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Blended Families
Cheerilee
member
DH and new baby
Cheerilee
member
DH and I were talking yesterday and the subject of the new baby came up. He looked at me very sadly and asked if I'd please not love him more than my SS. He told me I should love SS more since he was here first. I told him there was no reason I couldn't love them equally. I call SS just "son" when talking about him. BM isn't in the picture and he HAS been my son rather than step-son. Of course, people realize I didn't give birth so understand what I'm talking about. I then asked if he was going to love SS more. He told me yes and that kind of made me sad.
I know I've seen this raised on here before but always had the "DH would surely love them both equal." He told me it was because SS needed more love and needed to be made to feel more special since he has autism. I really hope this is a temporary feeling and LO doesn't ever feel like he's less special or loved than SS by his father. I want more for both of them.
"To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."
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Re: DH and new baby
Sounds like you guys need to keep having this conversation.
Before LO, I used to tease DH that he had a favorite and I had a favorite, and I'd tease him that SSx was "mine" and SSy was "his."
But, your DH is saying you CAN'T favor DS#2 even though he's going to favor DS#1. Which seems really unfair and kind of nuts.
The whole "favorites" and loving one kid more than the other is only really okay when it's in jest, and definitely not in front of the kids.
I can't really imagine that once your baby arrives that he will maintain this favoritism, but I think it might be worth continuing to talk about it. Maybe you can set up days for father/son time, like every Sat. afternoon is dad/DS#1 time and every Sun. afternoon is dad/DS#2 time.
I can understand where he is coming from. I think he's grieving his first son's autism all over again now that the baby is coming. It's a different form of grieving and it's hard to explain. I go through that with DS sometimes, too - the trigger can be innocent - like my niece doing something that's gifted with such effortlessness. Your H may be grieving the fact that things may always be a lot harder for his firstborn than for his new baby, so he somehow wants to make it easier on his first son, and "love him through it".
This may get painful for him also once the baby catches up to his/her brother developmentally and then surpasses him.
I honestly don't think he's going to be favoring his older boy over his new baby. The baby will probably win his love as soon as he/she is born, but right now it must be a sensitive issue for your husband. Give him time.
Wow... I hadn't even considered that. You make complete sense because he does get more 'mushy' with SS when his brother is bragging about the great things his daughters do. It's very strange getting to know autism from a parental side rather than educational side. I never had to grieve the loss of SS as a 'typical' child like he did. I came in and accepted him for who he is - and he's amazing! He independently used his print-based communication system tonight by combining unrelated words to create a sentence that applied to what he needed across the house! I will definitely be better about recognizing deeper thoughts DH may have as LO grows up around his big brother.
Thank you all for your kind words. I know he loves LO. He tells 'us' all the time, kisses my belly, cute things. I know he would never purposely make LO feel less loved. I'm just overly emotional lately. We'll definitely keep talking. We communicate pretty well most of the time
I don't know about the special needs piece, and I am sure that is part of it. But I do know that having a dc from my first marriage, and now being pregnant with a new child of my current marriage, that I worry about dc feeling special and loved enough since dc is part of the 'broken' (hate that word!) family and the new baby is part of the 'intact' family. So in my heart I think that I might favor dc, to compensate for that- I would never say that out loud though. And I don't know how I will feel once I actually give birth- I am sure I will love both the same. But in honesty this is how I am feeling right now about it.
It stinks that your dh verbalized those things to you. I think those are the kinds of thoughts that you keep to yourself - I will never say it to anyone in my real life because there is no reason, I know I will treat both the same even if I secretly continue to feel this way (this is my opinion at least).
Thank you all for your insight - and thank you auntie for popping in to weigh in! As a special educator, and later autism consultant, I never saw things from the parent perspective. I'm getting there!
I am glad that DH verbalized his thoughts to me. This has REALLY been something we've had to work on because he does keep his thoughts and feelings inside. We can't work through things if we don't talk about them and I'm incredibly proud of where we are now. Our relationship is stronger than ever.
I thought about this today and I realize that he's been "acting out" more and more since I've been pregnant. He's more attentive to SS, but not really been all there in decision making for SS. We are currently getting him home-based therapies, had his 3-year re-evaluation meeting, and have several appointments to get his diagnosis changed from young child with a developmental disability to autism (he has autism, but that's what they gave him when he was tiny - DH never had him re-evaluated). At all of these meetings, DH is the fun guy - the joker and clown. When things get tough, like talking about where SS is behind, he changes the subject. He seems to be avoiding SS's autism.
I feel sad for him - whereas before, I felt sad for myself and LO. It will be a process. I'm hoping to get some resources for support groups lined up so, if we need it, it's set up after the baby comes. I am glad I expressed my worries to you all rather than overreacting to DH. I don't think he could have handled that on his plate, right now.
You guys are amazing!