Christmas cards addressed using my husband's first name

(Btw, I'm thinking of debts like council tax. I don't know how it works if you're not married but I know we're both liable for it now, even though on my own I wouldn't have to pay it at all.)

If you're married, you do actually have some responsibility for each other's debts.

But in any case, the joint account isn't really the point (except insofar as it's good to have equal access to shared money IMO) - I can't pay in a cheque if it's not addressed to me. I even tried taking in the marriage certificate to explain why I was getting cheques addressed to 'Mrs Hisname', but no go.

Well, actually, dh and I have never had a joint account. The only time we ever had problems paying in a cheque was when we received one payable to Mr and Mrs DH because neither of us could pay it in.

I may be an old dinosaur, but I have always had my own money and financial independence.

No, you're incorrect. If you get a parcel at the depot not in your name, providing a different name at the same address is not sufficient. I know from experience.

The issue with cheques is social - I've found that people will insist on addressing cheques to me using DH's name, and are then offended when I say I cannot pay them in. In practice, what we did was to open an account in what people assume is my married name, but even that wasn't easy.

Do you seriously expect that you'd correct people if they sent a cheque using the wrong name, but not if they addressed other mail to you using the wrong name? Isn't that just a recipe for confusion and hurt feelings.

Bit of a red herring LRD.

Cheques are financial instruments, not part of social exchange, so one asks for them to be reissued. Parcels require matching ID to addressee - something easy to manage providing you are at the same address. These are not problematic scenarios.

I'm just wondering ... all the people who imagine it's 'the correct form' ... what do you expect me to do if you address a parcel or a cheque to me under my husband's name? I won't be able to pay it in or pick it up from the depot, will I?

It's not 'correct' - it's rude and occasionally very inconvenient.

I have an exotic surname; it belongs to DH although before that I had my own exotic surname.

Handdived: You tease! Who is it?

Pornmonkey, I only deduced that it was because marriedinwhite apparently places such great store by etiquette. So it seemed impossible that she might wish to gracelessly insult someone who is trying to help her- which actually is what I was doing. That would make her quite the hypocrite, and I'm sure that can't be the case. It would also make you a bit of one too, since you apparently agree with the etiquette arguments she make but feel the urge to try and see someone insulted.

So I am saddened, nay troubled by your cynicism. Especially during this, the festive season.

Convention can (and should) be changed as times progress. Otherwise we would all be walking around in corsets, not showing our ankles, not being able to own property or have financial independence and our husbands could legally rape us.

But hey, convention must trump rudeness and the right to be addressed by your own name.

Lollygag how do you know I am not married to someone famous or someone with an exotic surname?

Well not famous exactly but a local councillor.

I've noticed that most women are strongly principled on this.If it's Gerald from the office who wants to marry them they want to keep their own name but if it's Leonardo di Caprio then it's goodbye to ms Smith and hello Mrs Di Caprio
Really? What a strange comment. How many people do you know who've married someone famous?

I've noticed that most women are strongly principled on this.If it's Gerald from the office who wants to marry them they want to keep their own name but if it's Leonardo di Caprio then it's goodbye to ms Smith and hello Mrs Di Caprio.

Blimey I can't believe can't see how rude it is to address people by a made up name rather than their real name. My name is not, never has been nor ever will be Mrs Husband's Forename Husband's Surname. I have my own (very unique) name, if you could be so kind as to use that.

I have found this problem has increased the longer I have been married. It would seem that people humoured me to begin with and obviously the longer I am married and the more children I have the more my name (and by implication my life) has morphed into my husbands.

My father has always seemed to overlook the fact that I never even changed my surname. I left it, thinking choose your battles. However having read some of the antiquated and downright dismissive views on this thread I will tackle him over how insulting it is to call someone by a name other than their own. Strange how men don't go through the indignity of being a name different to their own due to "convention" (which is bunkum anyway, ignorance is more accurate).

I actually agree with MarriedInWhite as well. Convention, not insult.

good posts marriedinwhite but I fear you are in a minority of one here...

flange it's not a compliment to be compared to a 17 year old in this context, honestly...

I had this ruck with my mother when she was sending out invitations to our wedding. She was insistent that this is the proper way to do it; I was insistent that times have changed.

Ironically, I caught it when she was addressing a card to my feminism lecturer and her husband, as "Mr and Mrs Jack Turner".

Given that my teenage years are sadly behind me, I shall take that as a compliment. You being so fond of good manners, I'm sure it couldn't possibly be intended as anything else.

FlangelinaBallerina how like my 17 year old son you sound.

Ah married, I thought you'd pounce on the talking shit part and pretend this is somehow worse than deliberately calling someone something you know is offensive to them. You did. How predictable. But no, the use of an Anglo-Saxon scatological term is not in the same ball park as not even allowing me my own first name. I could list all the swear words I know, and I know fuckloads, and I'd still be only a drop in the ocean in comparison.

As for etiquette, do you genuinely think Debretts is the last word on these things? Because it isn't. Etiquette is about manners as well as customs. If someone has told a person that they wish to be addressed in a certain way, but the addresser still persists in using a term they know the other person finds offensive, they are being deliberately rude. If you do not do this, then it doesn't apply to you, but if the cap fits, wear it. Additionally, etiquette is constantly evolving. Things that you thought were acceptable a few years back may no longer be so. Given that you are apparently such a stickler for proper etiquette, I assume you'll be mortified at causing offence and wish to tailor your behaviour accordingly, in order to avoid doing so. If you do not feel this way, then I venture to suggest that actually, perhaps you care about maintaining a particular mode of address rather than etiquette itself.

Is it bleating to want to be addressed by you own name? Really?

The insistence on being correct, but flexible enough to accomodate the wishes of others, it reads as though people are demanding to be addressed as 'the lord high poobah grand vizier of spray cheese' or something equally bizarre, and you are humouring their mad whims, as wrong as they are.

I don't think it is bizarre, or demanding, or incorrect to expect that people will address you by your own name. It is strange to think that there are people who will do so, but who are congratulating themselves at how tolerant they are, and smirking to themselves that it is incorrect

I am foreign, and I find such customs fascinating (graceless and crass, but fascinating).

Chibi read the posts and tell me who is being inflexible. I have merely said it is the correct form; I have not said I would not be flexibile, neither have I said any one is talking shit. How very odd that those who bleat about how they are addressed and how rude they perceive the correct form are those who have the ill grace to fire insults. Do you not see who is being rude here.

Would you be happy to recieve a card addressed to 'unreconstructed, inflexible dinosaur'?

I understand this is the correct form of address. At any rate, as long as someone was thinking of you (albeit not highly, or tbh very much at all)

It rather depends who you mix with I think.

If I am not aware that someone wants to be addressed as Mr F and Mrs S Jones I will adopt the default position which is actually the correct form of address. If someone wishes to be addressed by an incorrect form I shall address them in the manner of their choice - for married couples I believe it is often "the Jones family". If they do not tell me, however, they have no right to take offence. If I happen to make a mistake and forget to make a note in the family address book or change next year's labels I would consider it rude if they pulled me up when I had been kind enough to think of them and to send a card.