Every god damn year!!!

[WarwickDavisAsPlates]

Came home today to find another Christmas card through the letter box addressed to Mr and Mrs J Smith, that's the third this year that has been addressed this way.

I didn't change my name when I got married and I don't go by Mrs. Why can't people (in laws) just get my bloody name right! It's not hard to address the envelope to John and Sarah is it?

I would never address a Christmas card to Shaun when their name is Sean, I'd make sure I'd got it right before posting. So AIBU to think this is just bloody rude and to tell the many offenders to get my name right in future or just don't include me in the card at all?

I know the feeling. It took my own parents some years of telling that I had kept their name before it stuck in their mind for cards, even the odd birthday cheque etc. WTAF? Really irritating. But they got it in the end.

This is getting boring. It’s a long line of the same thread.
Actually after writing 50+ cards it is tiring. If I receive to Mr & Mrs X (I’m not married) I genuinely couldn’t care less. People are busy and stressed over Xmas with shit loads on their mind. I think you should jus my be grateful for the card!

Pick your battles.

I have had cards addressed to Mrs, Ms and Dr, I couldn’t care less which is used. If they got my first name totally wrong I might have something to say, but I can’t get wound up about a title on a Christmas card.

And you’re right OP, this thread comes around every god damned year

Grow a pair,it is correct to address a married couple as Mr and Mrs .It is etiquette to use the man's initial. I understand that you are unhappy in a feminist way but surely it is easier for everyone to be addressed in the same way otherwise you would end up with People not sending cards because it's too difficult to remember how to address everyone if they want it done differently. After all it is only to tell the post office the address and for the addressee to make sure it reaches its intended recipient.

Surely what's in the card is more important

Grow a pair,it is correct to address a married couple as Mr and Mrs .It is etiquette to use the man's initial.

No, it fucking ISN’T.

How can it be right to call me MrsRandomname when my name is Ms Wiggle? You do not have logic on your side.

Every year I dread the cards coming through the door as I know my dp will start moaning about all the cards with my surname on. It does my head in and causes bad feeling. Some cards will be addressed to Mr and Mrs Girlsblouse17Surname but some cards will also be addressed to Mr and Mrs DPSurname. The latter doesn't bother me. Is not a big deal. Many people will be busy in December with work deadlines, buying Xmas presents, sorting all the other Xmas stuff out, amongst other things. They will sit down for half a day to write out Xmas cards. There could be over a hundred cards to write out. People dont remember all the details they may have been told the year before about names. If they are organised they may have put it in their address book. They will want to spend only a couple of minutes writing each card. Is easy to get things wrong and make same mistakes as year before . So don't be too harsh on them. No one is perfect. They mean well

But they are not calling you by the wrong name, they sent the card to their son Mr J Smith and you, his Mrs. At no point have they used the wrong name. You seem to be very disrespectful of an older person and the etiquette they have probably used all their life.

Perhaps when letters are addressed to your husband you shouldn't open them if you cant cope without being named on the envelope.

"Grow a pair,it is correct to address a married couple as Mr and Mrs .It is etiquette to use the man's initial"

It is however never correct to fall back on these rules when you know that these people,e do not want to be addressed that way.

It is always- correct to address people by using the names they wish to be known as. It is wrong to put your ideas of 'correctness' above their actual names.

It isn't that difficult to keep an address book, with people's names in it, and to use that when writing envelopes. Checking if someone is changing their name on marriage isn't a particularly difficult enquiry to make either.

I don't see an issue with someosomeone getting miss/Mrs wrong

But in this instance it is wrong. Your in laws are deliberately putting it wrong because they disagree with you keeping your name.
Tell the we are not 1900's and give them the envelope back corrected.

@Julie8008 but I'm not his Mrs. That's what I'm saying. My name isn't and never has been Mrs Smith. I don't use Mrs and I don't have that surname.

Also, I don't open them. They aren't addressed to me so I just leave them for him.

but I'm not his Mrs. That's what I'm saying
You might not use the prefix Mrs but you are married to him and therefore you are a Mrs.

Old fashioned of his mother to be so rigid in her beliefs but old people are stuck in their ways.

@goose1964 but surely it's not correct to address a couple as Mr and Mrs Smith if their names are Mr Smith and Ms Jones?

I can't get my head around it being correct etiquette to call somebody the wrong name. Especially if they've asked you not to.

@Julie8008 it's actually not his mother who does it and I'm not saying it's an "older person thing" because all the people who do address it this way after I've asked them not to are ... 55 and below. It's his uncles/ aunties and Fil (not married to MIL)

Mrs
ˈmɪsɪz,ˈmɪsɪs/Submit
noun
the title used before a surname or full name to address or refer to a married woman without a higher or honorific or professional title.

You are a married woman so it is the correct title.

@Julie8008 surely if someone said to you "actually I don't like being referred to as Mrs because I don't use that title for various reasons that I've explained many times" you wouldn't do it?

OFGS Goose1964 Don't be so reactionary . Giles, Giddy, & Titty will spontaneously combust at the very idea of adhering to a convention that means nothing except people get a Christmas card that gets addressed in seconds . (As opposed to ringing round for everyone to discuss the receivers preference)

I appeared to send them all into a paroxysm of fury earlier when I suggested that my own preference is either Mrs Oliver Kittens Or Mrs Jane Kittens.
What I hadn't realised was, that by not being horribly upset by the first form, I was an apologist for misogyny and happy to know my place as a kept downtrodden woman.
With this rebuke ringing in my ears, I left the thread as I had reached my screen time limit (DH allows me 3 x 30 mins a day and had chores to do before cooking DHs supper. )
I have now seen the error of my ways and opportunity for reflection and can see that I have absolutely NO RIGHT to choose not to be arsed how I'm addressed.
I have taken this time to go through all the cards addressed to Mrs Oliver Kittens and put them back in the post to the perpetrators with the loud message ;
HOW DARE YOU SEND A CARD ADDRESSED IN SUCH A MANNER ?? I WILL NOT SUBSCRIBE TO THIS PATRIARCHY. !!

We will no doubt have few friends/neighbours or colleagues that will speak to us - but GOD DO I FEEL EMPOWERED ! Thanks all for putting me straight , I feel the chains of DHs oppression slackening as I type...

"You are a married woman so it is the correct title"

No, you're over-interpreting. It is one possible correct title.

The actual correct title for a specific woman is the one she wishes to be known by.

this is a big issue? Really?! This has to be a wind up surely. No one can be that offended at that.

@midnightmisssuki no it's not a joke, I actually do get very annoyed when people who have known me for 15 years can't be bothered to get my name right.

NRTFT my bad but quite busy! I am afraid I get a bit CBA with all the correct labelling... so I tend to address it to the whole family if they have all got the same surname or just one person if it is more complicated... I wouldn’t put just first names on a posted letter though... I quite often choose a child rather than a parent though... kids love getting post addressed to them!

No, it's not a wind up.

It's totally reasonable to dislike being called by a name that isn't yours. I think most people would notice, whether it's on an envelope, on a letter or to your face. A one-off error in ephemeral correspondence might be just that, a mistake that you let go by.

Refusing to call you by your name socially over and over is a snub. And a pretty hurtful one.

(And if on substantive correspondence, it can have wider consequences).

@Plainlycrackers that's quite a nice way to do it, DD would love to get more post addressed to her.

It actually wouldn't bother at all if the cards were just addressed to DH. It's the fact that they've bothered to write out an incorrect name to make a point that's annoying.

They could write Smith-Jones family or just Mr Smith or just address it to Baby Smith-Jones. I'd be quite happy with any of those.