Should Only One Family Member Be Able To Use A Term Of Endearment?

Getting to peek behind the curtain into other people’s family dynamics can be totally wild, and eye-opening, too. No two families operate exactly the same way, and sometimes we don’t realize how unhealthy things are at home until someone else points it out.

This woman is one of four siblings, and her older sister has been an issue in their family life for some time.

It all revolves around wanting/needing attention and generally the older sister will try to “one up” the experiences of the others, even when those experiences are huge – like a marriage or birth of a child.

She’s also flighty about relationships, which will be important later in this story.

Some background: my (28f) older sister (33f) has a habit of making everything about her, has done our whole lives, we are 2 of 4 siblings (another sister and a brother).

For example, my wedding 4 years ago she had a massive fight with significant other and then announced a pregnancy, 2 days later told us it was a false alarm and she was just late, when I announced my pregnancy she announced she had broken up with her significant other, less than a week after I gave birth to my daughter she announced she was engaged (to a different guy, that she has since broken up with as well).

She has also done similar with other family members, including her own children. She has 3 children from 2 different dads and has been engaged and broken up with 3 different guys in the last year.

On a recent video call meant for family members to get some face time with OP’s infant, the older sister too offense to her calling her daughter “my love.”

Her new boyfriend calls her that, so it’s weird if it’s also her niece’s nickname.

We had a family video chat to catch up so everyone could see my daughter (4 months old), no one has had a great deal of face to face contact due to restrictions and distance, some family members have yet to meet her in person. I use lots of nicknames for my daughter, mainly bubble, poppet or a shortened version of her name (think izzy if her name was isabelle), but occasionally use terms of endearment such as, sweetheart, my darling or my love.

While on the video chat my sister asked me not to use my love as her new boyfriend calls her that, she’s been ‘talking to him’ for about a month and is now apparently moving in next week.

OP, who is nicer than I am, said she wouldn’t use the endearment around her sister.

That wasn’t good enough, as the sister would like her to never use it at all, and insulted OP when she refused to agree to the terms.

I apologised and said I wouldn’t use it around her, thinking this was reasonable. She said no, I had to never use it again, I wasn’t allowed to call my daughter that and she found it really inappropriate as it really should just be used in a romantic setting.

This confused me and I refused, I said I could call my daughter whatever I pleased and I would simply avoid using the term in front of her. She got very defensive and went on to insult my parenting skills.

OP fired back and her sister left the call, and now OP is wondering if she went too far.

Here is where I may be the AH, I told her, just because her new guy couldnt remember her name long enough to use it, and chances are none of us would put the effort into learning his, doesn’t mean I need to change what I call my daughter.

She flipped out and left the call, some family members are on my side, some say I was too harsh, am I the AH in this?

Let’s hear what Reddit has to say about these family dynamics, eh?

The top comment suggests just ignoring her the next time and doing your best to move on.