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Original poster

SIL baby name drama

146 replies

SILdrama · 25/09/2023 15:23

NC because potentially outing. I will try and keep this fairly simple. There are some extra details which I won't go into for now but there is no backstory of any rows with SIL, who we have always got on OK with until now. BIL is DH's brother and SIL is DH's brother's wife.

DH's brother and his family live in the same town as us and until this year we saw each other regularly. DH and BIL have always been very close and our DC are close in age.

Our second DC was born in January and since then my SIL has not seen or spoken to us. We have seen my BIL and their DC but less frequently than usual. For a while we were busy with newborn life and had other things going on but after a while it started to feel really weird that SIL had still not met our DC or even congratulated us.

When DC was 6 months old DH confronted BIL and asked him whether there was a problem. It turns out the problem is that the name we chose for our DC2 is one of their DC2's middle names, which I knew beforehand, and so we should have understood that the name was off limits and we shouldn't use it. I did know this beforehand, but I didn't think it mattered, given that it is a very popular top 10 name, and that they gave their DC1 the same first name as another family member. Apparently we were wrong and it matters very much to SIL, who hasn't spoken to us since.

Their confrontation was about two months ago and we hadn't seen BIL since, but he continued to be chatty enough on family WhatsApp groups and like pictures of our DC etc. We are certain that all of this is coming from SIL and not BIL. Yesterday we were all invited to Sunday lunch at PIL's house and everyone was there except SIL. BIL's DC1, who is 3, came up to us and loudly demanded to know why we had stolen his little sister's name. This was glossed over in the moment, but last night DH sent a very angry message to BIL saying that it was not on for them to be saying these things about us in front of their DC, that SIL's behaviour is very childish and that no one owns names, especially not middle names.

DH is very upset and so are PIL. There has been zero drama in this family for as long as I have known them.

Who is in the wrong here? And how do we go about fixing it?

OP posts:
TheMurderousGoose · 25/09/2023 16:45

I bet she's one of those people who has lots of former friends who allegedly betrayed her.

OddlyFramed · 25/09/2023 16:48

She’s loopy. My SIL does this, gets her kids to make jokes at our expense/say things that she knows will kiss us off but won’t reply to as they are kids.

Snowonthebeachx · 25/09/2023 16:52

This is wild!!
I wouldn't pander to her at all. Like other posters say just ignore. Certainly not your job to reach out!

If her child does bring it up again (also so inappropriate) then you say "no darling you can't steal names. Lots of people have the same name,"

If we ever have a DD she will maybe have the same middle name as one of her cousins as I have always liked it. Think it would give them a nice shared bond too!

flexigirl · 25/09/2023 16:54

Your SIL is a fucking nutjob . Hopefully her husband can sort it and talk some sense into her or she is going to single handedly split up the whole family. What an absolute knobhead ! God I'm livid for you OP 😂

Brefugee · 25/09/2023 17:06

Teach the 3 year old all the swear words?

SIL is batshit. BIL is a dick.

Poor PILs .

willWillSmithsmith · 25/09/2023 17:09

People are funny (peculiar) aren’t they. To get so wound up by a shared middle name is immature and she sounds batty. She must have lived a very charmed life if this has got her in knots. Personally I’d be flattered if a family member or friend chose a name I’d already used.

ZoeCM · 25/09/2023 17:12

Your SIL is insane! I can't think of any possible way in which this could affect her life (or her son's, for that matter).

It reminds me of bridezillas who complain that someone else is getting married the same year as them, or even - gasp! - at the same venue. They are vastly overestimating how much people care about their wedding, just like your SIL is vastly overestimating how much time people spend thinking about her son's middle name.

makeminealargeoneagain · 25/09/2023 17:15

cooldarkroom · 25/09/2023 15:53

I would tell BIL to tell his wife to grow the Fuck Up.

Exactly this

Original poster
SILdrama · 25/09/2023 17:20

willWillSmithsmith · 25/09/2023 17:09

People are funny (peculiar) aren’t they. To get so wound up by a shared middle name is immature and she sounds batty. She must have lived a very charmed life if this has got her in knots. Personally I’d be flattered if a family member or friend chose a name I’d already used.

To be clear, they don't share the same middle name. We used one of their DD's middle names (she has two) as our DD's first name.

OP posts:
MariePaperRoses · 25/09/2023 17:24

I can only think that she wanted it as a first name but conceded to her husband when he didn't like it so it got used as a middle name.

So now she's taking it out on you because you got to use it as a first name!

🤷🏼‍♀️

Original poster
SILdrama · 25/09/2023 17:25

ZoeCM · 25/09/2023 17:12

Your SIL is insane! I can't think of any possible way in which this could affect her life (or her son's, for that matter).

It reminds me of bridezillas who complain that someone else is getting married the same year as them, or even - gasp! - at the same venue. They are vastly overestimating how much people care about their wedding, just like your SIL is vastly overestimating how much time people spend thinking about her son's middle name.

It's funny you should say that. They got engaged immediately after our wedding and married the following year. My other BIL and his now wife announced their engagement not long before BIL and SIL's wedding and now I come to think of it they were a bit annoyed about that because they felt other BIL should have waited until after their wedding. Whereas we didn't see the issue and thought they were being a bit precious (but we didn't get involved at all).

OP posts:
TheFormidableMrsC · 25/09/2023 17:28

Good Lord, she'd have conniptions in my family! We've got 3 different names that have been used 3 times each on one side of the family. So we always have to explain which "name" we're talking about. Her behaviour is bizarre. Nobody owns names! Is she jealous that you had another baby??

Damnedidont · 25/09/2023 17:28

My two nieces were born within days of each other - and have the same first name.

Furryrug · 25/09/2023 17:32

The only way to deal with stupid, is to ignore it.

Original poster
SILdrama · 25/09/2023 17:33

TheFormidableMrsC · 25/09/2023 17:28

Good Lord, she'd have conniptions in my family! We've got 3 different names that have been used 3 times each on one side of the family. So we always have to explain which "name" we're talking about. Her behaviour is bizarre. Nobody owns names! Is she jealous that you had another baby??

I mean, she has exactly the same number of babies as I do, so...

OP posts:
mariaonthepier · 25/09/2023 17:34

Imagine alienating the whole family because of a top ten MDDLE name. She sounds very hard work. I would take the moral high ground and totally ignore it. No need for any angry texts or pandering or apologising. Just completely ignore her until she's ready to stop being such a twat.

OhhhhhhhhBiscuits · 25/09/2023 17:35

Oh I couldn't be arsed with any of it. Just go NC with the 2 of them and forget about them. She is being so petty leave them to sit in their misery together. They will be the ones missing out.

UsingChangeofName · 25/09/2023 17:35

Your SiL is clearly bonkers.
As others have said, I don't think I can even remember the middle names of all my nieces and nephews.
Even if I did, it wouldn't have stopped me using a middle name as one of my dcs' first names.
Nor would I be slagging off family members in front of a 3 yr old. That is really out of order.

No idea what you can do, other than continue to invited the whole family to things and leave it up to her to come to her senses or not, as she chooses.

Original poster
SILdrama · 25/09/2023 17:45

The only thing I can think of in her defence is that her DD has had some health problems this year and maybe she's out of her mind with worry about that and this has taken on a disproportionate importance in her mind. But I am not sure whether they were already aware of their DD's health problems when our DD was born. After we found out about that we assumed it was the reason she had been incommunicado for months and didn't push it at first.

But also on the other side, BIL and SIL conceived their DC1 on their honeymoon and had him 9 months later. DH and I were having trouble TTC our first child and seeing them succeed so easily was very painful for us but we said nothing and made a real effort to be happy for them and not spoil their joy in any way. They were completely unaware of this at the time but we had told them by the time our DC1 was born. They came round within a week of DC1's birth and SIL had tears in her eyes and said how happy she was for us, so the fact that she has refused to even acknowledge our DC2 over something so trivial feels like a real smack in the face.

OP posts:
ThirtyThrillionThreeTrees · 25/09/2023 17:52

Unless she has PND or something similar, I woud just ignore this. You did nothing wrong and can only control your reaction not hers.

That said, I probably would be tempted to buy her kids a drum and trumpet for Christmas!

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 25/09/2023 17:53

Justcallmebebes · 25/09/2023 15:29

Absolutely batshit. Them, not you

Agree

MrsClatterbuck · 25/09/2023 17:57

I have 2 cousins and we all three have the same middle name. There was no drama.
I have a relative who shared the same name 1st and middle with 4 cousins. Not aware of any drama. They each had their own variation of those names.

AliceMcK · 25/09/2023 17:58

Omg she’d be laughed out of both DHs and my family. My family is full of the same names, same with DHs, I didn’t even know his DFs real name for years as I never knew he used his middle name so his family could tell him and his cousin apart. Same with my DCs, one has the same middle name as all her girl cousins on both sides, was just a coincidence it’s a family name on both sides, same with one of my other DDs, she has my Nans, my aunties and my cousins first name and my mother, my DHs Nans, 2 of my aunties and DHs sisters name as a middle name.

towriteyoumustlive · 25/09/2023 18:11

SILdrama · 25/09/2023 15:23

NC because potentially outing. I will try and keep this fairly simple. There are some extra details which I won't go into for now but there is no backstory of any rows with SIL, who we have always got on OK with until now. BIL is DH's brother and SIL is DH's brother's wife.

DH's brother and his family live in the same town as us and until this year we saw each other regularly. DH and BIL have always been very close and our DC are close in age.

Our second DC was born in January and since then my SIL has not seen or spoken to us. We have seen my BIL and their DC but less frequently than usual. For a while we were busy with newborn life and had other things going on but after a while it started to feel really weird that SIL had still not met our DC or even congratulated us.

When DC was 6 months old DH confronted BIL and asked him whether there was a problem. It turns out the problem is that the name we chose for our DC2 is one of their DC2's middle names, which I knew beforehand, and so we should have understood that the name was off limits and we shouldn't use it. I did know this beforehand, but I didn't think it mattered, given that it is a very popular top 10 name, and that they gave their DC1 the same first name as another family member. Apparently we were wrong and it matters very much to SIL, who hasn't spoken to us since.

Their confrontation was about two months ago and we hadn't seen BIL since, but he continued to be chatty enough on family WhatsApp groups and like pictures of our DC etc. We are certain that all of this is coming from SIL and not BIL. Yesterday we were all invited to Sunday lunch at PIL's house and everyone was there except SIL. BIL's DC1, who is 3, came up to us and loudly demanded to know why we had stolen his little sister's name. This was glossed over in the moment, but last night DH sent a very angry message to BIL saying that it was not on for them to be saying these things about us in front of their DC, that SIL's behaviour is very childish and that no one owns names, especially not middle names.

DH is very upset and so are PIL. There has been zero drama in this family for as long as I have known them.

Who is in the wrong here? And how do we go about fixing it?

Your SIL sounds like a deranged lunatic!

To make peace, I'd get your DH to send an "apology" to his brother along the lines of:

"Dear X, It's a relief to finally know why SIL isn't speaking to us, but it would have been nice if you'd actually let us know what the problem was, as we genuinely had no idea. I'm sorry that you feel saddened that we used the name "PrincessConsuelaBananaHammock". We wanted a name that worked in both languages, and as your own child TinkyWinky has the same name as another family member, we are a little confused as to why using the middle name is an issue. We don't want to fall out over this, and had we known there would be a problem using this name we never would have used it. Perhaps we could meet for tea and cake to discuss this?"

At least this way the ball is in their court, and your SIL is going to look VERY silly (even more so) if she doesn't make an effort to get over this.

Phineyj · 25/09/2023 18:15

@MaudGonneOutForAFag I like the way you put that, very much. Going to repeat that to myself assertively next time my own BIL is being odd!