A man was slammed after he refused to compromise when it came to the surname of his first-born child – he even admitted he was ‘questioning’ his marriage over the situation
Baby names can cause chaos when family or friends hate your chosen moniker – but it’s even worse when two parents-to-be can’t agree.
One man’s condition for having children was that he wanted his bundle of joy to have his surname – but when his wife had her say, he was left seriously ‘questioning his marriage’.
The couple are at loggerheads about what to do, as the wife wants their baby to take her surname because she’s “an only child of two only children”, and doesn;t want to be the last in her family to have her surname.
Taking to Reddit to anonymously share his dilemma, the bloke said that he “understood”, because he too is an only child, but neither of them wanted to hyphenate their surnames as their last names are “long” and “do not go well together”.
He asked others whether he was in the wrong in this situation, writing: “So my wife and I are finally financially at a point where we want to be trying for a baby. When we married 7 years ago she really wanted to keep her last name as she is an only child of two only children.
“She will essentially be the last of her name in the near-ish future. I am also an only child so I understood as I also want to keep my family’s last name going as well. Neither of us wanted to hyphenate as both of our last names are long and do not go well together.
“When we got married we agreed that even though she was keeping her last name our firstborn would have my last name, and the secondborn would have hers regardless of gender. I thought that was a fair compromise at the time and so did she.
“Well, now she has been saying she wants the firstborn to have her last name and I can have the secondborn. I wouldn’t care all that much if it wasn’t for the fact we are now in our late 30s and the odds of her being able to have multiple children is much lower than if we had started trying for kids almost a decade ago when we first married. I’ve told her she knows what she’s doing and this isn’t what we agreed on before we got married. She said that she knows but since she’s the one who would have to carry the child she should get first dibs.”
The man explained that he was “not okay with this”, and suggested hyphenating their child’s last name – but she said it would be “ugly” and that if they “do have a child it’s going to be her last name.” He continued: “While I told her that I’m not quite sure that’s how the law works where we live, if she isn’t willing to make that compromise then I’m not comfortable having a child with her.
“She got really upset by this and said I was being selfish and that if we didn’t have a kid my name wouldn’t live on anyway. I told her the same would apply to her and if she isn’t willing to compromise and hyphenate it looks like both our names will die out. We’ve been really upset with each other the last few days, and this has me questioning our marriage as it seems to me she is being selfish and self-centred about a pretty major thing.”
In the comments, people were confused about why such a big thing was being made of the situation, with someone even writing: “Please don’t have kids together”, stating that their “bickering” wasn’t ideal. Another fumed: “I agree 1000%. This has to be the most vain, vapid, stupid s**t I have read on Reddit to date. Hyphenate the damn name and get over yourselves.”
The man was accused of “making something out of nothing”, and he was even called “stupid” for allowing the argument to continue and questioning his marriage over something “minor”. “Seriously, they don’t even have kids yet and this is their source of contention? No one’s going to give a rat’s a** about anyone’s ‘line'”, someone penned.
“Seriously. Who gives a s**t about your last name? You are gonna die eventually and I promise you nobody will care about your last name”, a Redditor pointed out, and someone else even said that they needed to see a counsellor together to sort out other issues, writing: “If you can’t agree on the name, you’re going to have a hell of a time when it comes to the rest of parenting. You both need to go talk to a relationship counsellor/mediator because it seems like the bigger deal here is with your communication.”
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