The man started his story, saying that his wife and he spent four years trying to get pregnant before the wrong side of 35. They are currently 33 respectively now and are blessed with a wonderful infant son. The man’s wife has a younger half sister that she has been LC with for some time.
The man described his SIL as an entitled and toxic woman, and also her mother’s golden child. He wrote that they’ve refused to let her or her MIL in the house since they both blatantly tried to make off with his wife’s jewelry box a couple of years ago.
The box contained a lot of valuable jewelry inherited from his wife’s grandmother. Said jewelry is now in a safety deposit box as per the man’s suggestion.
The man and his wife were blessed by a baby after a long period of trying.
The man’s wife and him had nearly given up trying to conceive when it suddenly happened. And they were ecstatic. After the spouses found out they were having a boy, they started looking into names.
The man wrote, “I ended up suggesting the name of my Scottish grandfather, and my wife loved it. So that’s the name we settled on. But we made the mistake of posting about it on social media. Well no surprise to the stereotype in this mess, my SIL was pregnant too. And was months further along than my wife and also having a boy.”
What happened next, was the SIL’s shameless act that totally destroyed the man’s trust in something good in her.
He wrote, “She decided to claim my grandfather’s name for her own son. And not just the first name, but the middle name too. We called her pissed over what she was doing, and she smugly told us there’s nothing we can do about it. Which she was sorta right. There was nothing we could do about it legally, as it’s still not a crime to steal planned baby names.”
The family drama continued with even bigger tension.
The spouses realized that drama was exactly what the man’s SIL wanted. And she thought that by taking the name for herself, they’d not be able to use it. The man laughed and told her that while what she did was dirty and underhanded, they would keep their chosen name. And she could just deal with it whether she decides to go through with copying them or not.
The man revealed that the drama proceeded in a very emotional way. He says, “Well, my SIL’s baby-daddy called me and said I was an unreasonable person for still wanting to use the name after SIL claimed it. I said she claimed nothing. And since we couldn’t own the name, then neither could they. Before he ended the call, he threatened me by saying I’d be sorry if we didn’t change the name. Then he hung up before I could respond.”
Months later, SIL had a healthy baby boy and named him the man’s grandfather’s name. They did not show up for the birth. As the man explained, because they simply didn’t care to be there. SIL called them wanting congratulations. But they told her they simply didn’t care. And that if she was still insisting they change their baby’s name, then she’d be in for some big disappointment because they were not.
The man wrote, “SIL demanded I put my wife on the phone. But it was already on speaker, and my wife spoke up and said she agrees with me entirely. We weren’t changing the name. SIL hung up on us, but soon started sending emails with text walls of names. Even suggesting similar ones. I responded back that the name was from my grandfather, and that’s why we were not changing it. She shut up, and we didn’t hear from her again till after our own son was born.”
SIL and her husband were trying to push harder, but got nothing.
Two months later, the couple was blessed with their son. The man writes, “He came out perfect, and we named him just as we’d intended. Well, no surprise, my SIL called us a few days after the birth to scream in our ears that we copied her son’s name. I pointed out she was the real copycat since she had no familial ties to the name and we did. And anyone who looks at our family trees could see that. Then my wife spoke and said after the attempted theft of her grandmother’s jewelry, she no longer considered SIL her sister. And would have nothing to do with her nephew, either.”
For months, they were bombarded with messages and emails from her wife’s side of the family. Half were on their side after finding out the whole story, the other half were not. And SIL’s husband true to his word showed up at their door to “Make them sorry”. The man told him their house has cameras, and to get off their property and never come back. He just yelled a few obscenities at him and drove off in his beat up old car.
SIL and MIL called them from a different number to yell at them for being rude to SIL’s husband. Then they tried to bring up the issue of the baby name again and demanded the couple change their son’s name as “He’s so young. So there’s still plenty of time to do it!”. The spouses held their ground and told them that they were not very clever to still think they were in the right after they copied their choice of name just to try and get one over on them.
The shameless SIL had to admit she lost the battle.
The man continues his story, saying, “SIL called us again some time later to bitterly tell us we’d won. She and her Baby-Daddy got in a huge fight and he left. He was apparently very sore that SIL didn’t let him even give their son a middle name from his family. And he said he was sick of the fights and wanted his son named after him and not some guy he wasn’t even related to. SIL finally caved, and they got the boy’s birth certificate reissued with a completely new name. Which cost SIL around $500, or so she claims.”
The man’s SIL even demanded they compensate her for the name change, plus another $100 for the emotional damage, as now she was going to have to get used to calling her son by a different name. The spouses just laughed and said this would have never happened if she hadn’t stolen their baby name to begin with, and they didn’t owe her anything.
And here’s yet another story of a woman who totally hates her friend’s baby names, but her friend just won’t listen, and the woman needs advice if she’s right or not.