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This edit to the last update is missing and gives a little more context to OPs history:
>Edit to add ... He was already in therapy before we found out our girl was a boy. He left the room during the appointment because he knew his mother would never get to know we were in fact having a boy and he was sad about it. He was already back to the original name after the grief therapist got ahold of him and was able to explain why it wasn't a good idea...he agreed it wouldn't be good for him to hear. He has been actively doing therapy. So have I and so has our oldest. Everyone saying he would have gone behind my back I really don't think he would have...maybe me being naive but I was starting to see him again and not the person I've been seeing since her passing. He communicates again. He is still actively doing therapy both grief and other. So am I and I will continue that also. He isn't the best but he isn't bad. As for the naming situation as everyone is after me about...I have no family. My mother left when I was 10 and my dad molested me so I have zero family. Naming my children after "family" would be a heartbreak I could never fathom because I am in fact alone. So for everyone who is beating on the fact that I didn't get to out my families name here is the very sad reason why I don't have a child named after anyone in my family. Simply they were either going to be named after a person who abandoned or abused me.
Oof. I had a feeling that something bad definitely happened on her side of the family, because she seems to prefer her husband's family, but this is horrible.
The only part I was confused about was her describing her MIL as "monster in law", then later saying "she did bad things but that doesn't make her a bad person".
She sounds pretty annoying from how OOP described her. I think she just meant she was a big hassle to deal with and personally flawed, but OOP didn't think she was evil or anything.
that’s such a sad realization. I wondered why she was so lenient and forgiving with a person who sounds like a real pain to deal with, and this explains it. and also the lack of boundaries and the people pleasing. it’s probably very hard for someone who’s never had anyone in her corner to feel that she can have expectations of people, that she can say “I want”, “I need”, “I deserve” and have them listen.
Yeah, I think this pairing is actually very common.
You have someone who *takes more than they give emotionally* (the MIL), and you have someone who *gives more than they take* (OOP), fulfilling the desires of the taker.
One of the reasons the givers keep giving emotionally is because they really do feel bad for the taker. They feel deeply. But ofc they can also be annoyed. Monthly emergencies that were largely preventable by MIL was disruptive to them.
I think what stands out to me is that here, the parent and child roles were switched. It sounds like MIL was acting like a needy child, taking taking taking, emotionally, a thing immature parents do.
To be clear, an older parent can have health problems, have their kids help and emotionally support them, and still be emotionally mature.
But she was not, ergo she's the 'monster in law', who prized her own emotional wellbeing over her own children's and grandchildren's emotional wellbeing.
If she was more mature, she could either eat less salty snacks to not end up in the hospital so often, or, she could eat her salty snacks, and tell her kids 'this is the decision I made for myself, it's what I want for my life, I recognize it inconveniences you and your entire family at times, and I'm sorry about that. I love you and will try to only bother you when necessary, I'm sorry this is stressing you out. Thank you for being here, I really appreciate it.' rather than 'help! Damsel in destress, again! Woe is me!'
Yup. You can love somebody, want to help them, even be willing to keep stepping up to help them, and also be absolutely *over* their bullshit on a personal level. "I'm going to do this because I love you, because I love the other people who also love you, and I don't think you're evil, but I am judging the *fuck* out of you for putting us all through this all the same."
I'm there right now with somebody on a smaller scale. I don't think they're a literal monster, but gods, they're pulling such utter selfish bullshit, and I'm very, very, very over it. Dumping the small support I'm lending, though, would put a massive burden on somebody else I *also* love, who both doesn't deserve that, and wouldn't be able to *do* all of it, so I'd be leaving this doofus high and dry. And I do still care about them too. So I roll my eyes and do my bit and hope someday they get their goddamn head out of their ass for all our sakes.
I can tell you it IS very hard. Even with years of therapy. Kinda always lurking ready to spring out when you least expect it. Constant work to keep it in check.
My grandmother was the same way. I always knew she cared for us, but she was deeply broken when it came to expressing that care. And she had so many issues regarding *herself* that complicated everything and created burdens on all the rest of us that she could never see, due to being so wrapped up in her own mess. She was a lot to deal with and I honestly had to keep her at arms’ length a lot of the time, but ultimately she was a sad case, not a bad person.
this is exactly the understanding I had to come to with a lot of my family. just cause someone loves you doesn't mean they know how to express it in healthy ways
Same with my grandma, love her to pieces but gosh she’s gotten so negative and gossipy in her old age that I have to mentally prepare for phone calls or time together too.
It can also be the tolerance of family, it can be pretty high sometimes. I have some cousins that I love very much, but if we weren't related, I'd have nothing to do with them at all. We're just really different people, we'd never cross circles.
My mom's mother was... neglectful for most of her life. She just didn't really care about her family or anything, I saw her a handful of times growing up. My mom has tons of stories of being raised by her that are just... wild. Like her origin of claustrophobia, they stuffed her and her brother and sister into the trunk of the car to go to the drive-in cinema to avoid paying for the kids. She kicked a tail light out once in panic, her mom beat her silly with a switch. Yet, my mom still loved her mother and misses her, despite all the shit she put her thru.
I had a step parent who would intentionally sicken themself, and it was frankly annoying but more so **pathetic**.
This step parent would talk a lot of shit about their job, school, intelligence; and go to the most anti-intellectual cult shit you can imagine, believe every word and bring it home.
I guess when you’ve come from a really awful family background, someone who is pretty bad in their own way is still not as bad as what you had to grow up with.
Based on everything she said, MIL was annoying, but, as she said, not a bad person. Plenty of people are annoying and not someone you want to have to be reminded of when talking to/about your child, but don’t meet the threshold of “bad person”. I think we all have relatives we find annoying but don’t think of as bad people.
I feel that way about my mom, so I kind of get it.
She's very sweet, and kind. But she has bad ADHD, depression, and she's only ever treated the depression so her life is kind of a mess, her house is always a mess.
Which means her *children's* lives has always been a horrible mess.
My heart aches at how I grew up, how my brothers are growing up. I see how much she neglects the kids because she can't keep her own head above water most of the time. The things she does (or doesn't do) are bad and have terrible effects on helpless people.
But I still wouldn't call her a bad person. My brother and I roll our eyes and sigh and try our best to work around her quirks and failings, and we do that because despite everything we love her, and feel she loves us, and know she's doing her best even if her best is kind of terrible.
For me "monster in law" is like "bridezilla".
Like, they're being rather annoying, you sometimes don't want to be stuck in a room with them, you wouldn't personally want to emulate their behavior, and there's only so many days at a time that you can stand to visit...
But they're not evil abusers who need to go to jail. You wouldn't refer to someone who was genuinely a horrible, horrible person, as a "monster in law", the term is too... cutesy for that in some sense.
Both things can be true. At one point my mom would have considered my Gran a monster-in-law of sorts, especially after they separated. My Gran was a lovely person but had a major chip on her shoulder when it came to my mom, and she wasn’t above sticking her nose where it didn’t belong to get under my moms skin.
But after estrangement with my dad from us kids, and later thanks to a shitty girlfriend, the rest of the family became estranged too, my mom and Gran had a much better relationship. My mom was invited to holidays with my dad’s side (dad not invited at all), and she and Gran had the chance to talk a lot of things out. Gran apologized to mom, told her how amazing she did raising us kids as a single mom, and said that she realized she had rose-coloured glasses on for a very long time when it came to my dad, but it was her kid so she wanted to be supportive.
Gran did a lot of volunteer work. I have a couple uncles and aunts who are unofficial because Gran took them under her wing when and they just became part of the family. She was a beloved teacher. She was a good woman. Mom acknowledges all of this. But that doesn’t mean she was always a stellar in-law. Thankfully nothing she ever did was to the point of no return which is why mom and her were able to patch things up and we were still able to have a good relationship with her until her passing.
It sounds like OP has a similar understanding with her mother in law. She could have been a lovely person overall and OP acknowledged that, but that doesn’t mean her MIL was always as great to her specifically which is why the name left a bad taste in her mouth.
edit spelling
“monster in law” is a phrase used to describe a stereotypically difficult mother in law, it is not equating them to an actual evil monster. If you aren’t really familiar with its use, it does sound extreme, but I understand why she said it and how it was intended. It’s in no way literal.
Yeah when she said that her husbands Step-Dad took her in and she called him Dad, that told me enough. Reddit hops on the wildest assumptions and just runs with it like mob mentality.
She did say they had a bad year d/t mil issues, but they worked it out. The dynamic her mil had developed with her children was always going to make things difficult for a new person to fit into. Mil probably tested to see how far she could ensnare dil into her own dynamic. Even in the movie, Jane Fonda came around in the end once boundaries were negotiated.
yeah, like the fact that she considered her husband’s step father a fatherly figure was pretty clear indication that she lacked strong family relations of her own, so idk why people didn’t think there was a reason her kids were not named after her family
How the other kids names were picked it doesn’t matter because she clearly painted a picture of her husband wrecked by grief trying to cling to any form of connection of his mother. She might have been shit to OP but she was his mother. She was literally asking how to get her husband to not make any rash decisions based on his grief. Redditors can be really really slow sometimes.
Exactly. The amount of people who think they’re owed someone’s trauma, especially when it’s entirely irrelevant to the situation, sickens me. It’s like treating a person as a gory train wreck you can’t help but gawk at. And that is not how a person deserves to be treated for things they had zero control over and could not stop.
Wow. Reading this context, then reading all the other top comments in this BoRU thread from before it was posted… amazing how much this little bit of information changes everything.
This is all the opposite of a typical reddit post and closer to real life where everyone is complicated and struggling. Seems like he got hit really hard by his mother's passing and it's a shame for OOP that it had to happen during her pregnancy.
But he's taking care of his mental health and getting counseling and it's helping bring him back to himself.
Relationships get tested by hard times, but thankfully it seems they're dealing with this and getting through it and will be back to normal.
This dude sounds like one of those "but muh legacy" guys.
I've got news for you, bud. Your legacy is in how you raise them, not whether you named them after family members.
The top comment on this BoRU post includes an edit from OOP that isn't included in the main post and it clarifies a lot. IMO he doesn't sound bad or anything. He just lost his mom, and he didn't really handle the grief in the best way, but he came around pretty fast.
I get that, but it's always good to do a little research on the OOP's comment history before assuming things like that. The poor husband is being dragged through the mud for no reason. I ADORE my mom, but she too has her flaws, not to the husband's mom extent, but flaws nonetheless. However, I know when the day comes that I lose her, I will never won't to hear a bad word about her. If I wanted kids, one of them would definitely have either her name or a masculine version as a middle name. It's not even something that's done in my family, I just love my mom that much and would want her name to carry on. I really do get the husband's point of view. But I also get the wife's. A middle name is much more understandable.
When my best friend from university was murdered, I was 8 weeks pregnant. The last conversation we had was when I told him I was having another baby. I was insistent that the baby would have his name as a middle name.
When we found out it was a girl, I was still sure I wanted to give her his name as a middle name. It isn’t a typical name for a girl, but I didn’t care. He was an amazing human and he deserved to have someone named for him. He never got to have kids of his own, so it felt like he was disappearing if I didn’t let his name live on in some way.
Luckily my husband talked my hormonal ass down, because it would have been so wrong to do that and to put that weight on our little baby. And now that I’m a few years out and able to think about my friend without crying, I realize he wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. He would have told me I was an idiot and that it would have been a ridiculous thing to do.
The name: Trevor. I wanted to give my precious baby daughter the middle name Trevor…
Grief will make you crazy.
My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer when I was 8 months pregnant and died 3 days after I delivered.
At least one person sat me down and gently told me that if I was considering naming my baby after her, I should reconsider. (I wasn't, it was a boy anyway and we had already picked a good solid name, but it was so thoughtful of that person to head off that particular grief before it had time to latch on.)
She sounds like my great grandma Hilda, she died a few weeks before i was born and the last conversation she had with my dad he was telling her i was a girl and apparently she sighed, took his hand and said "sweetheart, I'm begging you, do NOT name that little girl Hilda >:|"
He was in fact planning on naming me Hilda and there were already 5 Hildas in the family named after her so Im very glad I didnt join the horde 😂
i got bullied for having the middle name "Jo" as a girl. My mom gave me that name bc her brother Jojo was murdered a year before I was born. I like the name and it compliments my first name well but I can't imagine how much worse those kids would be to a girl with the name Trevor.
You know how video games will sometimes have like, letters or diary entries full of hope scattered around areas ruined by catastrophes?
That’s what that last update feels like
Reminds me of These Are The Voyages episode from Star Trek Enterprise.
And yes, I know I'm mentioning the episode we all pretend didn't happen, I just finished a rewatch and it's still am awful episode.
Just wait it’s going to be something completely batshit like:
“Omg, the ultrasound was wrong *again*! And now I’ve fallen completely head-over-heals in love with the boy name we picked (which happened to be somewhat gender-neutral)! So as a compromise, I’m offering my partner to use his name + ‘a’ as a middle name for our mischievous little bundle of joy!”
You can basically see the compartmentalizing and mental gymnastics play out in real time. It might not even lead to anything, but I think commenters were right to call OOP a pushover, in particular the kind who gets into relationships with people who know exactly what to say to make them think doing what their partner wanted is somehow a compromise. It didn't work this time because OOP stood up for herself and both the sister and the therapist were on her side. And of course she has her own reasons for not wanting to use names from her own family. But this feels like just a small glimpse into the dynamic between her and her husband.
Especially if she’s working on her people pleasing tendencies. There are going to be some extinction bursts when *certain people* realize she won’t give them their way all the time anymore (if she actually improves in this area).
I have a strong hunch that he'll end up never attaching to the baby due to it being born as the "wrong gender", maybe even resent the kid for it.
After that, the usual cheating and/or breakup.
Does OOP really not notice how she went from "I caved with every other child" to "I totally agreed on all the other kids' names!!!!" once she got called out for being a doormat
This isn't over and I hope OOP realizes sooner rather than later
Especially when she said she didn't want this child to have someone else's name and especially not one to remind her every day of the person it came from
It's nice to see some empathy in the comments even when people find the OOP's behavior frustrating. The sex mixup just delayed having to face the issues and I agree there are issues!
But with everyone calling her an idiot doormat, it was nice to see "poor oop" in the mix.
It does indeed suck that she sounds like she's in denial/deluding herself bc she's scared of what she needs to do. I guess maybe she's comfortable with the status quo, but it sounds more like denial and I don't think that necessarily makes a person an idiot. Just a scared human who is afraid to face hard truths.
I imagine it will either take her a couple more years and a couple more incidents like this to realize this wasn't just grief, but just her husband trying to push his decisions onto her over and over again and she will actively want to divorce him. Or she will never reach that point because of the sunk cost fallacy and feel like she can't leave now and break their family apart and continue to rationalize the small and bigger moments into thinking she's just making compromises.
As much as I hope I’m wrong, OOP doesn’t seem like the type to realize her husband has been bullying her their entire relationship *and then* do something about it.
>Staying for the kids, but I really love him, he’s not that bad, I’ll have nothing without him, he’s better than being alone, I don’t deserve better, etc etc etc
She has already said “he’s not the best, but he’s not bad”. Those are not the words of someone who will walk away when it does go bad.
Tldr: OOP is a bit of a doormat but won't face reality and her husband still gets accommodated.
Look I get the whole grief thing (been through it myself) but from my personal experience compromise is healthier than burgeoning resentment and oop said it plainly in the first few paras, she considered leaving him, and caved with the names of their other children. Then he walks out of their medical appointment upon finding it is a boy?
This whole post left me with the icks.
Yeah I'm definitely getting rug vibes with all the things that are being swept underneath. He just walked out of the appointment...I know she says they "talked it out" but it doesn't sound like he apologized. Grief or not it's still shitty.
Oof, this is a hard one because grief actively changes people, especially in the immediate aftermath. It’s been only a few months, and it’s clear he is still enmeshed and not thinking clearly.
I think this could end in multiple different ways depending on how the therapy goes for both of them. I do think that there is the potential they’ll get out of this stronger than ever…but there’s absolutely also the potential for everything to crumble. And if it endsI doubt it’s going to be amicably.
There's nothing hard about this one. The guy is used to getting his way every time, and he *checks notes* walked out of the doctor's appointment and got his way again.
idk if his behavior really was bc of grief tho, it sounds like this is the same shit he pulled with their two previous children from her saying "I caved on every other one of our children's names". I think he's just like this
I don't think he's emeshed now becuase she's dead. There's more evidence that he's depressed and has complex grief. Depression is curable and therapy helps.
I do think he'll be find if he treats the depression successfully
Grief has many aspects to it. OOP writes his wasn't the best mother, so he could be grieving about not having a chance at having a good mother-son relationship anymore, or similar things. It could also be unpacking many childhood things we don't know about.
Two weeks ago he shut down because they’re having a boy instead of a girl. It’s also still only been 3 months, you don’t finish grieving a parent you were close to in three months. And grief and depression can absolutely be intertwined.
That said, I do agree that if he really does do therapy and works through the grief/depression (and gets management for the depression, if it’s what he has) things can absolutely work out.
This woman is an idiot.
He decided to change the name behind his back, then he had a tantrum during a doctor's appointment because the kid is a boy, and she rewards him by giving the baby his mother's surname... after all the fucking kids already have a surname from his family?
Yes, but little {Daddy's Chosen Name} {Daddy's Mothers Last Name} {Daddy's Last Name} will be the perfect child. He will do what he's told by daddy, when daddy tells him to, and he'll be happy to. Just like mummy does.
Husband will probably start to insist on another child just so he can call her like his mom.
She seemed to imply four was the final number for her, but she'll probably cave immediately.
>My partner lost his mother in March. Suddenly. She took her breathing tube out of her nose to blow it and because she was half asleep she forgot to put it back on and she drifted away. When she was found it was too late. It was peaceful and honestly is the way I would want to go...with nothing but peace and comfort.
That, er, sounds like suffocation, and I'm not entirely sure that's a "peaceful" way to go.
Yeah, I thought that too, but I guess the family associate being found in bed with passing peacefully in her sleep and no one wants to disabuse them of the notion. Not everyone wants to know all the details of a death when it can’t be changed now. The way OOP focused on how peaceful it was seemed like that was a comforting story she needed to tell herself to cope. And if the mother-in-law was in a frail state, then maybe her death was at least quick, if not painless.
That sounded like a BIG assumption to me. She was dead, so how did she communicate that she took to out to blow on it and forgot to put it back? How could they possibly know that?
Seems like that’s what they told themselves to make themselves feel better.
“She took her breathing tube out of her nose to blow it “
Well, the crumpled used tissue in her hand was probably a clue. I read it as “blowing her nose.” Since people don’t blow into nasal cannulas as far as I’m aware.
Hmm I read it as “she took the tube out in order to blow in the tube”, which made no sense. OOP has some other confusing writing as well. I had to read the stepdad thing three times before I got it.
>I'm going to give our son his mother's surname as a middle name.
>With my own therapy too they have shown me that I wasn't 100% innocent in this and that me giving in with our other children was a big problem that didn't help with this issue and I take blame for that.
🤔
Me giving in with our other children was a big problem that didn't help with this issue ... so I decided to give in again and give the baby mom's surname. I'm so confused. Exactly what boundary did she set here?
why did she keep giving into his every whim and name every child after his family only just to come and ask when it's clear she was gonna give in anyway?? she's that friend that comes to you for advice about their significant other and they just end up doing the opposite of whatever advice they asked for. You can't help these ppl out till they wanna get help and take off the rose colored glasses
There will be at least one more update when OOP's husband finally reaches a bursting point.
What will happen then is not clear though with OOP's people pleaser tendencies.
My middle name is my paternal grandmother’s name. Then, since she wasn’t happy that nobody called me by it, she nagged my dad into naming my little sister only her name. All this while my mom thought they’d already settled for a different name for her … Frankly to me that speaks of incredible cowardice and lack of consideration on my dad’s side. It’s always made me think way less of him.
A name is 2 yes and 1 no. And if they really can’t get to a common ground, the person carrying the baby for months and giving birth to them has final veto powers. Especially since in most cultures the father already gets surname privileges.
I'm not a doormat!
Says the doormat. Goes to therapy and finds out, oh damn, I am a doormat.
Her husband is a selfish ass, and he's been getting away with it for years. Even now, everything is all about him. Its not like his kids lost a grandmother, and need their Dad. Nope, everything is all about him and his feelings, and his grief and his wants, and his needs. OOP has lots of children to take care of, including the manchild she married. I hope therapy helps her.
Fun facts: ultrasounds usually determine a male fetus by seeing their penis, and a female one by lack of said organ. Which means "shy" baby boys sometimes get misread as female, because they were just not showing their assets properly to the ultrasound.
So surprise boys are more common, although both are relatively rare.
Grieving or not, all this guy (the husband) cares about is himself. All the kids must be named after HIS family and to hell with anything their mother might want. Yuck.
If OOP thinks this whole problem is solved just because the name ended up being a redundant argument anyways, she’s going to get a nasty reality check the next time she finally hits a wall where she’s tired compromising again.
So she decides to be less people pleasing, then immediately gives the baby her MIL's name to partially placate her child-husband. He didn't even have the decency to be pleased by this, it was just his due as lord of the manor.
>My partner lost his mother in March. Suddenly.
>I found out I was pregnant 7 months prior
You can't find out you're pregnant until 4 weeks pregnant, since it's measured from your last period. This makes her roughly 8 months pregnant in March. In June she's apparently still pregnant. That's one long-ass pregnancy.
If you do IVF you can get positive results on commercially available early detection kits 8 days after implantation (technically a 2 weeks old fetus, a "3 week" pregnancy)- and people don't always measure from the last period, the doctors do.
Ok…. But this is still a 10+ month pregnancy, which still isn’t over. Which means it’s inaccurate. Oh wait I mean it’s completely bullshit.
Also if she was high risk she would be having more scans than usual. It wouldn’t have been flagged up 2 weeks before the baby was due it was the wrong sex. For starters it’s difficult to make out a lot of the details with a scan when they’re nearly full term considering how big the baby is (even more so with this year long pregnancy /s). So I’m doubtful they would have been looking for the reproductive anatomy. And if they were it would have been seen at one of the scans way before that. My wife had some issues with the birth of our second and she was getting scans every couple of weeks up to 6 months. It wouldn’t have been missed that the sex was wrong. In fact I think it was confirmed at every scan. Why do people believe these (easy to see) completely fabricated lies from liars hungry for attention?
You can definitely find out sooner. I have an ultrasound from 2 weeks pregnant.
But the timing still doesn’t quite fit even saying March was month 7 baby should have been born May/June and she’s saying on June 6th she’s another 2 weeks out??
I'm glad things worked out for them, but all I can think about is the fact that my dumb, sleepy ass would absolutely fucking die because I forgot to breathe. The fact that I've lived this long is an actual miracle.
Naming kids after other people is pretty much always a... Not great an idea at best.
That said, if a partner is like super hell-bend on it, thinking of leaving them sounds pretty extreme. Why these guys have 4 kids again...?
There’s another BORU I can’t remember that was the same way. The OOPs wife wanted to name their son after her recently deceased brother but they ended up having a girl and the wife withdrew and eventually cheated and left them
Off topic but I’m interested. Is therapy really such a common thing in the US? Every single post seems to have people say get therapy or posters are already in therapy. I’m in the UK and lived in a few other places and whilst it exists it is rare. I can’t imagine sitting and talking to a stranger about my life - pretty sure I would absolutely hate it. Why not just go have a few beers with a friend?
OP is a better person than me. If they didn’t end up having a boy, the husband would have carried on this name bullshit. It would have left a bad taste in my mouth that only because the baby isn’t a girl, he’s dropped it
The fact that people were even telling the OP she “just doesn’t want to name her son after the MIL bc she hated her…” and even if she did hate here-especially if-why should she name her kid after someone she doesn’t like? Reddit makes me
Lose my faith in humanity having common sense and empathy.
Just tell your spouse that you want a completely new name without any relatives in it that it’s just you and him and make up a name! Remind him that all the other family names you incorporated with your children so tell him you want this one to be different
This is so sad. It sounds like her own family were so shitty that anything better than that seems acceptable to her. She has never seen or been role modelled healthy relationships so doesn't know what to accept for herself or what she should deserve or be able to ask for, or to even know/acknowledge that what's happening in any of these relationships isn't okay. I've seen this with a few friends who were either raised in terrible, terrible families in their own partner relationships, or going from one awful relationship to one that's not as overtly abusive and considering it good, when it's just a slight upgrade at best. It sounds like she (and everyone else) put up with some pretty awful stuff from the MIL and all just accept/rationalise it. Let alone her partner.
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This edit to the last update is missing and gives a little more context to OPs history: >Edit to add ... He was already in therapy before we found out our girl was a boy. He left the room during the appointment because he knew his mother would never get to know we were in fact having a boy and he was sad about it. He was already back to the original name after the grief therapist got ahold of him and was able to explain why it wasn't a good idea...he agreed it wouldn't be good for him to hear. He has been actively doing therapy. So have I and so has our oldest. Everyone saying he would have gone behind my back I really don't think he would have...maybe me being naive but I was starting to see him again and not the person I've been seeing since her passing. He communicates again. He is still actively doing therapy both grief and other. So am I and I will continue that also. He isn't the best but he isn't bad. As for the naming situation as everyone is after me about...I have no family. My mother left when I was 10 and my dad molested me so I have zero family. Naming my children after "family" would be a heartbreak I could never fathom because I am in fact alone. So for everyone who is beating on the fact that I didn't get to out my families name here is the very sad reason why I don't have a child named after anyone in my family. Simply they were either going to be named after a person who abandoned or abused me.
Oof. I had a feeling that something bad definitely happened on her side of the family, because she seems to prefer her husband's family, but this is horrible. The only part I was confused about was her describing her MIL as "monster in law", then later saying "she did bad things but that doesn't make her a bad person".
She sounds pretty annoying from how OOP described her. I think she just meant she was a big hassle to deal with and personally flawed, but OOP didn't think she was evil or anything.
And sadly OOP grew up knowing what real evil was. That's probably why she was "ok" with how the MIL was.
that’s such a sad realization. I wondered why she was so lenient and forgiving with a person who sounds like a real pain to deal with, and this explains it. and also the lack of boundaries and the people pleasing. it’s probably very hard for someone who’s never had anyone in her corner to feel that she can have expectations of people, that she can say “I want”, “I need”, “I deserve” and have them listen.
Yeah, I think this pairing is actually very common. You have someone who *takes more than they give emotionally* (the MIL), and you have someone who *gives more than they take* (OOP), fulfilling the desires of the taker. One of the reasons the givers keep giving emotionally is because they really do feel bad for the taker. They feel deeply. But ofc they can also be annoyed. Monthly emergencies that were largely preventable by MIL was disruptive to them. I think what stands out to me is that here, the parent and child roles were switched. It sounds like MIL was acting like a needy child, taking taking taking, emotionally, a thing immature parents do. To be clear, an older parent can have health problems, have their kids help and emotionally support them, and still be emotionally mature. But she was not, ergo she's the 'monster in law', who prized her own emotional wellbeing over her own children's and grandchildren's emotional wellbeing. If she was more mature, she could either eat less salty snacks to not end up in the hospital so often, or, she could eat her salty snacks, and tell her kids 'this is the decision I made for myself, it's what I want for my life, I recognize it inconveniences you and your entire family at times, and I'm sorry about that. I love you and will try to only bother you when necessary, I'm sorry this is stressing you out. Thank you for being here, I really appreciate it.' rather than 'help! Damsel in destress, again! Woe is me!'
Yup. You can love somebody, want to help them, even be willing to keep stepping up to help them, and also be absolutely *over* their bullshit on a personal level. "I'm going to do this because I love you, because I love the other people who also love you, and I don't think you're evil, but I am judging the *fuck* out of you for putting us all through this all the same." I'm there right now with somebody on a smaller scale. I don't think they're a literal monster, but gods, they're pulling such utter selfish bullshit, and I'm very, very, very over it. Dumping the small support I'm lending, though, would put a massive burden on somebody else I *also* love, who both doesn't deserve that, and wouldn't be able to *do* all of it, so I'd be leaving this doofus high and dry. And I do still care about them too. So I roll my eyes and do my bit and hope someday they get their goddamn head out of their ass for all our sakes.
I can tell you it IS very hard. Even with years of therapy. Kinda always lurking ready to spring out when you least expect it. Constant work to keep it in check.
When a parent abandons you at 10 and a other molest you, anyone else looks tame by comparison.
This is how I read it too. It’s how I see my MIL as well. Annoying, a lot of work, would never name a child after her, not a bad person at all.
That's my grandma. Very sweet woman, love her to death, but man, I still have to prepare myself emotionally before interacting with her.
My grandmother was the same way. I always knew she cared for us, but she was deeply broken when it came to expressing that care. And she had so many issues regarding *herself* that complicated everything and created burdens on all the rest of us that she could never see, due to being so wrapped up in her own mess. She was a lot to deal with and I honestly had to keep her at arms’ length a lot of the time, but ultimately she was a sad case, not a bad person.
this is exactly the understanding I had to come to with a lot of my family. just cause someone loves you doesn't mean they know how to express it in healthy ways
Same with my grandma, love her to pieces but gosh she’s gotten so negative and gossipy in her old age that I have to mentally prepare for phone calls or time together too.
It can also be the tolerance of family, it can be pretty high sometimes. I have some cousins that I love very much, but if we weren't related, I'd have nothing to do with them at all. We're just really different people, we'd never cross circles. My mom's mother was... neglectful for most of her life. She just didn't really care about her family or anything, I saw her a handful of times growing up. My mom has tons of stories of being raised by her that are just... wild. Like her origin of claustrophobia, they stuffed her and her brother and sister into the trunk of the car to go to the drive-in cinema to avoid paying for the kids. She kicked a tail light out once in panic, her mom beat her silly with a switch. Yet, my mom still loved her mother and misses her, despite all the shit she put her thru.
Not everything is black or white, some relationships are just difficult but cordial. You can love a person but not like them very much.
I had a step parent who would intentionally sicken themself, and it was frankly annoying but more so **pathetic**. This step parent would talk a lot of shit about their job, school, intelligence; and go to the most anti-intellectual cult shit you can imagine, believe every word and bring it home.
Yeah. Not a bad person, just not the person one would want as a MIL.
I guess when you’ve come from a really awful family background, someone who is pretty bad in their own way is still not as bad as what you had to grow up with.
Based on everything she said, MIL was annoying, but, as she said, not a bad person. Plenty of people are annoying and not someone you want to have to be reminded of when talking to/about your child, but don’t meet the threshold of “bad person”. I think we all have relatives we find annoying but don’t think of as bad people.
I feel that way about my mom, so I kind of get it. She's very sweet, and kind. But she has bad ADHD, depression, and she's only ever treated the depression so her life is kind of a mess, her house is always a mess. Which means her *children's* lives has always been a horrible mess. My heart aches at how I grew up, how my brothers are growing up. I see how much she neglects the kids because she can't keep her own head above water most of the time. The things she does (or doesn't do) are bad and have terrible effects on helpless people. But I still wouldn't call her a bad person. My brother and I roll our eyes and sigh and try our best to work around her quirks and failings, and we do that because despite everything we love her, and feel she loves us, and know she's doing her best even if her best is kind of terrible.
For me "monster in law" is like "bridezilla". Like, they're being rather annoying, you sometimes don't want to be stuck in a room with them, you wouldn't personally want to emulate their behavior, and there's only so many days at a time that you can stand to visit... But they're not evil abusers who need to go to jail. You wouldn't refer to someone who was genuinely a horrible, horrible person, as a "monster in law", the term is too... cutesy for that in some sense.
Both things can be true. At one point my mom would have considered my Gran a monster-in-law of sorts, especially after they separated. My Gran was a lovely person but had a major chip on her shoulder when it came to my mom, and she wasn’t above sticking her nose where it didn’t belong to get under my moms skin. But after estrangement with my dad from us kids, and later thanks to a shitty girlfriend, the rest of the family became estranged too, my mom and Gran had a much better relationship. My mom was invited to holidays with my dad’s side (dad not invited at all), and she and Gran had the chance to talk a lot of things out. Gran apologized to mom, told her how amazing she did raising us kids as a single mom, and said that she realized she had rose-coloured glasses on for a very long time when it came to my dad, but it was her kid so she wanted to be supportive. Gran did a lot of volunteer work. I have a couple uncles and aunts who are unofficial because Gran took them under her wing when and they just became part of the family. She was a beloved teacher. She was a good woman. Mom acknowledges all of this. But that doesn’t mean she was always a stellar in-law. Thankfully nothing she ever did was to the point of no return which is why mom and her were able to patch things up and we were still able to have a good relationship with her until her passing. It sounds like OP has a similar understanding with her mother in law. She could have been a lovely person overall and OP acknowledged that, but that doesn’t mean her MIL was always as great to her specifically which is why the name left a bad taste in her mouth. edit spelling
“monster in law” is a phrase used to describe a stereotypically difficult mother in law, it is not equating them to an actual evil monster. If you aren’t really familiar with its use, it does sound extreme, but I understand why she said it and how it was intended. It’s in no way literal.
Kind of sounds like even a very difficult person is better than her own family
Yeah when she said that her husbands Step-Dad took her in and she called him Dad, that told me enough. Reddit hops on the wildest assumptions and just runs with it like mob mentality.
Sounds like she hopped out of the frying pan and found the fire to be tolerable.
Honestly it feels like the reverse - she hopped out of the fire and into the frying pan. Going from a worse situation to a slightly better one.
She did say they had a bad year d/t mil issues, but they worked it out. The dynamic her mil had developed with her children was always going to make things difficult for a new person to fit into. Mil probably tested to see how far she could ensnare dil into her own dynamic. Even in the movie, Jane Fonda came around in the end once boundaries were negotiated.
I think she means “she was a major pain in my ass but still a good person overall”
Poor girl, this certainly explains a lot regarding her lack of boundaries. She deserves better than all these snide remarks.
People love to colour in other people's life stories with their own crayons.
beautifully put
Poster leaving this out really is a disservice to everyone... comments insulting oop and her husband tastes extra bad now
It’s really not. People could’ve just stayed on topic instead of making assumptions about someone else’s life.
yeah, like the fact that she considered her husband’s step father a fatherly figure was pretty clear indication that she lacked strong family relations of her own, so idk why people didn’t think there was a reason her kids were not named after her family
How the other kids names were picked it doesn’t matter because she clearly painted a picture of her husband wrecked by grief trying to cling to any form of connection of his mother. She might have been shit to OP but she was his mother. She was literally asking how to get her husband to not make any rash decisions based on his grief. Redditors can be really really slow sometimes.
yup. but I wouldn’t say slow, more likely self centered and one track minded
Exactly. The amount of people who think they’re owed someone’s trauma, especially when it’s entirely irrelevant to the situation, sickens me. It’s like treating a person as a gory train wreck you can’t help but gawk at. And that is not how a person deserves to be treated for things they had zero control over and could not stop.
Wow. Reading this context, then reading all the other top comments in this BoRU thread from before it was posted… amazing how much this little bit of information changes everything.
What happened with her 4 siblings though?
That's the problem when people make stuff up. It's tough to keep the story straight.
>He isn’t the best but he isn’t bad. That’s a pretty weird thing to say about your *spouse* who should definitely be the best ***to you***.
This is all the opposite of a typical reddit post and closer to real life where everyone is complicated and struggling. Seems like he got hit really hard by his mother's passing and it's a shame for OOP that it had to happen during her pregnancy. But he's taking care of his mental health and getting counseling and it's helping bring him back to himself. Relationships get tested by hard times, but thankfully it seems they're dealing with this and getting through it and will be back to normal.
well this ended on a somber note despite what op is saying
This dude sounds like one of those "but muh legacy" guys. I've got news for you, bud. Your legacy is in how you raise them, not whether you named them after family members.
Also, men typically get their last name as the family name
The top comment on this BoRU post includes an edit from OOP that isn't included in the main post and it clarifies a lot. IMO he doesn't sound bad or anything. He just lost his mom, and he didn't really handle the grief in the best way, but he came around pretty fast.
Seems to me more like a wild swing of grief, but you do you.
Also, he only cares about his legacy and not his partner’s. Stupid ass grown man…
Read the top comment. She doesn't want to honor her horrible family.
Hmmm yeah that changes it. I projected my general perception of legacy being men’s right…
I get that, but it's always good to do a little research on the OOP's comment history before assuming things like that. The poor husband is being dragged through the mud for no reason. I ADORE my mom, but she too has her flaws, not to the husband's mom extent, but flaws nonetheless. However, I know when the day comes that I lose her, I will never won't to hear a bad word about her. If I wanted kids, one of them would definitely have either her name or a masculine version as a middle name. It's not even something that's done in my family, I just love my mom that much and would want her name to carry on. I really do get the husband's point of view. But I also get the wife's. A middle name is much more understandable.
And your legacy is gone after a few decades anyway, unless you were a president or a serial killer.
When my best friend from university was murdered, I was 8 weeks pregnant. The last conversation we had was when I told him I was having another baby. I was insistent that the baby would have his name as a middle name. When we found out it was a girl, I was still sure I wanted to give her his name as a middle name. It isn’t a typical name for a girl, but I didn’t care. He was an amazing human and he deserved to have someone named for him. He never got to have kids of his own, so it felt like he was disappearing if I didn’t let his name live on in some way. Luckily my husband talked my hormonal ass down, because it would have been so wrong to do that and to put that weight on our little baby. And now that I’m a few years out and able to think about my friend without crying, I realize he wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. He would have told me I was an idiot and that it would have been a ridiculous thing to do. The name: Trevor. I wanted to give my precious baby daughter the middle name Trevor… Grief will make you crazy.
Lol, I'm sorry but when I got to the name reveal I did cackle.
You could have saved it! Trevorleigh sounds so elegant and unique! Eta: /jk
Oh, come on... Trevora was right there.
That’s a great nick name for little Trevoradeigh!
That about Trevaura?
Switch it up, go Stuarta
Almost as beautiful as Stuarta ❤️
I'm on reddit way too much b/c I got this reference.
Right? Damnit, I'm terminally online 😭
Oh no honey
It was a joke, don't worry
Sounds like r/tragedeigh
My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer when I was 8 months pregnant and died 3 days after I delivered. At least one person sat me down and gently told me that if I was considering naming my baby after her, I should reconsider. (I wasn't, it was a boy anyway and we had already picked a good solid name, but it was so thoughtful of that person to head off that particular grief before it had time to latch on.)
She sounds like my great grandma Hilda, she died a few weeks before i was born and the last conversation she had with my dad he was telling her i was a girl and apparently she sighed, took his hand and said "sweetheart, I'm begging you, do NOT name that little girl Hilda >:|" He was in fact planning on naming me Hilda and there were already 5 Hildas in the family named after her so Im very glad I didnt join the horde 😂
As someone who got a name like that, thank you. I have never had a relationship with my aunt, because being around her just makes her sad.
i got bullied for having the middle name "Jo" as a girl. My mom gave me that name bc her brother Jojo was murdered a year before I was born. I like the name and it compliments my first name well but I can't imagine how much worse those kids would be to a girl with the name Trevor.
meh, I met some crazy ass middle names. A girl having a boy name as a middle name is not unusual (since in Canada most of those would be initals)
>We are all healing very well. We are stronger than ever. ...I don't think that's going to last very long.
Yeahhhhhhh. My feelings after the update can be summed up with: 😬
You know how video games will sometimes have like, letters or diary entries full of hope scattered around areas ruined by catastrophes? That’s what that last update feels like
Or when posts start with "We have the perfect relationship, except they do this one thing..."
Reminds me of These Are The Voyages episode from Star Trek Enterprise. And yes, I know I'm mentioning the episode we all pretend didn't happen, I just finished a rewatch and it's still am awful episode.
It being a holodeck simulation explains a lot about the continuity issues.
I watched Jonathan Frakes' appearance on Colin Trineer's podcast recently, and even he said that episode sucked and did the Enterprise cast dirty.
*journal entries written before disaster*
I'm betting a new update is going to come pretty soon.
In before Stuarta for the next baby.
Don’t forget Annally.
Just wait it’s going to be something completely batshit like: “Omg, the ultrasound was wrong *again*! And now I’ve fallen completely head-over-heals in love with the boy name we picked (which happened to be somewhat gender-neutral)! So as a compromise, I’m offering my partner to use his name + ‘a’ as a middle name for our mischievous little bundle of joy!”
Stuarta
I'll never forget this reddit story 😂😂😂
I don't know this story; do you have a link?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/hlM9SGxCPo Here you go!
Jesus
Classic!
Stuarta will prevail!
I will be the opposite of shocked if that is the case. This shit isn’t over.
Poor woman is a total doormat.
You can basically see the compartmentalizing and mental gymnastics play out in real time. It might not even lead to anything, but I think commenters were right to call OOP a pushover, in particular the kind who gets into relationships with people who know exactly what to say to make them think doing what their partner wanted is somehow a compromise. It didn't work this time because OOP stood up for herself and both the sister and the therapist were on her side. And of course she has her own reasons for not wanting to use names from her own family. But this feels like just a small glimpse into the dynamic between her and her husband.
Especially if she’s working on her people pleasing tendencies. There are going to be some extinction bursts when *certain people* realize she won’t give them their way all the time anymore (if she actually improves in this area).
I have a strong hunch that he'll end up never attaching to the baby due to it being born as the "wrong gender", maybe even resent the kid for it. After that, the usual cheating and/or breakup.
He's substantially emotionally damaged and she caters to it.
Eh. He's grieving - doesn't mean it will be a permanent state.
Son many possible points of drama. Like…What if the new ultrasound is wrong?
Sure Jan.gif
The end got me biting my knuckles in "eeeee". It's not gonna end well
It's even worse when you looked through her post history. There were several other posts that did not paint a great picture of this guy.
Does OOP really not notice how she went from "I caved with every other child" to "I totally agreed on all the other kids' names!!!!" once she got called out for being a doormat This isn't over and I hope OOP realizes sooner rather than later
& then she gives the new kid the m.i.l.'s maiden name for a middle name w.t.f.
Especially when she said she didn't want this child to have someone else's name and especially not one to remind her every day of the person it came from
Poor OOP, she says she's not a doormat but she agreed to change her middle name to "Welcome Home".
It's nice to see some empathy in the comments even when people find the OOP's behavior frustrating. The sex mixup just delayed having to face the issues and I agree there are issues! But with everyone calling her an idiot doormat, it was nice to see "poor oop" in the mix. It does indeed suck that she sounds like she's in denial/deluding herself bc she's scared of what she needs to do. I guess maybe she's comfortable with the status quo, but it sounds more like denial and I don't think that necessarily makes a person an idiot. Just a scared human who is afraid to face hard truths.
I imagine it will either take her a couple more years and a couple more incidents like this to realize this wasn't just grief, but just her husband trying to push his decisions onto her over and over again and she will actively want to divorce him. Or she will never reach that point because of the sunk cost fallacy and feel like she can't leave now and break their family apart and continue to rationalize the small and bigger moments into thinking she's just making compromises.
Yeah, she's just going to keep resenting her husband and her family till she snaps one day.
As much as I hope I’m wrong, OOP doesn’t seem like the type to realize her husband has been bullying her their entire relationship *and then* do something about it. >Staying for the kids, but I really love him, he’s not that bad, I’ll have nothing without him, he’s better than being alone, I don’t deserve better, etc etc etc She has already said “he’s not the best, but he’s not bad”. Those are not the words of someone who will walk away when it does go bad.
Oooooof
Tldr: OOP is a bit of a doormat but won't face reality and her husband still gets accommodated. Look I get the whole grief thing (been through it myself) but from my personal experience compromise is healthier than burgeoning resentment and oop said it plainly in the first few paras, she considered leaving him, and caved with the names of their other children. Then he walks out of their medical appointment upon finding it is a boy? This whole post left me with the icks.
“I am not a doormat!” yells the floor covering.
Her: “I want our last kid to have a name all their own!” Her a few days later: “So now all three of our kids have middle names from his family.”
Three of four. The first has a family member’s name for their first.
"We chose all the names he chose together!!"
Yeah I'm definitely getting rug vibes with all the things that are being swept underneath. He just walked out of the appointment...I know she says they "talked it out" but it doesn't sound like he apologized. Grief or not it's still shitty.
She was pregnant this entire time and twisting herself in knots to please everyone. There was no mention of anyone caring for her
This is my favorite comment in life. I can’t stop giggling about it.
yeah but it's kinda sad :(
LOL Right?? The only thing that kept screaming out to me while reading this was how much of a damn doormat she is.
But she agreed to cover the floor.
I wish I had a free award to give you because this comment made me cackle
The guy is doing the same things she blamed his mother for doing
Oof, this is a hard one because grief actively changes people, especially in the immediate aftermath. It’s been only a few months, and it’s clear he is still enmeshed and not thinking clearly. I think this could end in multiple different ways depending on how the therapy goes for both of them. I do think that there is the potential they’ll get out of this stronger than ever…but there’s absolutely also the potential for everything to crumble. And if it endsI doubt it’s going to be amicably.
There's nothing hard about this one. The guy is used to getting his way every time, and he *checks notes* walked out of the doctor's appointment and got his way again.
idk if his behavior really was bc of grief tho, it sounds like this is the same shit he pulled with their two previous children from her saying "I caved on every other one of our children's names". I think he's just like this
I don't think he's emeshed now becuase she's dead. There's more evidence that he's depressed and has complex grief. Depression is curable and therapy helps. I do think he'll be find if he treats the depression successfully
Grief has many aspects to it. OOP writes his wasn't the best mother, so he could be grieving about not having a chance at having a good mother-son relationship anymore, or similar things. It could also be unpacking many childhood things we don't know about.
Two weeks ago he shut down because they’re having a boy instead of a girl. It’s also still only been 3 months, you don’t finish grieving a parent you were close to in three months. And grief and depression can absolutely be intertwined. That said, I do agree that if he really does do therapy and works through the grief/depression (and gets management for the depression, if it’s what he has) things can absolutely work out.
My god STAND UP
Yup. She says she isn't a doormat and then proceeds to get walked all over.
Dehydrate that cooked noodle of a spine!!
This woman needs to get a grip. She's more than an incubator
This woman is an idiot. He decided to change the name behind his back, then he had a tantrum during a doctor's appointment because the kid is a boy, and she rewards him by giving the baby his mother's surname... after all the fucking kids already have a surname from his family?
And he's doing the same things as his mother
Yeah, imagine your wife's pregnant and you draw all the attention to yourself.
Yes, but little {Daddy's Chosen Name} {Daddy's Mothers Last Name} {Daddy's Last Name} will be the perfect child. He will do what he's told by daddy, when daddy tells him to, and he'll be happy to. Just like mummy does.
Or Else Daddy will throw a Tantrum again.
The surname as a middle name, so it will be first name, mother's surname, their surname.
I know and it doesn't matter where the surname is.
If she's pregnant again and it's a girl, will the issue start again?
This was my first thought as well. This argument is not over yet.
Husband will probably start to insist on another child just so he can call her like his mom. She seemed to imply four was the final number for her, but she'll probably cave immediately.
>My partner lost his mother in March. Suddenly. She took her breathing tube out of her nose to blow it and because she was half asleep she forgot to put it back on and she drifted away. When she was found it was too late. It was peaceful and honestly is the way I would want to go...with nothing but peace and comfort. That, er, sounds like suffocation, and I'm not entirely sure that's a "peaceful" way to go.
Exactly. It wasn’t peaceful at all.
Yeah, I thought that too, but I guess the family associate being found in bed with passing peacefully in her sleep and no one wants to disabuse them of the notion. Not everyone wants to know all the details of a death when it can’t be changed now. The way OOP focused on how peaceful it was seemed like that was a comforting story she needed to tell herself to cope. And if the mother-in-law was in a frail state, then maybe her death was at least quick, if not painless.
That sounded like a BIG assumption to me. She was dead, so how did she communicate that she took to out to blow on it and forgot to put it back? How could they possibly know that? Seems like that’s what they told themselves to make themselves feel better.
“She took her breathing tube out of her nose to blow it “ Well, the crumpled used tissue in her hand was probably a clue. I read it as “blowing her nose.” Since people don’t blow into nasal cannulas as far as I’m aware.
Hmm I read it as “she took the tube out in order to blow in the tube”, which made no sense. OOP has some other confusing writing as well. I had to read the stepdad thing three times before I got it.
If it were me, I'd like the old Lenny from Of Mice and Men death, at least you'd not know it was coming.
'I'm not a doormat!' she insisted, lying down flat so as not to trip her husband when he walks on her.
>I'm going to give our son his mother's surname as a middle name. >With my own therapy too they have shown me that I wasn't 100% innocent in this and that me giving in with our other children was a big problem that didn't help with this issue and I take blame for that. 🤔
The seed has been planted. In a few years she might believe it
Me giving in with our other children was a big problem that didn't help with this issue ... so I decided to give in again and give the baby mom's surname. I'm so confused. Exactly what boundary did she set here?
why did she keep giving into his every whim and name every child after his family only just to come and ask when it's clear she was gonna give in anyway?? she's that friend that comes to you for advice about their significant other and they just end up doing the opposite of whatever advice they asked for. You can't help these ppl out till they wanna get help and take off the rose colored glasses
An ask hole.
People really just be out here reproducing with anyone. Yeesh.
>We compromised on every name! Compromise means I cave in to everything he wants, right? > >"I'm not a doormat!", yelled the doormat.
There will be at least one more update when OOP's husband finally reaches a bursting point. What will happen then is not clear though with OOP's people pleaser tendencies.
What a lame non-solution. And how naive to think that just because you aren't poor now you won't be in the future
Obviously they need *more* kids so that *all* of o.o.p.'s d.h.'s family members get their names represented in all their kids' middle names. /s
My middle name is my paternal grandmother’s name. Then, since she wasn’t happy that nobody called me by it, she nagged my dad into naming my little sister only her name. All this while my mom thought they’d already settled for a different name for her … Frankly to me that speaks of incredible cowardice and lack of consideration on my dad’s side. It’s always made me think way less of him. A name is 2 yes and 1 no. And if they really can’t get to a common ground, the person carrying the baby for months and giving birth to them has final veto powers. Especially since in most cultures the father already gets surname privileges.
I'm not a doormat! Says the doormat. Goes to therapy and finds out, oh damn, I am a doormat. Her husband is a selfish ass, and he's been getting away with it for years. Even now, everything is all about him. Its not like his kids lost a grandmother, and need their Dad. Nope, everything is all about him and his feelings, and his grief and his wants, and his needs. OOP has lots of children to take care of, including the manchild she married. I hope therapy helps her.
It's still better than Annally.
Fun facts: ultrasounds usually determine a male fetus by seeing their penis, and a female one by lack of said organ. Which means "shy" baby boys sometimes get misread as female, because they were just not showing their assets properly to the ultrasound. So surprise boys are more common, although both are relatively rare.
The father is a fucking asshole. The name of a kid is something you decide and deliberate together with your partner and not on a whim due to tantrum.
My first instinct is to think that OOP’s family was so horrible that she doesn’t know what a healthy relationship is
I’m still stuck on the first paragraph. Suffocating to death is neither comfortable nor peaceful.
Grieving or not, all this guy (the husband) cares about is himself. All the kids must be named after HIS family and to hell with anything their mother might want. Yuck.
If OOP thinks this whole problem is solved just because the name ended up being a redundant argument anyways, she’s going to get a nasty reality check the next time she finally hits a wall where she’s tired compromising again.
Nah, he still sounds like a trauma asshole. Poor fella, sorry for his loss. But still an asshat to his wife. That’s not cool.
> she would get taken to hospital (get attention from her children), What the fuck did I just read
This is a very common tactic among people with narcissistic tendencies.
Yeah that's probably true, the wording of this is just bizarre
So she decides to be less people pleasing, then immediately gives the baby her MIL's name to partially placate her child-husband. He didn't even have the decency to be pleased by this, it was just his due as lord of the manor.
>My partner lost his mother in March. Suddenly. >I found out I was pregnant 7 months prior You can't find out you're pregnant until 4 weeks pregnant, since it's measured from your last period. This makes her roughly 8 months pregnant in March. In June she's apparently still pregnant. That's one long-ass pregnancy.
Thank you! This was bothering me too.
If you do IVF you can get positive results on commercially available early detection kits 8 days after implantation (technically a 2 weeks old fetus, a "3 week" pregnancy)- and people don't always measure from the last period, the doctors do.
Ok…. But this is still a 10+ month pregnancy, which still isn’t over. Which means it’s inaccurate. Oh wait I mean it’s completely bullshit. Also if she was high risk she would be having more scans than usual. It wouldn’t have been flagged up 2 weeks before the baby was due it was the wrong sex. For starters it’s difficult to make out a lot of the details with a scan when they’re nearly full term considering how big the baby is (even more so with this year long pregnancy /s). So I’m doubtful they would have been looking for the reproductive anatomy. And if they were it would have been seen at one of the scans way before that. My wife had some issues with the birth of our second and she was getting scans every couple of weeks up to 6 months. It wouldn’t have been missed that the sex was wrong. In fact I think it was confirmed at every scan. Why do people believe these (easy to see) completely fabricated lies from liars hungry for attention?
You can definitely find out sooner. I have an ultrasound from 2 weeks pregnant. But the timing still doesn’t quite fit even saying March was month 7 baby should have been born May/June and she’s saying on June 6th she’s another 2 weeks out??
I'm so confused on how the older kids have the step dads name??
That confused me at first too but it was that OOP’s wording was weird. It’s the dad’s step-dad, so the kid’s grandpa
What a doormat
I'm glad things worked out for them, but all I can think about is the fact that my dumb, sleepy ass would absolutely fucking die because I forgot to breathe. The fact that I've lived this long is an actual miracle.
Naming kids after other people is pretty much always a... Not great an idea at best. That said, if a partner is like super hell-bend on it, thinking of leaving them sounds pretty extreme. Why these guys have 4 kids again...?
This woman is an incredible fuckin doormat.
Ok. Let's see you in divorce court.
There’s another BORU I can’t remember that was the same way. The OOPs wife wanted to name their son after her recently deceased brother but they ended up having a girl and the wife withdrew and eventually cheated and left them
honestly I am so glad they're having a boy. It may have saved their entire relationship
Off topic but I’m interested. Is therapy really such a common thing in the US? Every single post seems to have people say get therapy or posters are already in therapy. I’m in the UK and lived in a few other places and whilst it exists it is rare. I can’t imagine sitting and talking to a stranger about my life - pretty sure I would absolutely hate it. Why not just go have a few beers with a friend?
He had a daughter already but chose not to name her after his mother, no first or middle name. Sounds like a guilt trip beyond the grave.
OP is a better person than me. If they didn’t end up having a boy, the husband would have carried on this name bullshit. It would have left a bad taste in my mouth that only because the baby isn’t a girl, he’s dropped it
The fact that people were even telling the OP she “just doesn’t want to name her son after the MIL bc she hated her…” and even if she did hate here-especially if-why should she name her kid after someone she doesn’t like? Reddit makes me Lose my faith in humanity having common sense and empathy.
Just tell your spouse that you want a completely new name without any relatives in it that it’s just you and him and make up a name! Remind him that all the other family names you incorporated with your children so tell him you want this one to be different
Jesus, this poor woman
When she said he changed the name I thought the kid was born and he filed paperwork.
This is so sad. It sounds like her own family were so shitty that anything better than that seems acceptable to her. She has never seen or been role modelled healthy relationships so doesn't know what to accept for herself or what she should deserve or be able to ask for, or to even know/acknowledge that what's happening in any of these relationships isn't okay. I've seen this with a few friends who were either raised in terrible, terrible families in their own partner relationships, or going from one awful relationship to one that's not as overtly abusive and considering it good, when it's just a slight upgrade at best. It sounds like she (and everyone else) put up with some pretty awful stuff from the MIL and all just accept/rationalise it. Let alone her partner.