still with the DC’s dad - I absolutely loved the DC more.
I love DP the same as my DC. I loved him years ago - before they existed - and it makes me happy that I love them all the same. Unconditional. DP really worried about meeting my DC and said he was so relieved that they were so clearly an extended part of me and he just sort of ‘umbrella’d’ his love for me over them too. They all think he’s brilliant too. I’m very lucky.

Mother87 · 30/01/2019 23:16

DC - unquestionably...

Jorgezaunders · 30/01/2019 23:19

Both my DH and I love each other very much but we love our child together. Having a child adds a dimension to our love for each other. We would both expect each other to choose our DC over the other, and would love each other less if we loved DC less.
Not very coherent but you get the picture!

Lindtnotlint · 30/01/2019 23:34

Agree you can’t compare. I would save DC first in a “fire” type situation of course, but not because I “love them more”. I love them so so much. But I love DH so much it hurts. I could watch any of them sleep. If any of them died I would struggle to live but would carry on for the sake of the others.

I don’t think there (for me) is a question of which is “more”. I love them all, utterly and truly (though differently). I feel so lucky to have them all.

timeforteaplease1 · 30/01/2019 23:35

DC

Nothing else comes close

callmeadoctor · 30/01/2019 23:38

Ha ha OP, come back on here and answer this question after birth!!!!!

callmeadoctor · 30/01/2019 23:40

Cory, what do you mean " i won't do anything to make them smile?"

Babysgotyoureyes · 30/01/2019 23:45

I don't even have to think about this one. My DC every time. After 22 years together I am just about able to tolerate DH but would lay down my life for any one of my 3 beautiful children.

Deadbudgie · 31/01/2019 00:08

DS for sure. I’m sure DH would say the same. Nothing would ever stop me loving DS. He’s a part of me, a part of me that will carry into the future.

MyDearSweetSummerChild · 31/01/2019 00:15

I haven’t read the whole thread but just wanted to say this reminded me of Ryan Reynolds. He once said he couldn’t imagine loving anyone more than his wife but when his daughter was born he realised that he would use his wife as a human shield to protect this child.

both DH and I agreed fully with it.

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 31/01/2019 00:16

DC for sure, but I do understand those who say they love their partners just as much. It’s a different kind of love. Also, love isn’t finite. It expands to fit in your babies Smile

If I’m honest, DH has fucking pissed me off today so not sure I’d miss him much at all at the moment...

TheBlessedCheesemaker · 31/01/2019 05:07

Felt numb when DC were first born (felt I’d made terrible mistakes to be honest), and that PND lasted a long time every time. It was comments like the ones on this thread that made me feel a monster at the time. I couldn’t gaze in wonder at my baby - hell I’d rather have hidden under the duvet most of the time. And then I had to ‘fake it’ whenever others were around. NCT meet-ups were up there with Dante’s circles of hell.
Years on, I have exactly the same depth of feeling that everyone else is describing. Exactly the same.
PND is a horrific chemical imbalance. When it eventually fades away that is when the all-consuming love creeps in, washes in, floods you.

MaggieAndHopey · 31/01/2019 05:17

You're 'supposed' to say you love your kids more in answer to these kinds of questions, but I've always found them simplistic and infantile, as if your feelings for the people you love are exactly the same in quality, and it's just a question of degree.

There's definitely a deep biological need to protect and care for my children, because they're my children, and quite apart from that they delight and surprise me every day, and drive me nuts every other day...but I don't feel 'more' for them than I do for the man I've spent most of my life with.

formerbabe · 31/01/2019 08:00

The thing is there's lots of happy marriages where they may describe each other as soulmates and stay together for decades then one day, out of the blue, the wife finds out hes been shagging one of his colleagues in accounts for decades and the whole thing unravels. You'd feel like quite a fool if you'd loved him more than your gorgeous children. And apres le divorce, you could quite easily meet another man and be happy.

Point is, men are ten a penny.

Claudia1980 · 31/01/2019 08:21

DCs for sure.

Boxerbinky · 31/01/2019 08:32

I don't think I'm 'supposed' to say I love my dc more, I just do. It's different than the love I feel for my dh, though that bond has also grown stronger since we had our ds.

Tbh when I was pregnant I really didn't know what to expect or if the bond would automatically kick in. I'd spent most of my life really not thinking I'd ever want kids at all.

I am of course really lucky that the bond did kick in and that I didn't suffer pnd, I appreciate that if I had it may have altered my view of this question - but it doesn't make my answer any less valuable because I didn't.

Ifangyow · 31/01/2019 08:55

But you could say the same for women @FormerBabe.

Schmoobarb · 31/01/2019 08:58

I always find this notion of “unconditional love” interesting. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you can really say for sure until it’s tested which for most of us luckily it won’t ever be. But what if your child turns out to be someone who raped and murdered a child? Became a drug addict and repeatedly attacked and stole from you? I suppose it’s easy to dismiss people who do this as coming from shit homes with rubbish parents but they don’t all.

Ifangyow · 31/01/2019 09:07

That's exactly it Schmoobarb.

formerbabe · 31/01/2019 09:08

@Ifangyow

But you could say the same for women

I would. It can work both ways. I just gave that hypothetical example because it's mainly mothers on this thread discussing they love their husbands more than their children.

Lana1234 · 31/01/2019 09:09

DC, didn’t even need to think about it Blush

KonekoBasu · 31/01/2019 10:39

"Once that baby is in your arms you’ll wonder how you could ever have questioned the depth of the love you feel for your child."

Not everyone's experience. After a difficult pregnancy and traumatic birth I felt nothing at all for a bit.

Got past that though, and the love for DS is different to the love for DH. I agree with a pp who said their love for their DH is conditional, while for their DC it's unconditional. I'd sacrifice a lot more for DS, and thinking about I already have made a, for me, pretty major one, something I'd never have thought I'd have done before I had him, but I did it because it's of huge benefit to him.

I wouldn't have done it for DH, and to be fair to him he'd never have asked me to.

KonekoBasu · 31/01/2019 10:43

"But what if your child turns out to be someone who raped and murdered a child? Became a drug addict and repeatedly attacked and stole from you?"

Even if I despised his actions as an adult, I don't think I'd ever not love the child he is now, so I think there would still be love there, though it would be painful and difficult.

I still love my emotionally abusive family member, though that is also painful and difficult. I can't just switch it off however much I also dislike them.

Luxembourgmama · 31/01/2019 10:44

It's different love but I think I love my daughter and husband equally.

MaggieAndHopey · 31/01/2019 10:56

You're acting like there's a right and a wrong answer to this, @formerbabe. People feel how they feel. No point interrogating it. I posted to say that I don't accept the terms of the question. That's just the way I feel about it. I can't compare my love for my husband to my love for my kids and, for me, it feels like an artificial exercise even to try. You do you though, clearly.