How do you “feel” about your spouse?

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Interesting thread, so I’ll bite.
  1. Yes. My spouse is my best friend.
  2. I wouldn’t say that I love my spouse unconditionally, but that I fight every day to overcome the selfishness in my heart so that I can love my spouse unconditionally.
  3. Yes. My love for my spouse has changed over the years. I remember someone giving me a card on my wedding day that said, “May today be the day you love each other the least.” Since our wedding, my love for my spouse has only deepened.
  4. Our love has changed because after years of sharing life’s ups and downs we know each other better, and by knowing each other better we can love each other more. I still get butterflies in my tummy when I even look at my wife, but it’s not just from her physical beauty (which in my eyes is considerable). I’ve come to appreciate how wonderfully strong of a woman my wife is. I’ve been truly blessed with a “Proverbs” wife.
  5. The biggest challenge we’ve faced? Our eldest is severely mentally and physically handicapped. We’ve faced extended hospital stays that lasted for months on end, we’ve faced near-death experiences with our eldest daughter, we’ve faced (and continue to face) all the challenges that come with raising a special-needs child. We’ve also faced unemployment, poverty (even while serving the Church), underemployment, being kicked out of our apartment (because of our special-needs child), the death of loved ones, and a lot more. So, biggest challenge? Take your pick.
  6. Children have brought out the best in us, and have brought out the worst in us. Most days they bring out the best. Raising children together has made a man out of me, and a woman out of my bride.
  7. I couldn’t love my children as much as they deserve if I didn’t first love their mother more than I love them. So, as much as I love my children, I love my bride more.
 
  1. Is your spouse your “best friend”?
    Yes.
  2. Would you say you love your spouse unconditionally?
    Yes. Though I accept that this could change.
  3. If you’ve been married for a while, how has your love for your spouse changed over the years?
    Those initial butterflies are gone, but my gratitude and genuine love towards her has grown.
  4. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your marriage?
    Dealing with my depression put our marriage on the brink several times.
  5. If you have children, how have they impacted your marriage?
    We are far less selfish and materialistic.
  6. Do you love your spouse or children more?
    I love them differently, not more or less.
 
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I think the biggest take-away message from this thread is that everyone’s experience with their spouse is unique and not comparable to anyone else’s. Every marriage is different.
 
Long before I was married, I heard countless people say they love their children more than their spouse, and that they didn’t know what love really was until they had a child. And ever since the first time I heard someone say that, I’ve struggled with the concept. Now I’m married and have two kids, and I still struggle with that concept.

I love my children very much, and I love them unconditionally. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them, and the love I have for them is definitely like nothing else. That said, my love for my children doesn’t eclipse or minimize my love for my husband. The love I have for my husband is also like nothing else, and it’s our love for each other that created the children in the first place. My love for my children is intense in and of itself, but it also intensifies my love for my husband. I see so much of him in both our children — both in physical appearance and personality. One of them in particular is a spitting image of him — I joke that if I hadn’t given birth to him I wouldn’t believe he was mine. The experience of seeing the person I love in the new person we created together gives me a feeling that is out of this world.

I love my children very much, but I wouldn’t say that I didn’t know what love was until I had them. My husband is the one who first gave me the experience of caring about someone else’s happiness more than my own, and for the first time I had the experience of being willing to give up what I wanted for his benefit (as long as doing what was best for my husband didn’t go against God). And likewise, he’s shown me a lot more unconditional love than I experienced up until I knew him. My mental health problems pose a lot of challenges in our marriage, all of which he’s borne with patience and understanding.

We are generally on the same page about parenting techniques, which makes it easy to parent together. Occasionally we call each other out if we feel the other is acting unfairly or wrongly towards the children, and I’d say that’s helpful to both of us. If he were to do anything objectively harmful to the children or become abusive towards them, I would most definitely protect the children by any means necessary (taking them and moving out, getting a restraining order, etc.), but I have a really hard time anticipating that my husband would do anything harmful or abusive to our children because he’s never shown the slightest sign that he would. I guess anything is possible, but this would be an absolute worst case scenario.

So, when I hear people say that their love for their kids trumps all else, I feel like I’m a bad mother or that there’s something wrong with me because my experience with them hasn’t been this out-of-this-world, life-altering, I-never-knew-what-love-was-until -now experience. And I struggle with the concept of how one’s love for one’s spouse could possibly be diminished by the children their love created.
 
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  1. Yes, she’s my best friend–no quote marks required.
  2. Yes. Any human born of woman is bound to fall short of the ideal, but I love my wife without condition and without reservation.
  3. It’s confirmed to me that maybe I was never cut out for romantic love as the world defines it, and that maybe I was never even fit to be someone’s spouse. Doesn’t change my responsibilities, and doesn’t change that I love her.
  4. I suppose that’d be our civil divorce, and the fact that she kicked me out.
  5. N/A. We were Protestants (she still is), and neither of us ever liked children any farther than we could punt them.
  6. If we had had children, I should certainly hope we loved each other more. My parents loved each other more than they loved me, and it was freeing: it meant my brother & I had a rock-solid foundation of marital love to be raised upon, and that neither of us had the remotest hope of playing them off against one another.
 
Psalm30 said:
I love my children very much, and I love them unconditionally. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them, and the love I have for them is definitely like nothing else. That said, my love for my children doesn’t eclipse or minimize my love for my husband.
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As horrible as it would be, consider for a moment - what if your husband died and you remarried. Can you envision a scenario where your love for your children might somehow feel different than the love for your spouse (with whom you didn’t have children)?
 
Psalm30 said:
So, when I hear people say that their love for their kids trumps all else, I feel like I’m a bad mother or that there’s something wrong with me because my experience with them hasn’t been this out-of-this-world, life-altering, I-never-knew-what-love-was-until -now experience. And I struggle with the concept of how one’s love for one’s spouse could possibly be diminished by the children their love created.
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What I have come to believe is that the only unconditional love that one can experience is the love one has for his or her children.

Spousal love is great, but for most people it is conditional. If your spouse started sleeping around with other people, or physically abusing you, or gambling away the family’s finances, or became a murderer or rapist, I think that love would start to dwindle pretty apparently. If one of your kids started doing those things, you would probably still love them (although you probably wouldn’t like them very much).

Spousal love and love for children is apples and oranges. I don’t know why people always feel like they can be compared. Or why they would want to compare them.

It sounds like you are a wonderful mother. Don’t let other people tell you otherwise.
 
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Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
As horrible as it would be, consider for a moment - what if your husband died and you remarried. Can you envision a scenario where your love for your children might somehow feel different than the love for your spouse (with whom you didn’t have children)?
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Honestly, I have a problem with such hypotheticals.

First of all, I don’t think I ever said my love for my husband is exactly the same as my love for my children. Nor should it be. It’s comparing apples to oranges. It’s two different things. The key thing, though, is different. Not more or less, just different.

Second of all, I don’t know how I would feel if your hypothetical scenario happened to me. The only way I would know is if it actually happened. I’m sure there are many people who are actually in such a scenario and each one will have a different answer to your question.

Right now, I can only speak from my experience, and my experience is that I do not love either my husband or my children more than the other, nor do I feel that I didn’t know what love was until I had kids.
 
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St.Thomas says that the intensity of a spouses love should be most for the other spouse, not child or parent.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
St.Thomas says that the intensity of a spouses love should be most for the other spouse, not child or parent.
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That is an interesting statement, but I wouldn’t put much value to it.
I don’t think saints are infallible. They are a product of their time.

Once again, there are different kinds of love. Love for a spouse should never be compared to love for a child. Or vice versa.

As long as you are willing the best for the other, then it is love.
 
@Mtatum1958 Mtatum, this is the most beautiful thought that I’ve ever heard expressed by a man toward his wife. I have felt the same way, so I know exactly what you mean. I was a bit melancholy the day I first read your post and wept for quite a while. You’ve left us with an indelible word picture. Thank you.

Your post is the reason that I persevered to get re-registered (or whatever CAF calls it). I had such trouble getting identified after the format change that I gave up in exasperation, but your post made me keep trying until I was successful. Then, I couldn’t find this thread, so I’m delighted to have found it now.

The world would be a better place and we’d all be so much happier if each of us lived in such a way that those who know us could feel about us as you feel about your wife. Thank you for being an inspiration, Mtatum, and many prayers for many more years for the two of you. ❤️
 
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