To Be Increasingly Irritated by PIL Insisting I have Name-changed on Marriage

[LessMissAbs]

When I have not? Small problem, I know. But they have completely ignored my not changing my surname on marriage. I have told them repeatedly I am still known by my original surname, but they refer to me as "MrsTheirSurname", send me letters addressed to MrsTheirSurname and have forwarded invitations sent to their address for DH and me, scoring out my surname and replacing it with theirs.

On challenging them, they told me "If you join this family, you take our name. Its not up for discussion". Except I haven't, and I'm not going to.

[EldritchCleavage]

It just isn't correct to override someone's expressed preference/choice because of what used to happen and appears in etiquette books. I find that quite an odd suggestion.

OP could have taken her husband's name, but she didn't. So whether one is addressing her individually or as part of a couple with her husband, she isn't to be called Mrs OPDH.

[squoosh]

Wow, this isn't just a case of them being a bit stuffy and traditional they sound positively aggressive. As for their comment "If you join this family, you take our name. Its not up for discussion", well I doubt
Debretts would regard such things as 'correct'.

If it was me I just wouldn't bite my tongue to keep the peace. I physically couldn't. I would be icy, icy, icy calm and explain to them in no uncertain terms that they were behaviour was rude, obnoxious and bordering on the bizarre.

I'd make them rue the day they decided to dictate to me ther terms of my own identity. Shut this craziness down!

[UniqueAndAmazing]

you're wrong.
your legal name is and has always been the name you habitually use. there is no such thing as a false name (the stage names you refer to are not the users legal bame because they choose them not to be)
yoyr maiden name does become defunct in as much as no one is using that name so it does not legally exist.
of course you can revert to using it if you choose (revert merely meaning to change to sonething you have used before)
there is no need for deed poll as all it is is an item of paper to help with the paper trail.
to revert to your maiden name, legally all you have to do is start using it.
it's easy to start the paper trail on that because you have legal documents in that bame (eg birth certificate). that starts it and then you just inform everyone else.

[LessMissAbs]

jeanbodel that's pretty much it!

Its obviously a specific type Doubtitsomehow!

If I raise the matter in person with them, it goes something like this: Me: "My name is . Them: "but in our house you are MrsOurName. Me: "No, that's not my name, its myname. Them: "belittling laugh then change of subject.

Or the ridiculous when I'm visiting. I answer the phone and say to MIL "theres someone asking for you". She will then say "Theres two of us, perhaps they're asking for you". Highly confusing and unnecessary.

Very against confrontation, but very into passive aggression. Its not a pleasant atmosphere when it goes like this. I don't see them that often so am just polite when I do, but I am going to insist next time.

Should be fun, they won't like it!

Btw I thought Debretts was all about making other people feel comfortable by using manners appropriate to the situation. And calling someone by the name they choose to be known as is certainly correct etiquette, "Mr and Mrs HisName" is simply the default position in the absence of other instruction surely.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

you?re totally right littlemissabs.


when they do the patronising laugh and change the subject change it back again.
and show them a copy of the latest debrett's with tgat page open.

[squoosh]

Bring some good old confrontation to the table, blow their pathetic passive aggression out of the water.

No offence but they sound like colossal tosspots.

[CheerfulYank]

Ugh! Beyond rude.

[Katisha]

I've had bloody banks insisting that when you get married it's compulsory to use your husbands name. I was incredulous that the person on the end of the phone thought this but it happened with two separate banks! Needless to say they didn't get my custom.

[LessMissAbs]

In 2012 Katisha? Seriously, that's sex discrimination, they should get their house in order.

[Katisha]

Yes it was a couple of years ago. Ultimately the problem was to do with me wanting to use two different surnames. I still use maiden name at work and keep some documentation in that name, but since having DCs it seemed easier to change to married name for some stuff. However I do rather wish I'd just stuck with one or the other as the bloody computers can't seem to cope with it.

[OxfordBags]

Unique, erm, what you describe about just going back to the old name and creating a paper trail is exactly what I described before you. So why you are telling me I'm wrong, I do not know. The stuff about false names is what my BIL always says on the matter, and he is a divorce lawyer, so I've always presumed he knows what he's talking about. If he's wrong about the legal/false thing, fine. But nitpicking over my exact meaning of the word legal is pointless, as I gave the correct advice to BProud when she asked how to go about using her maiden name.

Katisha, those banks should be named and shamed! Not only is it incredibly sexist, it's just not legally true and never has been, and they shouldn't be allowed to do that!

[EldritchCleavage]

PIL sound quite nasty, actually. The more I hear, the less I think it is about the name itself. It sounds like a control issue. If they gave up this one, they would pick another stick to beat you with.

I wonder if you and DH should talk to them together about showing you more respect. If left, there will come a time (especially if you two have children) when the impulse to bully and knock you causes real problems and can't be smoothed over.

[Kundry]

I've had a problem with banks being incapable of seeing that I have 2 surnames as I use both. Once I'd changed my name at Santander they refused to bank any cheques with my maiden name despite them clearly having the records to say it was me!

Result is I have another account with Halifax (having made sure I didn't tell them I was married) in my maiden name purely for paying in the odd cheque and I transfer it back to Santander.

Worst bit is I didn't really want to change my name, I haven't changed it in my workplace, DH couldn't give a toss one way or the other but as we don't live together I did it so I felt more like Mrs DH when he wasn't here. And I couldn't decide what to do about Mrs or Ms if I was using my maiden name - even the registrar gave up and said she'd announce us as the bride and groom after hearing us debate about it.

I wish I hadn't bothered now as it's been so much hassle but I can see it is even more challenging to the older generation who may not even have considered they had a choice - we got given cheques as wedding presents to Mr and Mrs DH, which we had to politely ask for again as we didn't have a joint account - so they were sent to me as Mrs DH when I hadn't changed names yet - so more polite asking and general bafflement amongst family members as to what sort of weird marriage we had.

When I rule the world all women over 18 will be entitled Mrs and that will be an end of it

[LemonBreeland]

MIL is being rather PA with the telephone stuff. She is forcing her opinion on you. I see no reason not to ge PA gack.

[prettybird]

What about that old MN favourite, "Did/do you mean to be so rude?" with a sympathetic smile?!

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Oxford/Unique I'm not 100% sure what the situation is post marriage (i.e. reverting back having used married name) but - my brother had one name on his birth certificate but had been known by a different surname for his entire life pretty much. So his passport, bank accounts etc etc were all in that second surname.

He eventually (in his 30s) decided to revert to his original name. In his case, he had to either change it by deed poll (which he didn't do) or make a sworn declaration which he did have to have witnessed/stamped formally. I think it was done at the local Justice of the Peace. He did need a "new" piece of paper to restart the trail effectively.

[OxfordBags]

Stats, I think that might be to do with him having used it since childhood, and so it was the sole legal name he'd ever had as an adult, IYSWIM. That would completely different from an adult reverting to a surname they'd held as an adult previously. There would no legal paper trail existing for his original name, so no proof, as it were, that he'd ever been known as it (which he hadn't).

I know of several women who have reverted back to their maiden names and have been told that deed poll is irrelevant, as the maiden name is still their original legal name, or words to that effect.

[DadDadDad]

"If you join this family, you take our name...".

Sounds like a very traditional view, oh except second chapter of the Bible said a few thousand years ago:

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

So as others have said, they make a new family, not join an existing one.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

In the uk legally anybody can call themselves anything they want as long as they have no intention to defraud.

If I woke up tomorrow and decided I wanted to call myself Burt bogface I am perfectly entitled to do so legally all I have to do is inform people that that is how I wish to be addressed.

The problems arise when in the absence of paperwork confirming this, you want people that rely on paper trails to comply with that wish, but that does not change that it is perfectly legal to do so without paperwork.We have deed polls to assist with this its purely a document that proves your naming wishes and has to be accepted by banks ect.

[LittleFeileFooFoo]

She will then say "Theres two of us, perhaps they're asking for you"

OP, perhaps you should ask if she has a clone.

Also, would you pretty please for me, OP, give your children your name? Or at least the girls, in the true Scandinavian way? I think LeMissAbsdottr is very catchy!

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Sock (snortle) or should I say burt bogface? Good point.
OP, as it is apparently sufficient to place an ad in a national newspaper declaring your new name, perhaps you could do that with your current name? Then send the ad to the ILs? Tell them it's legally binding...

[QuintessentialOHara]

That is actually a perfect answer to your inlaws overbearing "if you join our family you take our name".

"Well, actually I have not joined your family, me and your son have created a new family unit, and we are known by MrYoursurname and MrsMYsurname, and this has little to do with Your Surname"

[sashh]

A friend of mine had this. She just binned anything and everything that was addressed as Mrs HName.

Birthday cards, bills, invitations. Eventually people got the point.

[LittleBearPad]

Your MIL sounds like an utter cow. Sod the passive aggression, tell them off otherwise this will never end. It's highly unlikely that companies likely to address you over the phone formally i.e. Ms X, are going to track you down to your PILs house. She's just being horrible.

[HazleNutt]

was about to write what Quint said. You did not join PILs family, you created your own. And your family is called Mr Hisname and Ms Yourname. If they insist that someone has to join the other's family, it can as well be DH joining yours, so he can start calling himself Mr Yourname. I wonder how they'd like that.