It's official - I no longer exist!

[DrSeuss]

Another batch of cards this morning addressed to the mystery woman who lives in my house. I did not take my husband's name on marriage thirteen years ago, although I have no problem if others want to do so. I could understand if people addressed cards to X and Y Thingy, but what's with the whole Mr and Mrs X Thingy? My initial isn't X, my surname isn't Thingy. Et voila, I have ceased to exist! Most of these come from DH's family, who were at the wedding. I have learned to spell one Polish surname, one Italian and one Japanese in order to address cards to in-laws. Is it really asking too much for them to learn one simple English first name and a very short Scottish surname? I Know it's only a little thing but I do find it annoying!

DH and I are both Dr. I changed my name when we got married, so you'd think MIL could address us as Dr and Dr [no initial] Jumpjockey. She insists on it being Dr and Mrs X Jumpjockey (where X is his initial). I find this bloody annoying, since to begin with I wasn't even going to take his name and now I've been completely subsumed. I'm not Mrs X Jumpjockey, I'm Dr Y Jumpjockey. And strictly speaking since he's medical and I'm a PhD it really ought to be Mr and Dr Jumpjockey, but that never washes with her...

YANBU

Mrs Husband'sinitial Husband'ssurname? WTFingF???????

Jumpjockey, that would really annoy me! Not so much because of the name thing but because you worked so hard for that PhD! DH is a Dr of chemistry and I know what went into that. And you are right, yours is actually the one that gives you the right to be addressed as Doctor, his is purely a courtesy title. I always think hard before addressing a card to a friend who is a PhD married to a vicar. Strictly speaking, a vicar always comes first so I put his title and his initial, then her title and initial, then their joint surname.

morning!

I saw this one first:
SantaIsMyLoveSlave
"I might be more inclined to think "Oh how kind" if I didn't repeatedly read comments here along the lines of "I cannot be bothered to write out every single surname". My surname is only four letters long; if a someone really "can't be bothered" to write it out once a year then my instinctive reaction is, surprisingly enough, not to be touched by how much I evidently mean to them. "

that's a very fair point!
and from my POV, very apt! my surname is THREE letters long and DH's is FIVE. surely easier to address it to me than to him!

JumpJockey that would feck me right off too Why is your work less worthy of respect than your DH's? I'm sure you worked jolly hard for your Dr title - why isn't it recognised! oOoooooh I forgot. You've got a fanny. Silly me!

Jumpjockey's example would annoy me too - it's one thing not to use the 'Dr' title outside work and I wouldn't complain about anyone not using it at all. But to use it just for the man and not the woman

My parents were both PhDs and got things addressed to Dr and Mrs, my mother is far from a feminist, in fact very traditional in most ways, but she was always annoyed by that - she earned her title just as much as my father did!

Intriguingly, if she's writing to just me (eg birthday cards) it comes in the right form. So maybe it's only joint things where one has to become little wifey? Hmmm, I see a study forming...

DrSeuss I wonder what happens to unspeakable traditionalists if they're faced with female vicars! "I should put Rev. and Mr, but whose intial? Hers or his? [explosion]"

how odd!

unspeakable traditionalists drive me nutty.
tradition shouldn't supercede manners, just as Mrs shouldn't supercede Dr (if that's your title)

One of my DW's aunts has taken the mis-addressing to an extreme by sending her a card addressed to Mrs X Nocake.

Firstly, her correct title is Dr.
Secondly, she uses her own surname not mine.
Thirdly, X is not her initial or even my initial. It's the initial of my shortened name.

Three errors in one name is a pretty good effort

Sorry to disillusion you - but it will never change. Even after 15 years my Christmas cards come to Mr and Mrs Funny name with sexual overtones. This is why I didn't take DH's surname and never will.

But I do struggle with some other halves of friends/family. I'm writing Christmas cards now - I have labels and generally put the first name of the person I don't know the surname for ... following by the first and last name of the half I do know. I've stopped taking offense now - cos it's just nice they still send me cards when I haven't seen so many people - as I'm just soooooooo busy!

your DH's surname is CockSucker?

I teach a child whose name is Cockburn. We were being nice and pronouncing it Coburn but he corrected us. Then we found out that his dad is active in the local BNP chapter and we called him a sight worse than that!

My friend is married but did not changed her name and had hours of fun when contacting the gas board. The had no systenm for grasping that even if she was married to Mr A, who set up the gas supply when they moved, she was not Mrs A but was Miss B. They would not talk to her if she refered to herself as Miss B as they could only discuss an account with the spouse of the account holder. And then there's my colleague, the newly married Mrs C-D. As Mrs C, she was left a widow with two children at a very young age and on remarriage to Mr D, felt that it was important to her children to keep a name in common with them. What would traditionalists make of her?

htat makes more sense than my MIL, who remarried when her DH died - she had 3 children with his name, and she married DH's dad and took his name, then had DH, who also had his name- so she had 3 children with one name and 1 child with another.

would have made more sense to make DH's dad change name, but that's not how it was done then.(or each keep own name - gets more complicated when DH would have a different name too)

"My friend is married but did not changed her name and had hours of fun when contacting the gas board. The had no systenm for grasping that even if she was married to Mr A, who set up the gas supply when they moved, she was not Mrs A but was Miss B. They would not talk to her if she refered to herself as Miss B as they could only discuss an account with the spouse of the account holder."

I had something similar a few years ago - DH had a voucher which could be used by DH or legally married spouse. I wanted to use it (quite significant value). At that time, we'd continued to be known as Ms. X and Mr. Y. both before and after the ceremony. it was only later that we both double barelled.

So..... knowing the naming issue would be a problem when I checked in, I took my marriage certificate, 2 photo IDs, mobile number of DH, and ensured I took the purse with our wedding photo in.

They still refused to believe that, because MY photo ID was in Ms. X name that I was the legally married wife of Mr. Y - despite the wedding certificate! Because the idiot on the front desk insisted it would be illegal for me to keep my own name.

This was a few years back, mind, but still! Manager sorted the front desk person out, but it still makes me laugh - the idea that I was trying to steal it from DH, but the only issue they had was that my surname didn't match his!

It probably just saves them space on the envelope, life's too short to get annoyed about such things.

"life's too short" = "it's never bothered me, so stop complaining, your reasons must be trivial"

my mum trained as a secretary back in the days of manual typewriters, and she was given 'the list' of how to address people. according to her (back in the 60s) women were not supposed to use a title, even if they had one, if it out ranked their husband.

so, women who were given a life peerage, should only be addressed as 'dame' when alone, once their husband was around (ie joint cards) they should be mr & mrs again. that way the man, the 'top rank' would always go first.

when we were having this discussion, and i was pointing out that things are a bit different now, 50 years on, she replied 'i think you'll find that debretts says differently' in a snippy voice.

yes, right, mother, cos we are members of the landed aristocracy, and refer to that all the time when addressing our christmas cards.

Oh GOD yes, my ex's mother keeps ringing up my son's paediatrician, and changing my name to hers! At least, it's the only logical conclusion I can come to, as her name is Mrs Ex'sSurname, and my name (as everyone has always been told) is Miss Colditz and furthermore, always has been as I have never been married!!!!!!!

The presumption that I've taken my husband's initial annoys me. Very much.

kickassangel - shocking that women collude in this nonsense!

Planet, I'm sure Kickassangel's mum is not colluding in anything! That is just the way she learnt to do something "correctly" at the time.

If you are going around thinking there is a big conspiricy, which men and even women are colluding in, you are really really wrong.

Maybe she did learn that at the time, but has feminism totally passed her by? I stand by what I said.

What makes me laugh is when some relatives of mine started sending me cards as Mr and Mrs

I had a big row debate with my dad prior to our wedding when he tried to insist we wrote place cards as "Mrs Joe Bloggs."

But then, he is stuck in a 1950s time-warp.

To refuse to address an ordained minister as Rev is rather rude! Would they have treated your father the same way? Did they not agree with women priests or was it the whole not-outclassing-the-bloke thing?