Sahar Mourad
Family & Pets

“This is too serious to let go”: Name change furore divides family

A new mother has been left fuming after finding out that her husband changed their baby’s name without her permission.

The woman took to Reddit to vent her frustration and explain how she and her husband had already agreed on a name. 

Prior to agreeing to the name, her in-laws pressured her to name their baby son after her husband’s late brother. 

“After waiting for five years, I finally got pregnant with my son,” she wrote in her post. 

“There was so much fuss about the name choice because my in-laws wanted to use my deceased brother-in-law’s name.

“My husband sided with them and insisted we go with it, but [after] seeing their obsession with it, I refused.”

After suffering complications during childbirth, the new mother had to extend her stay at the hospital while her husband dealt with the papers.

It was only a few weeks later when they received the birth certificate, she found that her husband had deceived her and named their son after his late brother. 

“When we received the birth certificate, I discovered that he put brother-in-law’s name and not the one we picked.

“I lost it and had a breakdown then I shut down completely,” she said.

“I stopped talking to him after telling him that I won’t speak to him until he changes the name.”

She said the husband didn’t care at the beginning and even told her “good riddance” but changed his tune when she completely shut him out. 

“Days went by, he’s now turned to full-on begging me to speak to him over and over.

“He said he had to do this otherwise his family would shun him.”

Her husband tried to convince her why it was a good idea to name their son after his late brother, even giving her a paper with a list of pros.

“He handed me a paper with all the ‘pros’ of keeping this name, explaining that our son will be the ‘golden grandchild’ and my in-laws will favour him over the other grandchildren because of his name.”

The mother was also promised money, inheritance, a car for her newborn son but she refused to accept the name. 

“I don’t want my son to be my brother-in-law's surrogate,” she said.

“He offered me endless nicknames, a second middle name choice but I wasn’t having it.

“Eventually, he broke down crying calling me stubborn and difficult, also called me selfish, robbing our son of a good life and good future provided by his grandparents and said I was driving him crazy with my silence.

“But I feel like this is too serious to let go. I’m just doing it for my son.”

Image: Shutterstock

Tags:
baby, name, mum, dad, argument