It’s really impossible to compare, as I realize more and more with the kids home on winter break. I want them to grow up, move out and go on their own. I suspect their future is not here in their hometown, and I’m ready for them to go off and find it.
On the other hand, if my wife decided her future was away from me, I’d be crushed.
Unequivocably, I love my children more than my spouse or any other living creature. They came from my own body. Not only would I be pissed if my husband took issue with this, I would be pissed if he ever said that I – or anyone else – came before his own child.
I do not understand anyone ever feeling more love towards another person than towards their own child. Don’t get me wrong, I know those people exist, I just do not understand them.
Not taking issue with your position. I have never really considered this question before, believe it or not. I am just so interested in the topic now, that I have to ask this.
While I certainly understand not being able to love anyone more that your own child (I feel the same way), would you truly be pissed if your husband felt he ‘loved’ you more?
Let’s say you had a baby, were still unconcious in the hospital, and the doctor said to your husband, “There is some crazy ass defect/problem going on, and in order to save your wife, we have to stop the heart of your newborn…” or something impossibly crazy like that…
Would you blame your husband if he said, “Do what you have to do to save my wife.”?
I love my daughter more, in some objective ways. I would sacrifice far more for her than I would my spouse. My love for my daughter is totally unconditional; that is not true of my wife, who I hold to some basic standards as a condition of my love (and vice-versa.) My wife could, if she started acting in a way very atypical of her, make me stop loving her. My daughter could not. I am 100% certain my wife will tell you the same thing. If she chose my life over my child’s, I would never forgive her for that. But she’s never, ever make that decision.
Of course, in some ways I am closer to my wife. We are friends to an extent I will never be with my daughter; we’ll spend more time with each other in the end. My daughter will fly away, but by bit, first through her friends, and then away to school, her first lovers, interests that take her further and further from us, and start a new life, with a husband and babies of her own, and they will replace us at the top of her priority list, which is all as it should be. But all that time I will love her with a force that cannot be expressed in any words I have available to me.
I don’t see this as an either/or, as it stands in my family today. My family is a cohesive whole; my love for my wife and my child is made greater by my loving them both, and by their love for each other.
Loving your spouse more than your child, however, sounds weird to me.
left hand right hand, just because you favour one doesn’t mean you can live without the other.
My kids. But then, I’m divorced. 
I don’t have kids, and this sort of thing is what makes me really nervous about ever having kids…because if the person I waited so long to find, who I love with all my heart, who I chose out of the whole world, decided to love some kid she pushed out of her body more than me just for being born, even though I’d done nothing to deserve being loved less, I would have to kill someone, probably myself.
You chose your spouse. You (usually) didn’t choose your kids. How could you love them more?
>But won’t that be a problem when they grow up? Don’t you love your wife more than you love your parents, and don’t you want your kids to have that kind of closeness with their own spouse?
Sorry, but I think there is relevant Ugly News on this front. It will be a problem for YOU. If you do it properly, it will tear part of your heart out, and you will never be the same again, and part of you will never be right again. It is a kind of sacrifice we make for the generation that follows us. It won’t damage THEM this way.
Which is not to say you will never be OK again. It is more like this is how you are supposed to spend your life, and why you won’t last forever. Think of it as a big gift, one they will also pass along in another 20 or so.
If avoiding pain is your overwhelming priority, you certainly shouldn’t have kids - and there’s a bunch of other things you’ll want to steer clear of, too…
It’s a fair question, but you just do. It doesn’t diminish the love you have for you spouse- I still love him as much as before, but (at least for me) love my kids in such a different and intense way. It’s not about less love for my spouse. Let’s put it this way- when I was preg with my second child I was really worried I wouldn’t love her as much as my son- how could I? However, the moment she came out and I saw her I fell completely in love with her. All those fears went away instantly. I think there is such a strong biological imperative to love your babies (although for some women it doesn’t always happen instantly and that’s ok) that other relationships just feel different.
The reality is that the father falls in love with those kids too and understands the feeling! Again, the father shouldn’t be insecure, the love of a child (especially a new baby) is filled with an incredible urgency and intensity. Overtime, the intensity of feeling mellows and the adult relationship comes back into balance. But when it comes to objective measures, at least while they’re small, I will sacrifice for them and forgive them in ways I wouldn’t for my spouse.
I, too, never understood the attitude of husbands who get jealous of the new baby.
Napier – and then, if you’re lucky, your child has children. Don’tcha think? It’s brought my Mother and I into a whole new relationship, plus she has two new little 'uns to enjoy.
(your post really hit it, I thought, but of course also made me sad)
And there is Uglier News hee, too–it doesn’t happen that way for a lot of kids. I teach high school juniors and seniors, and there are two ways to approach your kid graduating: "I’m so pround or him and SO READY for him to go off to school"and “Oh my god, I don’t know what I am going to do without him home everday, he’s my whole life”. I see both, every year. The parents that don’t love each other or anything else in the world like they love their kid often don’t, IME, manage to hide it, and it either overwhelms the child with guilt (they love me SO MUCH and and I’, their whole world, how can I leave?) or self-centered assholes who believe it’s ok and natural for other people to worship them and not get anything in return. On the otherhand, the parents that are happy to see their kids gradute and move on raise, IME, more emotionally healthy kids.
Again, there may be a sharper emotional imperative to sacrifice to keep your kids safe above and beyond all else. But if your 22 year old son is moving across the country and you’d rather move with him than stay where you are with your spouse–even if you don’t act on it for his own good–I think that’s fucked up.
The theory here is simple enough. Your kids have half your DNA. You’ll do anything for them. Your spouse? Who’s that? That’s just some stranger.
Yeah, “you just do”. Horrible answer, I know. Let me try again.
Because you make them. Not their DNA, not their cells and their snot, but who they are and what they think about the world.
My theory is that love flows from understanding another person. We fall in love by getting to know people, right? We discuss our childhoods and our presents. We talk about our feelings, our ideas, our experiences and our whims. Eventually, we get to know them so well that we start to bring that sum total into our hearts. There’s always a gap, of course. We may know what our spouse is going to say 90% of the time, based on how well we know them, but there’s always something new or something surprising. Still, all in all, when we love someone, we feel like we know them pretty darn well. (This, I believe, is why infidelity and betrayal hurt so much - when the person in reality acts so out of character, so disparately from the person in our hearts, it’s bewildering and it sets us into a spin, sometimes literally.)
Well, when they’re little, there’s no one on earth you know better than your kids. You’re always there, you’re always with them, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, answering their questions. If they’re in daycare, you get detailed reports about what they did all day, and you (hopefully) get to know the people taking care of them. This means you know all their “input”, or as much as humanly possible. You understand them better than any other creature on earth. So when they do stupid shit, you know why (or you think you do). When they say bizarre things, you know where it came from. And with that intense level of familiarity comes love. Stuff that would make you furious or disgusted if another person did it is adorable or at least tolerated when it’s your kid, because you know them so well.
The first time your kid comes home from kindergarten and says, “Mama, Miss Smith says…” and whatever it is contradicts you, and the kid sides with the sainted Miss Smith, it’s heartbreaking. You suddenly realize that you are not the only, or even the primary, input in their lives anymore. Right there, I think, it where the heartache of independence begins.
Agreed. The chilling part is when the spouse in question is a brand new step-parent and the child in question is say 10 years old. An infinite amount of hurt can come from that recipe if the child always has to take an emotional back seat to whoever their parent claims to be in love with at the time. That is just plain wrong, irresponsible, and naive at best.
But the other way isn’t healthy either, if the spouse always has to take an emotional backseat to the child, as well. It’s not good for the marriage and it’s not good for the kid.
I love my husband and my child in equal measures. But the love I feel for them is completely different. The love for my husband is more cerebral. I chose him, he is the person I want to spend my last day on earth with. He is my friend, confidant, partner, support.
The love I feel for my daughter is primarily instinctual. She might turn out to be somebody that I would not be friends with otherwise (different tastes and opinions), but I would still love her.
If my husband had to choose between saving my life or my daughter’s I would expect, even demand that he saves her. I know he would do the same. And I love him even more because we share this love for my daughter. It makes him a bigger person in my eyes.
If I had to choose between saving my husband’s life and my mother’s I’ll be heartbroken, but I’ll save him. And I am sure my mom knows that and agrees with this. It’s the nature of love.
Well, first of all, in my case it wouldn’t be anything biological. We’re both girls. She’s always wanted a lot of kids and I…never really wanted any, or more than one anyway.
It’s going to be hard to tell her she can’t have kids, but I hope she’ll be okay with it, since it’s not okay to me to have someone who not only takes up a lot of my time that I need to spend on more important things like my writing, but also steals my girlfriend’s love from me. Forget that, blech.
That sounds to me like a deal-breaker. People who really want a lot of kids don’t deal well with being told they “can’t.” People divorce over that, and don’t be surprised if your GF decides to go look for someone who is more compatible, or if she insists and you decide to go.
I still vote for “equal but different.” I don’t love my husband less than my kids. It’s two very different things, but they complement and enhance each other. My husband is my companion, forever (barring major and disastrous personality changes). My kids I love like a mama bear, but one day they’ll grow up and go, as they should. I hope they’ll be good friends too, when they’re grown, but that’s a bonus.
Actually, yes. It’s just how I am – you see, I had parents who loved their spouse more than their children. Well, in my mother’s case, it wasn’t her spouse that she loved more, it was herself. Maybe that’s my problem, maybe I overcompensate, but in the end, yes. I would be very angry with my husband if he chose my life over that of our child. The thing is, I think that my husband may think that he does love me more than he does our children, but he knows how I feel about it, so it remains unspoken.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a martyr, I don’t do everything for my children and nothing for myself or my husband. It’s just that if it came down to the wire, his happiness or their health and well-being, he’d lose every. single. time. I do love my husband, but as my brother once pointed out when his wife threw a fit over him getting his daughter’s name and not hers tattooed on his body – “she will always be my daughter, you might not always be my wife.” I can’t explain it, but it basically boils down to being something more visceral than just love with my kids – I would die for them, but if it came to my husband or my life – well, I would miss him, ya know?
I think she’s mature enough to negotiate. We are compatible and it’s just one little thing. I’ve already talked her out of the huge family she wanted, down to just one or two. The one or two thing is a practical consideration anyway…I refuse to let my girlfriend live in poverty, because I love her too much, and lots of kids equals poverty, even if I wanted them too.