A woman questions her sanity after years of disparaging her first name from her in-laws – and wonders if it’s too ‘extreme’ to cut them off completely.
Flora always loved her unique name and often goes by the nickname ‘Florry’ – but her husband’s parents ‘hated’ it and started calling her ‘Florence’.
‘My legal name is Flora. Not Florence. Even at work my colleagues call me Florry. I will reply to Flora or Florry. But ever since I first met my in-laws two years ago, they’ve been so weird about my name,” she shared in a post on Reddit.
The in-laws asked her “a hundred times” if her real name was Florence, and demanded to know why her parents chose to give her a nickname as her legal name.
‘They find it very annoying that I use Florry and prefer it to Flora. They don’t understand why a professional woman would use such a youthful sounding name, and every time they heard it they said they were expecting a six-year-old woman and not a 28-year-old woman.”
Flora always liked her unique name, but her husband’s parents “hated” it
Flora and her husband distanced themselves from his parents because of the disagreement.
“Every time we see them at family gatherings, they call me Florence. The first time I really hoped they were talking to someone else. But no, it was me.
‘My husband told me to ignore them if I wanted to, and I did. My husband’s siblings all think their parents are ridiculous and they all call me Florry in an attempt to tease their parents.’
It all came to a head during New Year’s Eve when Flora’s in-laws invited their friends over to mock her.
‘Among other things, they and their friends all called me childish because I refused to answer Florence. My husband got so annoyed that he went up to them and told them they were being ridiculous when Florence isn’t even my name.
‘They told him that Florence could be seen as just another nickname and that I was being unreasonable and rude.
“I felt very strongly about it, but to be honest, the anger and the way they talked about me made me wonder if I’m being unreasonable and if I shouldn’t just let myself be called Florence.”
Many shamed Flora’s in-laws for being disrespectful.
“Every time they say ‘Florence’ you correct them and worry about their ‘mental decline,'” one person suggested.
“If someone purposefully called me the wrong name and had a nickname they hated, I would definitely fight fire with fire until that behavior stopped,” wrote a second. “These people know they have no respect for their child’s partner and they do it anyway.”
“It’s not your name, and their obsession with it is absolutely absurd. I would just never see them again. If they can’t show you even the slightest bit of respect by using your real name, then they’re worthless people,” one man wrote.
But some couldn’t understand why Flora was being ‘difficult’ about the situation.
‘It’s just a name. My name is Patricia, but so many people call me Petra, or Peppermint Patty, or whatever. I am more than my name, my name does not define me. They could call me Drusilla, but I wouldn’t care. Chill,” someone said.
“It’s rude on your part to refuse to answer when they’re talking to you,” said another.
‘Is it really REALLY that big of a problem? My name is not very difficult to pronounce and is only six letters long. It’s failed so many times that I’ve honestly stopped correcting people who are honestly too stupid to get it right,” a third shared.