You next.
In response to: On the "Would you leave your love for your children?" thread, I raised a question substantially different but nonetheless related to the OP's inquiry: Should one's romantic partner/spouse be one's highest value?
Though virtually everyone, with a few possible exceptions, replied to the above with a resounding "NO! Kids always come first!", my suspicion is that if their romantic partner had said to them: "Honey, I want to be with you so we can have babies!", most of these very same respondents would find that off-putting and perhaps even offensive. Surely most women would not like to be thought of by their spouse or lover as primarily a "baby-machine" (or vice versa)?
And yet I believe this is precisely the view that logically follows from the premise "kids are more important."
My view is somewhat different. I believe that romantic couples are the well-spring from which a family life flows. Their love for each other is, as the Ayn Rand-lover, Wonderworker, might put it, the "Fountainhead" of all relationships.
Can you imagine standing on the altar, and your beloved declares to you: "My dearest, I love you more than the Moon, the Sun, and most stars. However, when we have children, you will need to take second, or possibly even third or fourth place in my heart behind them." Would you reply: "Ah, baby, you say the sweetest things!"
Actually, when my son was born, my ex husband said he saw me in a different way. He was very involved with our son, at the tender age of 20, right from the word go. But to come back to his words, when my eldest was ten days old, I asked him how he was feeling and he said he loved me much more as a mother than he did as the single girl he had met.
He went on to say, that he found me fascinating when I was pregnant, the curves, (I was a skinny miss) the way I looked softer and that I was much nicer to him and made him feel more important to him, because I was carrying his child. Did I feel second place? No. My heart lurched with love, because then I knew that this was the right move for us, even though he was unplanned and it made me see my husband in a different light. Our son blended into our lives and my husband remained uppermost in that unit of the three of us...
Their needs were different, my son needed his mother and when that time was done, my husband needed his wife, when he was out working (do remember this is all prior to the spectacular end of our marriage) to provide for his wife and his child, our son did not move up in his love ranks, the whole unit became something that he knew he had to work for to keep us healthy, warm and a roof over our heads.
I gave him what ultimately made me forgive him, his children and in that, now 21 years later with his new partner and his new child, he has never forgotten that I gave him his hearts desire and that was his children and that in his mind makes me still, even though we are divorced and our daughter gets married next year, up there as a person that he loves very much indeed.
Is the primary purpose of couples to breed?: click here to read the entire thread »