A man noticed his older sister seemed to have an unhealthy fixation with his husband. While he admits his husband often receives compliments, his sister’s reaction goes beyond what they’re comfortable with.
But after his sister announced the name of her newborn son, he turned to the Relationship Advice subReddit for feedback on how to handle their relationship with his sibling.
Redditor throwra3456346 posted:
“My sister named her baby after my husband. I don’t know how I feel about it.”
He explained:
“Possibly important context before we get into it: I’m 25 M[ale], my husband is 24M, sister is 27 F[emale]. Sister and I were close as children but had a huge fight over our parent’s divorce as teenagers, didn’t speak for a couple of years and then have had a fairly wobbly but mostly okay relationship since I was 16 and she was 18.”
“So yeah. The husband and I met at university when we were 18 and had a very sappy ‘love at first sight, immediately knew he was the one’ kind of romance. We’ve been married for nine months now and he really is my soulmate and best friend.”
“Now, husband is one of those people who everybody just loves. Like he’s super kind and funny and friendly and outgoing, people just like being around him and I’m used to being told how awesome he is.”
“I also semi frequently get comments about how good looking he is.”
“I know I’m biased, but he really is supermodel gorgeous, so those aren’t surprising either. The fixation my sister has with him, however, goes a little beyond what I’m used to.”
“Ever since the first time she met him she’s had this schoolgirl like crush on him which borders on creepy. She talks about how hot he is but not in a normal, passing comment kind of way.”
“She regularly gushes about him, especially in cases like when he gets a haircut or buys a new shirt or gets a new piercing or something. She’s also made several jokes over the years about stealing him from me and how they were probably meant to be in a different life and how he mostly likes me because I’m ‘basically the boy version of her’.”
“To top it all off, she has explicitly mentioned while drunk that the only reason she fancied her husband in the first place is because he looks a little bit like mine (honestly the resemblance isn’t really there, they’re both just tall and lanky and blond). I’ve largely brushed it off as joking but it does make me and my husband both quite uncomfortable.”
“So the current problem.”
“Two weeks ago, my sister gave birth to her first child, my nephew. And she named him after my husband.”
“It can’t even be passed off as a case of her just liking a common boy’s name that just happened to be my husband’s name; we live in England, but my husband is Ukranian and has a pretty distinctive name.”
“Like, I’m sure there are other guys with his name over here and it’s quite a common name in Ukraine, but I’ve personally never met anybody else with his name and I’m certain my sister hasn’t either.”
“I asked her why she chose that name and she said she just thinks it’s pretty, though she couldn’t tell me what it means and actually technically misspelled it on the birth certificate so there’s that. Husband and Sister aren’t really close at all so it’s not like she chose his name to honour their bond and it’s not like he’s ever done anything extraordinary for her to warrant that kind of honour.”
“Idk… under any other circumstances I’d probably buy the ‘I just think it’s a pretty name’ bit, but her weird fixation with him in mind it feels a bit…odd, you know?’
“I really don’t know how to feel or what to do or how to approach this. Any advice on any of it is helpful.”
Redditors were equally disturbed by the sister’s comments and behavior.
“Wow. So, since she can’t have him, she’s made a mini version?” ~ DietCOKAY
One Redditor suggested the brother and his husband cut her out of their lives for awhile.
“My gut reaction to reading this was a big ol’ YIKES. Have you considered going low/no-contact with your sister?”
“If not, I can understand that, but it might be time to start stepping away if her obvious obsession with your husband is making the both of you uncomfortable.” ~ dovahgriin
The Original Poster (OP) replied they had considered that option.
He also revealed the reason he and his sister were estranged previously.
“Yeah I’ve considered cutting her off again. It’s unrelated and kind of a non issue but the bust up we had as teenagers was largely because she sided with our father, who physically abused our mother and I and sexually abused me, in the divorce and I’ve never quite forgiven her for it.”
“We started talking again when she realized what a monster our dad is and apologized to mum and I, and I mostly maintained contact with her for mum’s sake. But this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back to go [no contact] again.”
Another Redditor told the OP to look at his sister’s behavior alone.
“I’m assuming you’ve considered the HUGE white elephant in the room…”
“Assuming that that is not the case, you may want to consider that her behaviors sound similar to a stalker. Stalkers are not a monolithic group.”
“A common taxonomy for stalkers divides them into 5 types (of course there are other ways to group them, but the key point is that they are not all necessarily boiling bunnies on the kitchen stove):”
“1) Rejected stalkers like former partners;”
“2) Intimacy-seekers who want an intimate relationship with the person;”
“3) Incompetent stalkers who think if they try hard enough, it’ll eventually lead to a relationship;”
“4) Resentful stalkers who are trying to frighten or have some sort of real or imagined vendetta;”
“5) Predatory stalkers who are preparing for an assault.”
“Your sister seems to be demonstrating a few behaviors in common with a few of those categories.”
They then recalled something the OP wrote in their post:
it’s not like he’s ever done anything extraordinary for her to warrant that kind of honour.
“Victims of stalkers seldom do anything to warrant the attention. Is her behavior escalating and becoming more obsessive?”
“More aggressive? I’d say naming her kid after your husband reflects a huge escalation.”
“You may want to do more research into stalking and learn about some strategies to manage it if you’re the victim and also ways to help the person doing it.” ~ Veridical_Perception
Other Redditors relayed similar sentiments. The OP did not provide an update, so it’s unclear if he has made a decision on how to proceed or is still trying to decide.