To hate addressing a letter to a women using husband's initials

[justarandomer]

On an address with the name as say;

Mrs M E Smith
When women is called Patricia Smith
But husband is Martin Edward Smith.

Why not Mrs P Smith

There must be a fancy term for this.

My MIL does it. It sends me up the F wall. I am a person in my own right than you very much.

On a birthday card or something personal she will still write it as
Mrs M E Smith.

I think she does it because she sees son as coming from above me, and so I'm lucky to be part of her dynastey.

Just because it was considered "correct" several decades ago, it doesn't mean it is set in stone and appropriate today.

It used to be "correct" to refer to illegitimate children as bastards, no mystical rulebook had to be rewritten for people to realise that it is no longer appropriate to do that.

A bit of common-sense and modern decency should tell you that it is out-dated and rude.

This form used to be universal but it's very old fashioned. I imagine your MIL was brought up to do things formally and has no intention to offend you. I wouldn't be offended. I'd assume it was part of that person's upbringing.

If it means so much to you, you could explain to her why but I suspect she'd think it was a weird thing to mind about. You might end up looking and feeling a bit petty.

Very magnanimous of him Mamatallica!

When it's purely a theoretical discussion, you can say whatever you like! And yet here you are, with his name, and happy even to take his initials. Win-win for both of you, really

I'm intrigued by people objecting to being Mrs DH'sinitials Surname (which I hate) and not mentioning the order of 'Mr and Mrs'.

I do most of our admin at home and always fill forms out with my details first (since I am bothering to do it). I think that only one thing has been set up in the order that I put our names (Mrs QD and Mr DH Quack). I was particularly pissed off to have researched and booked a holiday, put my name first, only to find a 'Welcome Mr DH Quack' message on our hotel room TV.

Quack There's nothing wrong with complaining about one thing, without having to complain about another similar thing.
But I have never come across that problem. When I have booked a holiday, all of the documentation has been in my name. That sounds more like an error on the part of the hotel.
Bills have always been in the names as I have completed the forms in. Our bank account has my name first.

Yes to it being the old fashioned way to address things. I've only ever got one letter like this which was from a relative in their 80's.

I agree that it is ok to complain about one thing and not another, otherwise we go down the 'first world problem' line, which is crap.

But I am amazed that other people don't find that things are corrected from Mrs and Mr to Mr and Mrs.

Great article, Bertrand.

Oh my god YANBU, I always address things as Mr his initial and Mrs her initial Surname. Or the Surname family.

Yanbu

Oh my god YANBU, I always address things as Mr his initial and Mrs her initial Surname. Or the Surname family.

...but the problem with the first one is that it could look like something addressed to your husband and his mum - and not to you. For example, my mum and her MIL had the same first initial. And the second one could mean you, your DH, your children and possibly your PILs. Think of all the wedding invitation threads on here - it's a potential minefield.

Just use people's actual names and there is no confusion at all!

The only way the first one is likely to be relevant is if the husband's mother is also living in the same household and has the same initial as the wife. And if the person doing the inviting doesn't know this, and therefore doesn't use full name, Sr vs Jr or whatever. There are probably a few families in the country where this is the case, but the odds of them being as numerous as the families where one of the invitees thinks you offensive, ignorant, backward or some combination of those seem remote. And the second one is just scraping the barrel.

You're doing the right thing wanderingnotlost. Stick at it!

Something addressed to a man and his mother must be very rare, you just dont link child and parent that way. I cant see anyone interpreting Mr A and Mrs B Surname as anything other than a married couple. Would the correct form if there was ambiguity between MIL and DIL be Mrs A Surname (snr) and Mr B Surname?

And wedding invitations etc would hopefully have specifics inside if there was any possible ambiguity.

Not to mention that an invitation addressed to Mr A and Mrs B Jones would, if it referred to Mrs B Jones Sr rather than Jr, be excluding the wife of Mr A Jones but inviting his mother and perhaps also his and his wife's children. One's life and family arrangements would have to be very unusual indeed for one to think this was a realistic possibility.

My DH has the same initials as his dad. Ignoring the fact that we don't live with the PIL, Mrs QD Quack is clearer than Mrs DH Quack as that could be my MIL or me.

My SIL does this and I hate it passionately. I gave up my surname on marriage, I did not give up my first name.

I must say all this is making me even more glad DH and I took the easy option and kept our own surnames. I'm never going to be mistaken for my MIL.

This massively winds me up. The only person who sends me anything addressed to Mrs DH is my MIL. I'm sure it's deliberate as she believes that feminism has gone "too far" Of course that means I'll never mention how annoying I find it so as not to give her the satisfaction

Although I can appreciate that in modern times where wives work hard to maintain the family and all that goes with it, using the husband's initial on a mail item, where the wife has taken the husbands name is an English tradition that goes back many many years.
To dump this tradition would be to say goodbye to yet another of our long-established customs that make us British.
My 92 year old mother is proud to receive mail showing the man's initial that she lived with and loved for over 50 years.

For those that kept their maiden name I agree it makes no sense at all to use the husbands initial only.

If you don't like this, contact the sender and get them to change your records. Please don't try to trash yet another British tradition.
I for one am still proud to be British and like it as it is.

Wishing you all Well
~Mike~

Thanks Mike!

Where were you in 2016 when we needed this input?

I don't like this either but am hypocritical as I do it on Christmas card envelopes because it's quicker to write Mr & Mrs P Smith than it is to write Mr P and Mrs M Smith. I am lazy. Maybe I should just write Paul and Mary :) Or Family Smith.

Totally agree that it's antiquated and the world has moved on.

After several attempts at getting 'them' to address me properly, I sent the letters back unopened marked 'No-one of that name at this address, with the Mrs [his initials] underlined.

The message got through eventually. A good thing none of the returned letters were from the lottery people telling us our numbers had come up!

A bit of common-sense and modern decency should tell you that it is out-dated and rude. No, because if you were brought up in the era when this was the norm, it was drummed into you that it was polite, and to do anything else was rude, and you internalise this. Even though you can see that more and more people are abandoning it, when it comes to writing to someone you don't know well, all your early training is nagging at you and saying "but she might find it rude if I address her like this".

I now realise that the "safe" option is to use the person's own initial and even possible surname, but that's only through reading many threads on MN and finding how offended people are.

It's a bit like if I were to suddenly discover that everyone nowadays thinks that saying "please" is rude ...

.. or if that seems too farfetched to be likely to happen, like finding that people can be cross about receiving a birthday card. Or think you're odd for sending a thank-you letter.

These rules were made by men, let’s not forget that. Men decided the “proper” way to address women was by her husbands name. Well guess what, women can decide for themselves how the fuck they wish to be addressed, so those saying this is the proper way, why are you submitting to the dictation of old fashioned males? Why does their rule matter more than the actual woman you are addressing?