Choosing a baby name is a huge choice with a lot of aspects to consider. Some parents have a very easy time deciding on a first name. Other parents, on the other hand, have no idea till the delivery and even after. Read the story to know what happened between this couple and let us know how you would deal with the situation.
Source: Reddit
My husband John 32m and I 30f got married 2 years ago. I’m John’s second wife, his first wife Isabel died 9 years ago in a car accident driving to an appointment. At the time, she was 7 months pregnant with a baby girl who they planned to name Rose. Rose also passed in the accident. John wasn’t in the accident, but he blamed himself for their deaths since he was working and couldn’t get time off to drive Isabel. Obviously this was very traumatic and he had to go to therapy for a long time to recover. He still talks about Isabel sometimes and has pictures of her in the house.
5 months ago, I found out I was pregnant. It wasn’t planned but John and I were still extremely happy. A few days ago, I went to the ultrasound appointment and it was revealed we’re having a girl. For the past few days, we’ve been throwing baby name suggestions around. However he came to me this morning and said he finally knew what our daughter’s name would be—Isabel as a first name and Rose as a middle name. I was taken aback for obvious reasons and asked him why. He looked at me weird and said that it was to honor his late wife and daughter.
This was surprising to me since we’ve talked about having kids before and he’s never mentioned wanting to name our kids after Isabel or Rose. I told him I wasn’t comfortable naming our child Isabel Rose since it would feel like we were trying to replace them. He kept trying to convince me and said that it would be like his late family could live again through our daughter, but I just want our daughter to be her own person and to not feel like she’s growing up in the shadow of 2 deceased people.
John got mad and accused me of trying to force him to act like Isabel and Rose never existed. I said that wasn’t true and that we would still talk about them and remember them with our daughter, but he said the best way to remember them would be to name our daughter after them. He also called me a hypocrite because I suggested my sister’s name(my sister is alive) as a middle name. I said that was different because our child would still have her own unique first name and I only suggested it because my sister is planning on being a loving aunt. Finally he called me disrespectful of the dead and that he wasn’t going to change his mind. He went to our room and hasn’t come out.
I consulted my family and friends and while most of them agree I’m not TA, a couple of them are saying John is grieving and I should just let him name this kid and I can name the next one. One friend who’s a therapist even said that this is John’s attempt to ease his guilty conscience, and that refusing the name could make him spiral into self-loathing. I’ve also started to get facebook messages from people I’m assuming are Isabel’s family(John most likely told them about the situation) begging me to name my daughter after Isabel because they want another way to memorialize her. I hate to disappoint her family since they’re grieving too, but I still don’t want to. Am I being selfish?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
