Hello dads,
I’ll be a dad myself shortly, and it’s entirely planned, we discussed the idea and then worked towards making it happen. My wife is over the moon and loving the whole process and I’m struggling to see it as a positive change. All I’m seeing is more bills and tasks.
I want to be excited and enthusiastic during the pregnancy (and of course afterwards) but I’m struggling to see this as a positive change for our next - at least - 5 years.
It’s causing some stress between my wife and I, when really I’d much prefer we were bonding now in preparation for the stress our relationship is going to need to endure after the baby arrives.
I guess this is partly just venting, I feel like anyone I know that I might say this to, would think I’m a bad person considering it was entirely planned and now I’m not feeling it after its too late to undo, but if anyone has some ideas on how I can focus more on the positives (I do see them… watching their personality growing, seeing the world from their fresh perspective, a sense of investment in the future, etc. I just struggle to focus on them) of this and less on the incoming bills and sleepless night and relationship stress, so my wife and I can bond, it’d mean a lot to me.
I’m also concerned that I’m seeing the baby as a problem instead of a… Source of joy? and that this might mean I don’t really have a natural parental instinct, so I won’t love it like I should, but instead see it as a series of chores and costs and problems.
They say a woman becomes a mother when she first feels the baby stirring in the womb, but a man only becomes a father once he sees the baby for the first time.
I’m not a bio parent myself, but if that stereotype is true I think you should expect some emotional discordance during this phase.
I think you aren’t wrong to be worried, but I think if you focused your mind and energy on nesting and getting excited with your wife, it would help bridge the gap.
I’m 100% sure biology will win out and you will be changed forever when the baby does come
I’m 100% sure biology will win out and you will be changed forever when the baby does come
Except that isn’t always the case.
Which isn’t to discourage OP or anyone else, but to be realistic.
Postpartum depression is real, as are many other mental health and other issues that can impact how and even if a parent can bond with their biological child.
Far too many parents never do (or do to some extent, but resent their child for “ruining their life”).
Ignoring or minimising these very real and very serious problems only serves to make those who struggle with them feel worse, and less able to reach out for help (because if biology should “100% win out” but it doesn’t for them, then they feel like they must be “broken”, rather than biology simply not being 100% certain of anything) which in turn often leads to neglectful and/or abusive relationships with their kids (and others).
It sounds like OP, like most people tbf, especially those facing major life changes, could benefit from therapy to help prepare for and maintain not only the parent-child relationship, but their relationship with their partner, too.
Babies are a great source of stress and responsibility, it’s natural to feel some pressure. You’re not a bad person for doing what dads are prone to doing: looking for a problem so you can solve it.
However, you need to set all that aside. Your job right now is to chill out and be supportive. What will be will be, the challenges ahead won’t be easier to tackle by stressing your wife out and straining your relationship. The practical response to what you’re feeling is to let it go and just be along for the ride for a while.
All that aside, having a baby may come with extra challenges but it also comes with tremendous benefits. Dads lose out on all the good pregnancy hormones and emotions and it’s hard to see the baby as real until it’s in your hands; but the moment that happens your life changes for the better in so many ways.
It is impossible to describe the moment when you hold your first child for the first time but it is a life changing experience.
Your feeling is completely rational. Your life will be more difficult for the next 4 years. And after that it will still be difficult but you’ll just kind of be better equipped to manage it.
When your kid is born, you will get a nice hit of oxytocin for a few weeks. It will help a bit but don’t expect to fall instantly in love with a newborn who doesn’t smile at you and sucks all the energy out of your wife. For me I really fell in love with my kid around 9 months, making her giggle.
Find an outlet. For me it was to run a mile and then knock one out in the shower. In total the run and shower took only 20-25 minutes. Useful for later term pregnancy and also the first 6 months with a newborn. Anyway you need a way to reset yourself into a positive state.
There’s a lot of great advice here, and I was definitely in your boat, faking it for my wife’s sake quite a bit.
This is an important takeaway: what you are feeling right now is not unusual.
But seeing my daughter, holding her for the first time, watching her grow, learn, develop a personality… her first “dada”, mush mouthed “love you”, her big grin every morning when she sees me, when she hops off mama’s lap and crawls over to me babbling “dadadada” then a few minutes later crawls back to mama and then tries to get us to sit in a way where she can be touching both of us… there are so many moments nearly every day that make it all worth it.
I think your main issue is how you’re framing this in your mind (or at least how you’ve framed it here) and how I assume you’ve framed this with your wife.
This isn’t about whether or not you made the “right” choice. It’s far too late for that now anyway, and framing it that way carries a shit ton of subtext for your wife that you probably aren’t cognizant of.
Do you not want a kid? Do you not want to be a father? Do you not want to be doing this with her? Do you just want to not have responsibilities? Do you feel like you were pressured into this? Is this some resentment towards her? Will you resent the kid?
These are only some of the really fucking negative ideas that could be put into her head when you say you aren’t sure you made the right choice.
Or is this what’s going on (the far more likely situation with most future fathers): You’re scared as shit about everything coming towards you, you’re scared about the amount of work this will be, concerned about how this will effect your relationship with your wife, worried about how your life will change in ways you can’t even imagine from this side, lamenting the loss of free time and freedom you see coming, worried you might not be ready to handle this or raise a kid properly…
Fears, being scared, worrying? Those are things you might be able to bond over. I’d be surprised if your wife wasn’t scared of a lot of these things too. My wife and I were scared.
But what seems like just a subtle semantic difference between “Oh shit what have we signed up for” and “I’m not sure this was the right choice for us” has a massive gulf in terms of emotional meaning and undertones.
I highly reccomend you try to take some time to try and figure out what you’re really feeling here. Maybe you are resentful of the situation. I hope you aren’t. Like I said earlier, most future fathers go through some terror of “what the shit am I in for what did I agree to?”
If you’ll excuse a bit more ramble, what you’re feeling now might come back from time to time after your kid is born. Particularly when things feel tough, it’s not unusual to feel the weight of all the work you’ve stepped up to do. I still do from time to time, a year and some months in.
But this is what you signed up for. Just like marriage is for better or worse, and relationships can be hard fucking work, so can children. You’ve made the choice with the idea or gamble that what you get out of it will make the toughness and hard times worth it. The overwhelming amount of the time, it absolutely will be.
You’ve made the choice to do this, it’s too late to turn back. So are you going to trudge through it like a member of a chain gang, or are you going to cherish every little thing there is to cherish and be there for your wife who is giving up just as much or more than you will be?
I’m also concerned that I’m seeing the baby as a problem instead of a… Source of joy?
Since your kid isn’t born yet, there’s not really much joy you can get from them. Even when they’re very very young they don’t give you any smiles or do anything funny. The “joy” comes later, and boy it’s worth it, at least for me.
