Fighting with your spouse is never a good thing, but when you’re arguing about your potential baby names sometimes the gloves come off. One man recently landed himself in hot water with the internet after admitting he changed his newborn’s middle name while he was wife was sleeping after giving birth.
The original poster and his wife had an agreement when it came to naming their kids.
According to his post on Reddit's AITA forum, the OP would get to name their first child and his wife would get to name their second.
“The only thing we didn’t agree on was middle names,” he wrote.
“My wife decided because she had carried the children she would decide both of their middle names,” he explained. “She wanted to pass on a family traditional name on her mother's side and wanted to pass on her paternal grandmother's middle name as well.”
With their first child, the couple gave their son a family middle name that’s passed down to the firstborn child.
And when his wife was pregnant again, the OP admitted he didn’t really care about their second child’s middle name … until his grandmother died.
“I asked her if we could give the baby my grandmother's middle name and she said no,” the OP wrote. “We fought but I gave up.”
But the OP couldn’t help himself when the nurse came in with the name papers while his wife slept.
“The nurse just asked if we had a name picked out,” he recalled. “I said yes and filled out the form with my grandmother’s middle name.”
When his wife woke up an hour later, the OP decided to come clean instead of hiding his sneaky secret.
“We got into a huge fight and she claimed she’d be changing it but she can’t because you need both parents to sign off on a name change,” he continued.
“It’s been three days and my wife is giving me the silent treatment,” he added. “Along with her visiting family. Even my family said it was a cruel thing to do while she was asleep. Am I the a–hole??”
Some people agreed: The OP made a big mistake.
“[You're the A–hole] obviously," wrote one person. "Your wife just gave birth and passed out and you use it as an opportunity to get your way in an argument? You two seriously need to work on your conflict resolution skills, this is so bad."
"[You're the A–hole]," someone else wrote. "I think your grandmother would be ashamed of you for being a sneaky a–hole. Your wife was probably still in pain after giving birth instead of being there to comfort her, you pull this move."
While a third commenter put it this way: "[You're the A–hole]. Whose last name do the kids have? My guess is yours. If both kids have a family name from you, it makes sense that she would want to pass down a family name from her side using the middle names."
But other people thought he'd actually been pretty smart.
“[Not the A–hole]," one person told him. "Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do."
"[Not the A–hole] and everyone else that says YTA is just straight dumb," another person commented. "You decided both that you can freely name each gender. She decided to name 'your child' one of the two names that you had the right to. Now you have the right to name the middle name of 'her child.' I don’t know why she is now toxic because she isn’t clearly accepting the deal you two made. Big red flag for me. Only fair to name 'her child' if she named 'your child.'"
"[Not the A–hole]," another commenter argued. "The father of the child has a say too. Just cause she carried the child doesn't mean she is sole parent of that child. Stop making father's second citizens to their own kids."
But no matter how right or wrong the OP was, he almost certainly needs to make things right with his wife.
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