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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not want to be addressed by my husband's first name?

85 replies

makeminemango · 20/12/2011 21:00

Okay, tail end of a huge argument here. It started when I disagreed that a friend addressed her Christmas card to us as Mr and Mrs husband's first name then surname. This has come up before when FIL sent a package. DH gets really put out and says that I am not following protocol. I just don't agree that I am Mrs husband's first name then our joing surname; okay Mrs Makeminemango surname. I just think its a bit archaic....

OP posts:

MsEltoeNWhine · 20/12/2011 22:56

You'll love this. Today I got a card addressed to 'The bitofmynamebitofhisname Family'

Say I was Smith and he was White. It was adressed to the Shite Family.

Love that form

Ateallthepurpleones · 20/12/2011 22:58

Oh dear, it's what I do as it's what I was taught was the correct way of addressing an envelope and I'm a pedant, rather than an old fashioned fuddy duddy . I can totally understand though how people might feel about it. So if you don't do it like that, how do you do it?

ShengdanRoad · 20/12/2011 23:01

If I ever received a card or letter addressed like that, I would send it back with "No-one by the name of Mrs. S. DanRoad's Husband lives here".

It's appalling!

fifteenfiftyfive · 20/12/2011 23:01

Ateallthepurpleones, I just address stuff as I'd guess people want to be addressed.

For example, PILs are quite traditional, MIL would be offended if I did anything other than the Mrs Joe Bloggs way (not that it crops up often, but last year I did post them rather than take them in person due to not being in the same country).

But to my friends, to the ones I do write, I'd just go with what I think they'd like, and if anyone corrects me I'd just change it in future. Off the top of my head, most of the postal cards I've sent this year have been to, e.g. Jim and Jane Bloggs. No titles or anything.

So I think the correct way for these days is whatever makes your audience comfortable/what they'd like. I figure I can't go wrong with that tactic!

Feminine · 20/12/2011 23:10

When one marries you are traditionally seen as one and

its still a relatively new thing not to take the mans name though isn't it?

As I said, I really don't mind.

I kept my maiden name and put it with my married name

Ateallthepurpleones · 20/12/2011 23:16

I can't think of a single friend who would be bothered by what I put on an envelope. I can't say it would bother me either. I had no idea people got this worked up about it.

Would you really send it back ShengdanRoad? I suppose I've always assumed that the sentiment and thought sent in the actual card, and the words inside were what were important, not what's on the envelope.

It's given me food for thought anyway, and something to ask friends about.

Rollergirl1 · 20/12/2011 23:21

Ateallthepurpleones: I feel exactly the same way! I couldn't give a shit how the envelope is addressed. I just check it is for us and then tear it open. Honestly, all these people that fret over the envelope. Someone has sent you a christmas card. They didn't have to. Stop fucking whining, seriously!

perplexedpirate · 20/12/2011 23:32

I haven't got my husband's name or my father's name.
Can someone just reassure me that I exist...

LotusPalm · 20/12/2011 23:33

YANBU!

I absolutely loath it, and so do most people I know. Maybe it is a generational divide. Both my dh and I double barrelled our name and still get things addressed this way. We also get mr and mrs his surname, which I can forgive, but mr and mrs his/first name our-surname drives me round the bend!

ClaraSage · 20/12/2011 23:35

The current correct etiquette is,
Mrs A and Mr J Smith (if you use your H's surname)
Ann Whatever & John Smith (if not)
or The Whatever-Smith Family.

Beveridge · 20/12/2011 23:45

What's in a name?

Quite a lot, actually. When you think that Xmas cards are supposed to come from people who supposedly know you and are interested in you, then I think it speaks volumes when they can't bloody remember that you didn't change your surname when you got married or think that it actually doesn't matter what you yourself would like to be called, they will just call you whatever they feel like. It's downright rude.

And even if I had changed my surname, I sure as hell wouldn't have changed my first name to that of a bloke!

In Scotland it's much more traditional to keep your own surname anyway, taking your husbands name was an English custom that spread slowly during the centuries after the Treaty of Union in 1707.

ClaraSage · 20/12/2011 23:49

Same in Ireland Bev.
Not one of my former class mates has taken her DH's name, very easy to re connect with oldies on facebook !

Rollergirl1 · 20/12/2011 23:53

Beveridge: But it's the envelope that your beautiful, heartfelt card came in, telling how much of a friend you are, and how they love you. Do you really feel that depressed about it? The envelope? Does it spoil the card for you? The message that someone has written for you? Really? That is very sad.

Themumsnot · 20/12/2011 23:56

I have got loads of cards this Christmas addressed to Mr and Mrs HisSurname. I am not that person. Never have been and everyone knows it. It is really fecking me off tbh. What is so hard about writing two surnames on an envelope? Or if it is too much to cope with, why can't they just write mine?
OP YANBU at all, but you should have a good hard think about why you changed your surname in the first place. It's all part of the same thing.

Ateallthepurpleones · 20/12/2011 23:59

I'm either old or on a completely different wavelength. I'd never intentionally offend someone and anyone I send a card to knows that, they know how I feel about them as a person regardless of what I put on an envelope.

I used to get my name spelt incorrectly all the time. It was a hard name to spell. But someone had gone to the effort of sending me a greeting - that's what mattered, I couldn't have cared less about what they called me, and I feel the same about this. I'm with you rollergirl.

JollyJinglyJoo · 21/12/2011 00:03

Honestly doesn't bother me at all. I don't have time to look for offence where none was meant, tbh

Themumsnot · 21/12/2011 00:05

So you wouldn't be irritated if people kept sending you stuff addressed to someone completely different then? Seriously?

MardyBra · 21/12/2011 00:06

Just out of interest. What does one do with civilly partnered people.

For example, I sent a card to Mr and Mr Smith-Jones. Should I have chosen the name of one of the guys and sent it to: Mr and Mr John Smith-Jones. And, if that were the case, how should I have selected the man who was going to get his first name included?

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 21/12/2011 00:09

It gets the card to the door - it serves its function - beyond that it really doesn't matter.

I struggle to remember which cousins/friends are married and which are living together, without remembering all of their partners surnames as well. If I felt the need to bother my arse about it, the cards would never get sent.

Read the inside of the card that is the bit that matters.

Are you really so insecure you need validation of your decisions on the outside of an envelope?

Themumsnot · 21/12/2011 00:10

If they have officially double-barrelled you could have sent to the Messrs A and B Smith-Jones. Or Mr A and Mr B Smith-Jones. Or if they have kept own names obv to Mr A Smith and Mr B Jones.

Themumsnot · 21/12/2011 00:11

Funny how it really doesn't matter, when it is the blokes surname that always gets used as a default.

Ateallthepurpleones · 21/12/2011 00:12

They're not though. They know they're sending it to me, I know they're sending it to me. It's not like I feel they're saying I'm a non person, or it's a deliberate slight. It's just an envelope. I guess I just don't see it same way as those who don't like it.

MardyBra · 21/12/2011 00:13

Themumsnot - they haven't officially double-barrelled, but I double barrel them anyway, because they are a couple and I hope it amuses them.

It's a slightly tongue-in-cheek aside.

ClaraSage · 21/12/2011 00:13

Ask them what they want to be addressed as.

Ateallthepurpleones · 21/12/2011 00:14

I thought it was the use of the man's first name initial that was the issue.

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