You can’t have healthy relationships without some type of boundaries. Even when it comes to your family (or perhaps especially in those cases), it’s essential to set a framework of what kind of behavior is and isn’t acceptable. When people cross that line, they must know they’ve messed up. There have to be consequences for terrible behavior. A stepmom telling her pregnant step-daughter that she’s going to be “a horrible mother” is one of those times.

Internet users were shocked to read a young mother’s story on the AITA subreddit, sharing how awfully her stepmom treated her once she found out that she was pregnant. It all started falling apart when the redditor refused to name the baby what the stepmom wanted. The family drama then got way out of hand, prompting the author of the story to ask the AITA community for a verdict on who was in the wrong in this case.

Scroll down for the full story, which reads like something straight from a tale from the Brothers Grimm with how awful the stepmom behaved, and share your opinions in the comments, dear Pandas. Who overstepped the boundaries here? How would you have acted in a similar situation?

There’s a lot of stress when you’re a mom-to-be. Unfortunately, not all family members are as supportive as you’d like

Image credits: MART PRODUCTION (not the actual photo)

A pregnant woman shared how an argument with her stepmom over the baby’s name quickly turned nuclear

Image credits: Sarah Chai (not the actual photo)

Image credits: stepmotheraitathrow

After the mom-to-be refused to bow down to her stepparent’s will, the woman went nuclear in the drama department. She showed her toxicity by trying to bring the pregnant woman down with her words. In short, the older woman tried to guilt her stepdaughter into giving in to her demands to name the baby.

Well, the young mom had enough and told her that she wouldn’t be around her grandchild in the future. The stepmother ramped things up by throwing out even more nasty insults. The cherry on top of this Cake of Awfulness was her saying that her stepdaughter would be a horrible mother.

While some of the people closest to the redditor supported her, others, including her father, were on the stepmother’s side. Wanting to get a more objective opinion on what happened, the OP turned to the AITA community for advice. Most redditors were clear about how the author didn’t do anything wrong and that she needed to speak with her father, alone, about the stepmom’s behavior.

Alex Scot, a relationship expert, previously told Bored Panda that boundaries lead to flourishing relationships. They help avoid the build-up of anger and resentment and form healthy expectations.

“Without them [boundaries], we live our lives at the expense of ourselves. The mindset for many when it comes to setting boundaries is that they feel selfish, or that they aren’t being a good partner when they implement them, so they avoid doing it altogether,” she shared with us during an earlier interview, adding that boundaries are needed in both romantic and familial relationships.

“This only causes resentment to build and overwhelm to set in both within the individual and the relationship as a whole. Boundaries are there for us to be able to take care of and to protect ourselves so that we can show up and operate within our lives as successfully as possible.”

According to Alex, the closer a person is to us, the more flexible we have to make these boundaries. We ought to be willing to look for compromises with the people nearest and dearest to our hearts. Meanwhile, we should consider setting strict boundaries for the people who don’t mean much to us.

The OP shared some more details in the comments of her post

Most people thought the woman did nothing wrong. Here’s exactly what they told her online

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