With the way Walt wasted no time to start abusing Jesse as soon as they partnered up, and considering Walt treats Jesse like he's his son AND his wife... Do you think this means Walt had been bursting at the seams to abuse his real son and real wife this whole time, and only with Jesse did he have a chance to do so?
*Pushes glasses up on nose as though I am a respected scholar in a legitimate field of study* Ok so I hate to answer a compelling question with a kind of roundabout, not at all concrete answer but here goes: Walter wants to do whatever Walter wants to do, in the moment, without having to concern himself with that pesky, pedestrian little irritant known as ye olde consequences. He’s your basic old white fart who, because he grew up with the oxymoron of the white man as a vehicle for both exceptionalism and the Everyman, believes that consequences should not apply to him, and feels that he has been hard done by because, shocker, his stagnancy prior to the beginning of the series hasn’t resulted in everything he ever wanted falling into his lap! He does abuse both Skyler and Flynn over the course of the series, the assault on Skyler in season two being the most overtly violent of these instances, though it is heavily implied in season five that this isn’t even a one time occurrence; “I can’t even keep you out of my bed!” It’s also in season two that he peer pressures his teenage son into drinking to excess to gain the upper hand in his one-sided pissing contest with Hank, and this mirrors the ways in which he flexes his control over Jesse in front of Gus and Mike. Walter is dangerous precisely because he doesn’t view himself as an abuser, it’s not like he wistfully daydreams about slouching around the house in a wifebeater, terrorizing his wife and kids until they walk on eggshells around him. In fact, he’s shown throughout the series to act like a little pissbaby throwing a little pissbaby tantrum whenever he’s treated by his family like the monster he is. He wants to be able to act on his anger, to rape his wife and bully his son, without being subject to any of the organic repercussions these actions would inevitably induce. He doesn’t want to play the part of the mild-mannered family man anymore, or put in any of the work required to keep up that front, but he still wants to be seen as the provider and benevolent patriarch. He wants to have his fucking cake and eat it to.
That’s where Jesse comes in.
Walter loves Jesse, he does. The problem was never that he didn’t love Jesse, it was why he loved Jesse. Walter loves Jesse more than Flynn, that much was confirmed by Vince in a quote I can’t find anymore for the fucking life of me so you’ll just have to take my word for it ig. Walter might even love Jesse more than Skyler. But he doesn’t love Jesse as a person so much as a conduit, as an indispensable resource. It’s pretty vital, actually, that the person Walter projects all his shit onto isn’t a part of his immediate family, because then Jesse can be whatever he wants him to be. It’s great for Walter that Jesse’s a junkie, because then, according to societal norms, he doesn’t have to see Jesse as human when he’s taking out all of his anger on him. When Jesse isn’t being malleable enough for his liking, or even if Walt’s mad about something else entirely, then Jesse’s just a junkie, a nobody, an ungrateful, petulant fuck-up. When Walter is being rightfully shut out by his family or needs Jesse for some material task, then Jesse is practically family to him. They’re partners. It’s a terrible burden to put on an impressionable 24-year-old, a pretty fucking shitty thing to do to someone who trusts you, more than they should, and an impossible exception to live up to, to be someone’s everything.
So when Jesse inevitably fails at it, inevitably falls short of this perfectly imperfect idealization of himself, he is punished, horribly.
Walter never would have done the things he did to Jesse to Flynn, or to Skyler.
He doesn’t love them as much.
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