Blended families can get complicated when someone wants a title that doesn’t really fit.

So, what would you do if the stepfather who once made your teenage years miserable suddenly started calling himself your baby’s grandfather? Would you correct him right away? Or would you let it go until it really became an issue for you?

In today’s story, one new mother finds herself in this predicament and needs advice. Here’s the story.

AITA for not wanting my stepfather to call himself my childs ‘grandfather’?

My parents got divorced when I was a pre-teen, and I moved in with my mother and her new partner (now husband) for 6 years. This time was strained.

I won’t go into all details, but there was some affection between myself and my stepfather.

However, there was also a lot of passive-aggressive and controlling behaviour on my stepdad’s side. He once locked us out of the house out of spite, comments on any woman’s body, including mine, and he name-calls my actual father (he is an idiot, etc.).

Her mother tries to help her see it from her stepfather’s point of view.

But the worst part is that he always insists I am his ‘daughter,’ even though I never called him my father. I have a good relationship with my biological father and my mother.

When I was 18, I moved out quickly to get away from the toxic situation at home with my stepdad, and I am quite happy since I now have my distance and can live my own life.

I am now in my mid-30s and have sometimes raised old topics, but there has never been much understanding, even with my mom, who is listening but won’t hear any criticism of her husband. She just reminds me that he loves me and had it hard as a child, and thus I should be forgiving.

Now, she’s upset because they keep calling him ‘grandfather.’

Now I have my own child (born this year), and when it was born, we asked all bio-grandparents what names they’d like (like grandpa, grandpops, nana, etc. – you know what I mean).

So we established those names, but never asked any stepparents (we have 4 stepparents since both of our parents got divorced and then remarried), since we did not feel it was the same thing, and we all just call them by their first name, including my stepdad.

Now my mom (and stepdad) have been visiting often since the baby was born, and I can’t help but be bothered that they vehemently call my stepdad ‘grandfather.’

She gets why he does it, but just thinks he does it too much.

I guess if they said it once in a while, I could just ignore it, but honestly, it is overbearing! As if to compensate for not ACTUALLY being my dad and the baby’s grandpa, he keeps calling himself ‘grandfather’ in EVERY sentence and cannot communicate normally.

What I mean is: Of course, when speaking with my baby, I also call myself ‘mommy,’ but I do not have to say that every sentence. I might say: ‘Mommy’s home,’ but them maybe ‘come to ME baby, I missed MY little love…”

In contrast, my stepdad would say, ‘Here is your GRANDFATHER! Come to your GRANDFATHER, GRANDFATHER has missed the baby…. etc.. And my mom is chiming in and doing the exact same thing, calling him “grandfather” all the time.

So, now I don’t know whether I should let it go, or if it’s right to be bothered by the behavior.

AITA?

Wow! It’s easy to see why he acts like this, but it may be taking things a little too far.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think about this whole situation.

This woman went through something similar and stopped it quickly.

According to this comment, you can never have enough grandparents.

For this person, she needs to speak up.

She should consider this.

All in all, this is harmless. As long as he treats the child right, she should choose another battle and let this be.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.