I am married with one child, almost 6. I am 32 and my husband is 42. He loves our daughter very much, but told me that he didn’t want any more children after her. I have been on birth control ever since and even asked him to get a vasectomy if he really didn’t want more children. He didn’t ‘get around to it’ and now I am 2 1/2 months pregnant.I am thrilled about it but my world is falling apart around me. My husband wants nothing to do with the pregnancy and has said he isn’t even sure he will be around for the new baby, although he will take care of his financial responsibilities and be there for our first child. He feels I have gone against his wishes (doesn’t it take two?) and that I should have an abortion. He says I don’t care what he feels.I don’t know what to do or think. I do not want to terminate the pregnancy, and I thought I loved this man and that he loved me, but how can someone react that way if truly in love? Do I keep on hoping he will change his mind, or do I go on with my life (and pregnancy) without him? How can you love one child that is yours and not the other one? Please help me.
What a heartbreaking situation you are in. You asked me to help you understand why a man would love one child and want to abandon the other. My first thought is this: If your husband felt like the least favorite child in his family, he would be left with a desire to fix that childhood wound. How can this be done? First, have only one child. Second: love that child madly and make sure that it feels special and favored.By favoring the only child, the unconscious mind hopes to correct what went wrong in childhood. And, when your husband identifies with your child, he can feel like the psychological twin of your child, so that when he favors the child, he feels like a favored child himself. Since you said that your husband adored your first child, I suspect that through this process of identification, he is showering with love the neglected child within. And, the child in him doesn’t want to share that position with another baby. (Another possibility: His mother had another child when he was under age two and he felt pulled from her before he was ready to give up the mother-infant bond.)The point I’m making here is that it is not the husband in him that doesn’t want another child, it is the wounded child in him which is speaking. I know you are hurt, but I think you need to step back and realize that this isn’t about you or whether he loves you enough. This is about your husband ‘s unfinished business.Would he consider going into therapy? If not, perhaps you can talk to him and help him identify his true feelings. I would speak to him in the following way. Ask him how he will feel with another kid in the house. See if you can veer the conversation to his own childhood. Ask him how it was for him as a kid. How did he feel when a new baby came along? Did he feel dumped and abandoned? Is he worried that ‘s how he’ll feel when you have your second baby? Did he feel that his parents favored one child over another? Is he afraid that this would happen all over again. I think you get the idea on how you could talk to him. I wish you luck. Please contact me again and let me know how you make out with him.
