Just curious, who do you love more: your DC or DP?

[KP86]

I was on a long haul flight with DS18m a couple of days ago (DH wasn't with us), and found myself thinking a bit about mortality and my family.

As much as I love my DH - we are happy together and have a good life - I love my DS sooo much more!

It's probably just mother's instinct, but I could spend all day snuggled up to DS and it probably still wouldn't be enough (when he is being well behaved and loveable - other times I might well run away, haha), yet I just don't feel that way about DH.

Due to family circumstances (work, us relocating overseas), DH has been apart from us for about three months total since DS was born, and another month for this trip. I think that adds to the bond that DS and I have, as during those times it really is me and him against the world (not in a bad way), plus I'm home with him full time at the moment.

Do other mums feel this way? If I ever had to make the choice between them, it would be an easy one.

Now, I'm not saying for an instant that I want to leave DH, or wish our relationship was different/needs improvement. Just asking whether the dynamic changed for you when your DC came into the picture. Please don't post with any LTB comments or that we need help etc. Not the case. We have a perfectly good marriage.

A really stupid thread! I will have to stop reading it.
Of course I would die for my children, of course my love is all consuming and unconditional. I just think it ridiculous to have to say so- and would be very irritating to them and DIL.
Someone said they told their DH they had to save the children rather than them- I can't imagine being married to a man where you would have to have the discussion- of course they would!
My love is also unselfish and I am sure that survival instinct would kick in and I would do my utmost to save my child if I wasn't going to live.
His father loves him just as much- although I have been expecting someone to say that a mother's love has to surpass a father's love because they carried them for 9 months. Anyone can give birth- it takes much more to be a mother. An adoptive mother's love is equally as great.

We haven't had one single person saying they love their partner more which shows the stupidity of the thread!
It is entirely different.

I think the idea mooted way up thread that anyone would save the fragile, weak, small people (children) before adults was roundly disputed on the infamous dog in a fire thread. There were many, many people arguing they would save their dog before other people's children.

But on this thread everyone has said that they put their children first- even the ones who say you can't compare when it is completely different.

Hopefully, in view of this, people will be more understanding of their MIL because she loves your DH more than you do. (Not that I can see any point in her pointing this out in the interests of harmony!)

I think anyone with an opposing position won't post on the thread for fear of mobbing.

I chose my husband. He chose me. Every day we continue to reaffirm the fact that we choose to love each other. We both have the choice not to love each other, we both choose not to.

There is no choice in unconditional love. Loving a child is unconditional, there is no conscious choice to love my children.

I am certain my husband loves me more than he loves his mum. I love my husband more than I love my wonderful mum.

I would feel sad if my mum loved me and my brothers more than she loved my Dad. I don't think she did, she loved Dad most. But will always unconditionally love me (and my brothers) even now as adults just as she did when we were children.

So I shall stick my head over the MN parrapit and say that by choosing my husband I love him most.

Considering who to save in an emergency depends on who is strongest and who is weakest. Depends on age, physical disabilities, health and strength.

My answer to the 'who would you save' question is not static and will change with time. But my answer to who do I love most is not time or age dependant. It is my husband. This does not negate the unconditional love I have for my children (and my mum has for me).

DC of course. There is nothing certain with romantic relationships. People trade their partners in for new ones all the time in a sense. Cheating, violence, etc. we get rid.

With DC it's different. They can do lots of terrible things and somehow we forgive them and continue to love them.

The love part is deep. It is how you deal with it that actually matters.
I have said continually that you can't compare. For those people who insist upon a league table, then my children were always my first consideration- but it isn't so clear cut when they have left home, are fully functioning in the world and have children of their own.
You have to love them enough to be unselfish, to not wish them to die with you, to have the freedom to emigrate to Australia if they wish, to not feel responsible for you. You do actually have to remember that you had children because of your love for your partner and work at the relationship and give him time because your child rearing years are short and even if you had your children late (spread out in my case from 30-40yrs) it can give 30 yrs or so with just the two of you. If you had your children in your 20s you could have even longer.

But see that's just your perspective mehitabel...

I didn't have any of my children because of my love for their dads. I had two because of abuse and two because their dad wanted a DC, I didn't want to have my DC spread out and we were married, I happened to have twins.

For me there is no - you have to spend 30 years with a partner. You don't have to spend any time with a partner at all in my book because the relationship is conditional on, amongst other things, wanting to be together.

I do love my DC more. No-one is saying that is a superior way to be, just that is how they feel. You feel differently, people do, we don't all have to feel the same as you.

No-one is saying they love their DC more than the DC dad's do but you keep banging on as if they have said that.

The point of the OP in starting this thread was to gauge whether it is normal, and therefore ok, for her to feel she loves her DC more than her partner.

From this thread I think she can see it is. That doesn't invalidate your feelings because they are based on your life and are yours.

Can't choose and wouldn't .It's different but equal.

And the reason I'd be supportive of a DC moving abroad is because I love them more. I wouldn't continue a relationship if a partner moved abroad because my love for a partner is less. And yes of course your partner's mum loves them more than you do if they have a healthy relationship. The crucial thing is that the DC usually loves their partner more than their parents - they have an attachment bond rather than love.

Love isn't overbearing or interfering or overprotective, you can't imply that loving DC more means any of the above behaviours.

I think it is an entirely different perspective. I can't see why anyone needs to ask the question!
It is normal. It is normal to love lots of different people in lots of different ways. There is no need to compare.

However reading MN is always a revelation. On another thread someone is saying, quite seriously, that you can't love other people's children. Anyone can give birth - it is what happens afterwards that matters.
On another thread people think that a man should start a new relationship with a clean slate- while they grudgingly think he should have limited contact with his biological child he should just wave goodbye to a much loved step child because he 'has no legal or moral responsibility'! No mention of what this does to the poor child.
Obviously - according to some - you can't love a child that isn't your own. Men should be able to flit off and start again because they didn't carry the child and give birth!