To some new parents, naming their baby after a loved one who died is a beautiful way to honor their memory. But as one woman on Reddit recently pointed out, that isn't always the case. According to the anonymous post, her father and stepmom crossed a major boundary line when coming up with baby names for their unborn twins — by choosing to name the babies after the woman's siblings, who died in a tragic accident.
The Reddit poster lost her siblings about eight years ago when she was only 19.
On top of that, her mother was also killed in the accident, which meant that she basically lost almost her entire family in a single day.
After their loss, she and her dad only had each other to lean on. And although they used to be very close before the accident, they've since drifted apart, which has made things even harder.
Now that she's 27, she has a bit more perspective on the situation.
"I think some of it has to do with the fact I look a lot like my younger sister," the woman confessed. "She was always close to my dad and we would often joke she would take care of him when he got older.
"My father also isn’t really a 'believer' in therapy and refuses to go," she added. "When I started going to therapy a few months after the accident, he said that I should be stronger and, 'Stop giving people the satisfaction of seeing you weak.'"
But things didn't *really* start to get tense until he met another woman.
"He remarried two years ago, [and] his new wife and I don’t get along," the poster shared. "Some things she’s done include telling my father not to invite me to the wedding, telling him I was bullying her children because I refused to let them have an unsupervised party at my beach house, and I also told them they can GTFO if they continued to treat the staff disrespectfully."
(Oof.)
At the time, her stepsiblings were 17 and 18, so you might be able to chalk some of the drama up to normal teenage stuff. But the tension with her stepmom? Well, that seems to be an ongoing issue.
"When she married my dad, she was also under the impression that the money he spent on her and the house he lived in was his," the poster continued.
In reality, that wasn't the case, but it seems as though the stepmom made some assumptions that her dad didn't exactly correct.
"My mom left me a nice amount of money in her will and I used it to invest and also work in the tech field so I’m well off," she explained. "However, considering my age, I don’t think she was expecting this and I don’t think she was very pleased either."
All of this hasn't been easy, but things really came to a head after she learned her dad and stepmom were expecting twins.
"At their gender reveal party … my dad announced they will be naming the kids after my dead siblings," the poster wrote matter-of-factly.
Needless to say, she was shocked by the news.
"I interrupt to tell him that naming the twins after my siblings is weird," the poster wrote — at which point, her stepmom apparently told her to "stop being jealous."
Spoiler alert: That comment didn't exactly go over well.
But the poster didn't just end it there and walk out. Instead, she unleashed a flood of thoughts and emotions she'd been keeping back for a while.
She told him "how hurt I was he didn’t invite me to his wedding, how he never once said he was proud of me or even a thank you or I love you after I bought this house for him," she wrote. "And I basically said that if my siblings were here, they’d be disappointed in him and ashamed to call him dad since he’s been a pretty s—-y one so far."
That's when things escalated even more.
"My father told me to get out of his house and as I am about to leave, his wife comes up to me and I kid you not says, 'Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.'"
Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say in this particular moment.
"So I walk back in, tell my dad that he and his wife had a month to leave my house," the poster shared.
"Well, the wife started crying, Dad said I was pathetic, and her family has been messaging me telling me to apologize," she went on. "My friends and family on both my mom and dads side agree with me, although they think I should let my dad stay and kick his wife out."
At the end of the day, she really wants both of them out and seemed to believe she had every right to say what she said.
Then again, she also can see that she reacted "a bit emotionally" and is starting to "feel bad for stressing a pregnant woman" — even if that woman is her slightly terrible stepmom.
In response, though, most Redditors were on her side.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of commenters told her she had every right to be upset. And, more importantly, every right to tell them to leave a home she paid for if she's going to be disrespected that way.
"Kick them out," wrote one person. "They shouldn't name their twins after your dead siblings. It's totally wrong because your dead siblings were born to your dad and mom, not stepmom. They need to come up with other name."
"Your stepmom is a piece of work," the commenter added. "I'm sorry for your loss of your mom and siblings."
"Kick the idiots out!" wrote another person, who got the sense that the stepmother thinks she's "entitled" to the poster's house.
A few people *did* try to play devil's advocate on one point.
But even in those cases, they still sided with the poster.
"In days long past, kids' names were re-used by parents if the first kid who had it died," wrote one commenter. "I don't think it's bad per se, however, given the fractious nature of the relationship between the dad, step mum, and OP, it's an idiotic and insensitive action."
"It was insanely common in the past (at least in my country), to name a new baby after a child that passed," another person added. "Although usually the deceased child wasn't older than maybe a couple years … Nowadays losing a child is so much rarer it just seems disrespectful to both the dead child and the new baby. Also sounds like someone needs therapy."
A few people also noted that the woman's father is definitely battling some inner issues.
"While it's tempting to blame the step-mum for everything, naming new kids after the ones lost is exactly the kind of unhealthy coping strategy I'd expect a person who rejects therapy," wrote one person. "I wouldn't be surprised if he came up with that idea on his own."
Others said the dad definitely doesn't sound like "the warm and cuddly type," which probably makes the entire situation even harder.
But most of all, people reassured the woman that she shouldn't feel guilty one bit for putting her foot down.
"It doesn't matter [if the stepmom is] pregnant," one person wrote. "She got cocky and has been deliberately ruining your relationship with your father. Their stress is literally their own fault. I hope you stick to your guns and update us at some point!"
"NTA," another person wrote. "In fact, you are my hero for today. Thank you for knowing your own worth, and the worth of the family you lost, in such an utterly s—-y situation."
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