AIBU to throw away letters addressed to 'Mrs [Husband's first name] [Husband's last name]'?

[SarahAnderson]

For the record, I am not a Mrs, I am a Dr. And I didn't take my husband's last name. Therefore all three parts of 'Mrs [Husband's first name] [Husband's last name]' are wrong.

It makes my blood boil when I receive letters addressed to me like this. Because it's not really me at all. It's like upon marriage, every part of 'me' was been extinguished and replaced with my husband instead: my profession, my first name, my family affiliation.

The WORST thing is that virtually all of the mail I get like this is intended to be well meaning -- the last two I got were a congratulations card and a birthday gift! So I can't bring myself to let the giver know how sad and annoyed it makes me.

(Actually I did, once, respond when someone gave me an incredibly generous gift addressed to 'Mrs [Husband's first name] [Husband's last name]'. I was genuinely baffled as to why he did it, as he's a very liberal guy and it seemed out of character. He replied that it was a joke and he only did it because he knows how much it would annoy me. I'm not sure if that's really true - he doesn't know me THAT well - but in any case my reaction was, um, why did you want to give me this lovely gift and also REALLY PISS ME OFF at the same time?)

I got another card addressed this way last night and, I must confess, I threw it away. It just makes me annoyed to have it in the house.

Flogging, if you are in to answer the door it gets delivered; if you are out you need to go to the sorting office with ID.

I don't think yabu! It makes me cringe when someone sends me an envelope marked with mrs scarbella "dhs surname" I have not taken his name and don't intend to.
It silly for people to default to this out of date tradition.
Why change anything for a man? Why don't they take our name?
Ps I'm a raging feminist !!!

Scarbella I know a man who took his new wife's surname so it does happen he might have wanted to hide a previous life of course.

As for the title Dr, if I had worked my socks off to get there, I would be proud and so would my parents to use that title for anything.

Talking about medical doctors, my GP is Dr . My hospital consultant, with a much more experienced and senior position, is Mr . Anyone know why they give up their Dr title?

After 20 years, I still have relations address Christmas cards to Mrs Sometimes [husband's surname] even though they've had sticky labels on anything I've sent to them for years.

I blame Princess Michael of Kent .

It drives me nuts to be sent letters addressed to Mrs [DH's initial] [DH's surname]. I have taken his surname but I have my own first name, thanks. It's bad enough to get formal letters like it but worse to get Christmas cards addressed to Mr & Mrs [Dh's initial]. Just put Mr & Mrs [surname] please!

But to the OP - YANBU to be annoyed they've got it wrong but YANU to cut off your nose by throwing letters away. Life's too short, and you'll make yourself ill worrying about something that you can't control. Try not to let it wind you up. Just mention it to your friends, once, then ignore and forget about it.

Sometimes - Surgeons are Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs. Other consultants are Dr. It's because surgeons used to be barbers. No, seriously.

Do people actually get annoyed by things like this . I'm quite fond of my husband and I think it's nice to share his name. I only know a few women that are staunch anti-name changers and you know what? They are all quite brittle, abrasive and generally unpleasant to be around. So perhaps in their case, hanging onto their pre-matrimonial names is a wise move...

'I only know a few women that are staunch anti-name changers and you know what? They are all quite brittle, abrasive and generally unpleasant to be around

Yawn.

Lots of people who don't change their name manage to be quite, y'know, 'fond' of their husbands too. Imagine that.

drspouse Yes it is interesting how that has done a 180degree shift, from Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss being an indication of lower status to now being a higher one in the medical profession.

The title Dr is only honorary anyway for most medical practitioners as they typically only hold a Bachelor of Medicine, rather than a Doctoral level qualification.

You mean they're a bit brittle around someone who clearly doesn't like them? Odd, that.

I sincerely hope my husband is quite fond of me too. He thought changing my name was a weird idea, as he knows me by Mylastname, and Mrs Hislastname is his mum.

I suspect Mangina is a WUM.

Oh, Lovelies. Bless you .

YANBU. My mother and her sisters think I am weird for not taking DH's name and not referring to myself as Mrs. They address things to us as Mr and Mrs purely to wind me up. It works - I feel just as angry as you do.

I would never throw anything away unopened though. There might be a cheque in it.

It took my PILs and a few other older relatives a while to get used to the fact that I didn't change my name, but they did get used to it. I know my MIL now quite admires the fact I didn't change it

The reason the scenario in the OP would make me angry is how often the card or letter happened to be from someone who did know I was not Mrs hisname but was making some PA point about how I wasn't really just still Ms Catsrus - I was really also Mrs hisname. No I was not. I never used that name during the 24yrs we were married, I was never AKA "Mrs hisname" so it was never my name in law, there were no documents in that name, my passport, degree certificates (including the PhD) were all in MY name - the one I had from birth. At some point in the dim and distant past it was given to my family by a female ancestor as it's the female version of a professional name and I rather liked that.

Institutions which had my details and his details, where I had signed formed and filled in my name, which would then send things to Mrs hisname would get a particularly hard time from me. That is just plain sloppy and careless.

If we have the choice to change our names or not then whatever we choose should be respected. Its really not that hard to keep track of what someone's name is.

Its really not that hard to keep track of what someone's name is.

This is what surprises me too. The people who 'accidentally' get my name wrong are usually quite intelligent people. It's funny how they just can't remember that I have the same name now that I had for the 30 years that they new me before I got married.

Seriously - you need to read an etiquette book

Mrs husbands first name husbands surname is the correct way to do things.

Until we change the etiquette people are always going to get it wrong (and I'm one of those people who is always slightly disappointed when colleagues take their husbands name when they get married, professionally at least. A lot goes into building a professional reputation and I'm not sure I would give mine up because I got married).

I would also be disappointed if family and friends ignored my requests but I have friends whose name preferences I genuinely don't know. I'm not even sure what some of them work as…

Cue hideously embarrassing conversation with GP friend's reception colleague when I went to collect her house key. Me: "I'm here to collect the a set of housekeys from DR Smith/ actually is she Dr Jones/ hmmm I don't really know what she calls herself. urgh…"

REcptionist: are you lurker? I have keys for you!

'Until we change the etiquette people are always going to get it wrong'

But etiquette isn't enshrined in law, it will only change if people say 'actually my name is.........'

I already have a pile of stuff to read. Etiquette books are going to come quite low down on the list.

Molly hysterical? So if I knew you in real life you'd be happy for me to call you any random name? I am not my husband's mother . There are 2 women I know who are Mrs Caitlin17's husband' s surname. One is his mother and the other is the women married to his brother.

Any mail which arrived at our house addressed to Mrs his surname is not for any person who lives there. To collect it from a delivery office would require showing an id. There is no id since the named person does not in exist.

Surgeons call themselves Mr/ Miss/ Ms/ occ. Mrs.

Only surgeons do it so you would never get a consultant in a medical specialty calling themselves anything other than Dr (or Prof, I suppose).

it is a historic throw back to the origins of surgery from the barber surgeons who didn't go to medical school so were not entitled to call themselves Dr.

The RCS explain it in more detail here:
www.rcseng.ac.uk/patients/the-surgical-team/qualifications-of-a-surgeon#three

Beware though not everyone calling themselves Mr X is a consultant every year there is an outbreak of Mr-itis as the very junior surgeons pass their exams.

I always find it amusing to see them expecting my very senior medical colleagues to call them Mr when they are happy to be referred to by their first names!

I was unaware that people under the age of 80 still used this form of address.

"Seriously - you need to read an etiquette book

Mrs husbands first name husbands surname is the correct way to do things.

Until we change the etiquette people are always going to get it wrong"

Or, how about we just ignore the etiquette books on the basis that they are entirely irrelevant in 2014? Much easier than reading them and lobbying to have them changed.

And how about we define "correct" in the context of names as being, you know, someone's actual name, rather than what an old-fashioned etiquette book thinks their name should be?

Is Debretts going to argue with the sorting office for me?

(NB I know that even debretts say "use the form of address preferred by the person")

Brennan, it's a shame your husband isn't fond enough of you to want to share your name? Oh, it doesn't work like that..?