So. I basically....don't like my 3.5 year old son at all, while I love my daughters (6 & 8). I know I'm a horrible person for feeling this way, and I hate that I feel this way, and that is why I am asking for help, so please don't remind me how terrible I am. I know. Trust me.It all starts with the fact that my daughters were very much planned and wanted pregnancies. My son was not.I didn't realise I was pregnant until 16 weeks when I first felt the baby move. I have always had very irregular periods throughout my life and was on a form of birth control that made them vanish, so I didn't get any sign it had failed, and when I had what might have been a week of morning sickness, my daughters had vomiting-gastro the week before and I just assumed it was that. I didn't 'pop' until 19 weeks - I barely showed before that thanks to the jelly-belly hat didn't go away after my 2 other pregnancies and the fact my tummy has always been my problem area.I sobbed my eyes out when I realised I was pregnant because I didn't want to be pregnant again (hence the birth control) and it was too late for an abortion anywhere in my country. I probably would have had one tbh, both my husband and I were pretty adamant we didn't want more babies. I hated the baby/toddler stage with my daughters and with them being 3 and 4.5 at the time, it was like having a prison sentence extended right before freedom. I was just starting to really enjoy them and here I was, stuck with another baby again. I feel terrible saying this, but I found myself willing this pregnancy to have a serious problem, because that's the exception for an abortion. But it was healthy. I had to fake happiness getting the 'congratulations' result. I felt 'cornered' into having the baby because I felt we couldn't really have 2 babies and then 'give one away', and I didn't know how to explain it to my kids who were old enough to understand I was pregnant.My son was born. I was made redundant when I was 36 weeks and have struggle to restart my career since - and it was all but confirmed to me by a friend working in HR that the fact I was out pregnant was a huge reason why I was chosen to be one of the redundancy victims. It was technically illegal, but they found some loophole to me on the chopping board. My career probably would have been thriving if not for his birth - a friend whose two kids are the same age as my daughters and was working in the exact same job as me has a thriving career, while I am now working somewhere crap in a crappy role that I hate.My son was one of those babies. My daughters had their moments, but they were basically limited to when they were sick. We were spoiled because they were very good sleepers and dream babies that slept through the night early, didn't cry much, and didn't really have meltdowns. I always looked forward to getting out of the baby/toddler stage, mostly because I was looking forward to never changing a diaper again.My son? It was over a year (15mo to be exact) before he slept though he night. He was a refluxy/colicy nightmare that just screamed and screamed and screamed. I can honestly say it nearly broke my husband and I'd marriage apart - at one point, we didn't sleep in the same bed with one another for months because we had to take shifts sleeping at a friend or siblings home with the girls because he screamed that badly they couldn't sleep. We tried numerous doctors, and nothing helped, we just had to wait for him to grow out of it. We poured lots of money into a night nurse to just try and have some time in the same bad, but sex was non existent for months and he was so difficult a lot of night nurses basically didn't want to work for us after a couple of shifts.I don't want to be insensitive to anyone who has suffered a loss in this way, but I have to be honest, my husband and I both had a period where if he had of died in his sleep, we would have felt relief. At one point, I googled if we could still put him in the 'baby hatches' our country has. He was too old. I sobbed.I feel like my ability to bond with him was shot to hell by the fact he was just such a difficult baby. I honestly hated him for the first 18 months of his life.He then became a difficult toddler that was immune to discipline and would constantly have screaming meltdowns and was just poorly behaved in general, no matter how had we tried. My girls were never like that.Now he is 3.5 and even though he has now outgrown all that and is pretty chill, I still just......don't like him. I am struggling to bond with him or even like him because I'm having trouble separating him from the memories of my marriage almost falling apart and my career being absolutely destroyed by having him and just the feelings that he was 'forced' onto me by a birth control failure. My husband isn't struggling to the same extent as I am, but has confessed he wishes our son 'didn't happen' because things were 'better' before. Things have also been a lot more financially strained, and there he fact that we now have 3 kids to provide for and not 2. Thankfully, we managed to save our marriage, but we both agree that we'd undo our son in a heartbeat if we could.I feel like I love and care for my daughters because I genuinely love them, and I look after my son because it is my obligation to do so. I always wanted them. I never wanted him. I assume the love and maternal feelings would come after birth, but it never did....probably because of how difficult he was.If one of my daughters asks me to read a book, I genuinely want to. If he asks me to read a book, I say yes, but it feels like a chore. I feel like when I hug my girls and tell them I love them, I mean it, while when I do it with my son, I'm going through the motions. One of my daughters wanted to do gymnastics, and now they both do it, and I don't mind going and watching, but I feel like if he asked me to do something, I'd....not want to do it for him. When he wants to talk to me, I'm not really interested, but I am when my daughters talk to me. When he comes and hugs me, I feel....nothing, but I feel happy and loved when my daughters do it.He constantly annoys his sisters - going into the rooms without asking, taking their stuff, talking endlessly in the car when they just want him to be quiet, wanting to join in their games when they don't want him to because he is a 'baby' and a 'boy', all the typical stuff you'd expect with girls that age and a boy that age, and when they complain to me, I tell the to be nice or try and redirect him to another activity while thinking 'yeah, I know, he annoys me too. More than you'll ever know'. One of them once snapped 'I wish he wasn't born' when he wouldn't stop annoying them by trying to join a board game he is too young to understand and messing up the pieces and I had to go to my room and cry because I wish he wasn't born too and I feel terrible for thinking it, but I just do. He was only born because the birth control fucked up and we found out too late to abort, and he caused us a lot of misery after birth. I. Yeah. As horrible, horrible as it sounds, I agreed with that annoyed flippant statement made by my oldest daughter. She's probably forgotten about it, but 3 months later, it is still sticking with me.We basically all wish he wasn't born.I've spoken to two therapists, and they both just gave me the 'fake it until you make it' advice, but it is just not working. It is like, no matter how much you try and convince yourself you don't hate that co-worker you irrationally dislike you just don't like them and nothing will change it. You just want them to go away.Again, I am well aware I am going 'mess him up' and he'll grow up feeling like the least favourite child and all of that. I feel guilty about it and don't want to feel this way, which is why I'm here. I don't want a lecture, I want some help to try and not feel this way. I hate feeling this way. I don't want to feel this way, I'm just....I don't know. I know he didn't ask to be brought into this world and he deserves better, but I don't know how to make myself feel differently. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2xCqcst
No comments:
Post a Comment