@justneedtotalk76 in your first post you wanted to know if how you felt is right. From what you have shared here in your thread in my opinion your feelings are not wrong.

IMHO I think your wife’s statement about feeling disconnected from you has a lot more to do with the age of her child and what she herself experienced at that age. She was abandoned by her mother and while a child is young and may not know what that means they most definitely feel it. This is never forgotten in a human being. A child so young definitely feels the sudden absence of a nurturer because their very life depends on it. It has long been thought a very young child doesn’t know the difference. Through constant study we are learning more and more that opinion is very wrong. A young child most definitely knows and what takes place is an important foundation that lasts that child a lifetime.

So the disconnect “feeling” can be coming from a place in your wife that is real in her, but she doesn’t really understand where it’s coming from.

What she does need is a very knowledgeable therapist that can help her understand that. Also she needs the right guidance to give her own child something she did not have. She can learn and heal at the same time.

At such a young age an important presence left her and she then became totally dependent on her biological father. Her father may not have been very nurturing and may not have been a good man. That’s very similar to the dynamic she is experiencing now with this child’s biological father. Something about this man is important as her own father though not so great did provide enough so she thrived. You can see the reality of how this man doesn’t care. Your wife is seeing it differently and doesn’t even know how to articulate it. Having a presence that can help her with this can make a big difference.

A disconnect often occurs when a person is experiencing something they feel their partner will not understand.