Feeling very possessive regarding they are MINE/OURS

[TJSparks]

Has anyone else struggled with this? Me and my partner are currently trying for a baby. I don't know if I'm just feeling annoyed at the moment, I don't know. It might be them. Whenever we talk about the baby and the future, even if I just say something innocent like "I'm not sending my kid to that school". My partner always comes back with "ours, our kid". Yes I know, we are both the parents, but they are physically mine. I am going to carry them and birth them and be their mother. I should have the right to use the word MINE/MY in a sentence. I'm not saying it maliciously, it's just a sentence. When I say, "I cleaned my settee yesterday", I'm not maliciously excluding them. If it's ours, then it's mine, and when they say a sentence they can say mine too. I never really thought about it before, until they started correcting me every time I said something. Do I have the problem, or is it them? Or is it just a complete miscommunication?

"She just corrects me EVERY TIME I say MY..."

Don't say MY then. You sound a bit blasé about this and like you're not really putting your partner's feelings first. It's clearly hurting her and making her feel insecure so maybe just make an effort to say 'our baby'...

Well, now that you know that your use of "mine" hurts and upsets your partner, I'm sure you'll make an effort to stop doing it, no? Otherwise it will seem rather like you care more about being right than about her feelings.

If its just you and her in a conversation it is a bit weird to refer to MY baby, as its obbious which baby you are talking about.
You could say 'our baby' its not difficult and is probably a sore point for her as she doesn't have the genetic link.

But also you could just say 'the baby',

E.g. I wouldn't send our baby to that school, I want to dress the baby in purple, the baby better like all this curry I'm eating.

Its not wrong to have said 'my baby' but as she corrects you and would prefer you didnt its pretty rude and inconsiderate to keep doing it

I understand why you do it and why you think it's not a wrong thing to say. But now that you know she doesn't like it, why wouldn't you take her feelings into account? It wouldn't mean you were wrong, it would be showing consideration for someone you love.

Me to a friend ' I'd love my baby to have brown hair' = fine

Me to partner/baby's other parent ' I'd love my baby to have brown hair' = strange phrasing, does sound possessive

Should be ' I'd love our/the baby to have brown hair'

YABU. My partner would find it weird if I referred to the kids as “my kids” in front of him, and the sofa for that matter. Your partner has told you it hurts her feelings, so why not stop doing it? The way you are digging your heals in and explaining why you’re right is a slightly concerning.

Me and my partner are currently trying for a baby

Please don't.

'Though I can see how the example the op gave might be appropriate.

"No way is my child going to that school" is about her feelings about the school. But yes, I hope my child has brown hair is weird.

That said, I regularly refer to my dc as "your dc" to dh when they are misbehaving and "my dc" when they do something amazing. It is in jest though.

I think you need to consider her feelings, a language issue or not, if you don’t stop you may not be in that relationship much longer. It’s not difficult to change, just think before you speak!
most people swear a lot before they have kids, then the patter of little feet arrive and magically the swearing stops!

Thanks for all the reply's. I was sure it was a miscommunication of some sort. I agree I should use our (which I do). But the general use of the word "my" in some situations was upsetting her.
I've spoke to her about it today, a long conversation. Turns out she has internalised homophobia. So she is really struggling with us having a baby, the fact we are two women, that we are not doing the hetro normative things regarding names etc. Her family are very homophobic too, she is dreading their reactions to basically all of the decisions we've made. So she said she is terrified and feeling very insecure. Which has led to her over compensating and making small things, bigger issues than they needed to be. And when she over compensated it made me feel defensive, like I was doing something wrong. Which led to the misunderstanding.
As stated I never said anything maliciously. We were just reacting to each others reactions.

TBH, your last post is ringing alarm bells for me.

I can't imagine a situation where the non-bio mum points out she's hurt by a casual use of 'my' rather than 'our' and the birth mum does anything but think 'shit, that's hurt her, I better stop doing it'. Why wouldn't you?

You are, in effect, replying to tell us 'oh, it's all her fault, she made it a bigger deal than it needed to be, it's not me at all'.

Actually, it is you.

She may well be struggling with internalised homophobia, but if you're going to have a baby together, you need to realise that it is really common for same-sex parents to have concerns around language, and around feeling one parent is left out. It's also really common that both partners have to think carefully about how their language might need modifying.

You seem to be very much of the view that you're in the right, and she's in the wrong.

I sometimes use 'my' but I tend to use it in terms of lighthearted topics rather than topics that probably deserve both parents input. For example I'd say 'I'm not having my child support football club X'
But I'd never say 'I'm not having MY child go to church'
It can feel exclusionary if you use MY for big topics

Incidentally, just ran this past my DP, who is the bio mum, and her first response was 'oh god, that would drive me nuts, it's like when you say "my garden" rather than "our garden" (which, I will admit, is something I do and I make a huge effort not to do it).

She agrees it's you who has the problem here, not your DP. FWIW, my DP was an arse in many ways when our DD was little, and we did it all wrong, and we have had counselling and all ... so please don't think this is me or us being smug. We're not. It's really hard having a baby in a same-sex relationship, and things will keep coming up that jolt you a little bit.

I think what you need to make sure of is that you keep communicating in the way you obviously have now. If there's an issue then really talk about it so you understand where each other is coming from. I don't think you can go too far wrong then.

I’m glad that you’ve worked out that it’s all her fault, that must be a weight off your mind; you definitely weren’t being unreasonable, it was just that your lesbian partner is actually a homophobe.

As you’ve said, you are the one who’ll be giving birth to the child, and she needs to understand that even if she wasn’t a homophobe that she needs to know her place.

What will you do about her homophobia if your child is gay? I can’t imagine you’ll be happy exposing them to that sort of thing.