First-time parents who named their baby boy in keeping with a family tradition have decided five months later to change their son’s name, causing a huge family rift.
The new dad took to a forum to explain the situation, and to ask if he and his wife are doing the wrong thing.
“My wife and I had our first baby five months ago,” he explained. “We’ve been together for six years, married for five. He is a beautiful little boy and we gave him the same first name as my wife’s father, ‘Keith’.”
But the 24-year-old dad says his wife’s relationship with her father is complicated.
“My wife grew up hating her father for cheating on her mother and abandoning the family. In the past decade, he worked tirelessly to improve their relationship. In her family, it’s typically tradition for the first grandson and granddaughter to be named after their grandparents and my wife was proud to name our son after her father.
“However, a few weeks ago, my wife and her father had a MASSIVE argument.”
The new dad explained that he and his wife became pregnant not long after she gave birth to their baby, and she opened up to her dad, saying she was worried about the unplanned second pregnancy.
“Turns out, her dad is convinced that for some reason, I am going to cheat on my wife. He thinks we got married too young and I’ll get bored of her now that she’s devoting all her time to our son.”
It caused a huge argument, and a few days later, she had a miscarriage.
“Essentially, he kicked her while she was already down for no reason. I had a friendly relationship with him but I know he wanted my wife to marry someone from her own background.
“Since the argument, my wife has not been calling our son by his name. She’s using nicknames, calling him ‘the baby’ etc. She said that she needs time to get over the argument with her dad, but she also blames him for the miscarriage which is something I don’t think she’ll get over. My father-in-law has made no attempts to apologise or reconcile.”
After a month of the new mum refusing to call her baby by his name, the couple decided they needed to change it, to help protect her mental health.
“If this argument continues or is ever brought up again, she can’t be too upset to use his name when he’s old enough to actually know it.
“We’ve started the process now to change the name and somehow it got back to my father-in-law AND he knows that I suggested it. He is infuriated. He said that I was supposed to be the levelheaded one since my wife is postpartum and recovering from a miscarriage and that I’ve just made their rift a million times worse since I’ve denied him the family tradition.
“My in-laws think I’m an asshole for insisting on the name change since now it’ll be even harder for them to reconcile. I don’t think I am but my brother said it would be a good idea to get an unbiased opinion. So, am I the asshole?”
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