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?

Elspeth! Won’t you... won’t you...THINK of an old tattered outdated edition of Debrett’s written by a man telling you what to do? For god sake, don’t you have any PRIDE in ancient ways proclaiming our subservience? I don’t know if this Debretts is official law of the land, but I tell you one thing, it certainly should be. How otherwise, I implore you, will MrsOliverKittens be able to tell off other posters for their defiance and tell us how we’ll brought up she is, all while wholesomely bolstering the patriarchy? WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE PATRIARCHY FFS?

It would be pretty rude if I addressed cards to “Mr Hisname & Ms Maidenname” if she had chosen to take his name on marriage (or indeed vice versa) just because I think ideologically she ought not to have done so. And let’s face it, the reverse of this is the reason we get shit addressed to Mr & Mrs Hisname when we’re not...

I don't tbink.tbe issue is distant relatives though.

I mean id pay no notice to great aunt Susan who remembers once every three years to send a card and still thinks my birthday is in July... addressing me as Mrs dps surname.

But parents and close friends...id be pissed

Oh yeah. I get them too. Since I married I haven't just lost my surname but also my first name! I redress the balance by address cards to Mrs and Mr blahblahblah.

There is no Mrs Hisname at this address. So it doesn’t get opened.

So if a package turns up addressed to Mrs Smiith when your name is Mrs Smith I imagine you send that back as well as it is so clearly not for you..

Weird how we're meant to have brains that understand context and can cope with typos, archaic traditions, and plain old mistakes. Or not!

Don't care what other people choose to be called...

Anyone who thinks taking a husband's name is anything other than perpetuating notions of ownership are deluded...

I understand that you may think it's to do with having a family unit... Many many others (men) see you as being subservient..

Don’t care, life is too short

I really respect you not only for so eagerly taking your husband’s identity but rightly pressurising other women to do the same. It must be because you’re so well brought up.

Your attempt at sarcasm is sadly missing the mark as at no point have I pressurised any woman to call themselves by any name other than that which they wish to call themselves.
My point was that, to send back a cheque from an elderly aunt, who writes the name you wish to be known as on the cheque BUT addressed in the convention that the 'elderly' aunt feels correct - from the convention at the time she learned these things- is the height of rude and offensive behaviour and smacks of a self indulgence that comes from having an obsession with making sure the world is up to date with your feminist credentials. If someone did this to me, there would be no readdressed cheque. In fact there would be no further cheques - ever.
It's not making her understand your issue - it's just fucking rude.

As for how I am happy to be addressed , I was pointing out that many of us don't feel this need.

I am a financially independent woman who feels no sense of 'ownership' by my husband. I am just as happy to be addressed as Mrs Jane Kittens.. Mrs Oliver Kittens or plain Jane & Oliver. I happy enough in my own skin that it is just not important.
It feels that those who do get excessively exercised about this must feel the need to prove something that is of no interest to the rest of the world.

"Many many others (men) see you as being subservient."

All men?
Oh, and I don't care if you think I'm "deluded"

I think the only way round this conundrum is to address all correspondence to "The Occupier(s)"

Mrs Jane Kittens - quite apart from calling the poster rude and ill-mannered, telling women that they should not care whether people insist on caking them by the wrong name, and that their wish to correct people who call them by the wrong name is pointless and the world doesn't care about their wishes, IS pressurising women to just shut up and conform to tradition as you have done.

The posters who referenced Debratts and people being taught it's polite- wouldn't the main point of the etiquette be to get the names right though? If you know somebody's name and choose to address it an envelope to a different name isn't that poor etiquette?

I see that the ridiculous question of "why get married if you're not going to change your name?" Has already been answered, so that's good. But I would like to say that why should my reasons matter to anyone? I didn't change my name, that's that.

I don't open any post that isn't addressed to me, so if someone sent a card just to "Mrs J Smith" I'd never open it as that person does not exist at this address.

How am i to know it's not a mistake with the address on the envelope and someone wrote "23 high street" instead of "32 high street" and Mrs Smith is sat at number 32 waiting for her package?

Because clearly the cirrevt etiquette is for women to put up and shut up cos their feelings matter less than everyone else's feelings. Being expected to remember a name is far to much effort we need to respect the brainwashing of husbamds name only

@Gileswithachainsaw that sounds about right yes.

I cant speak for anyone else but I'd not be pissed off at being politely corrected. I'd be embarrassed I'd got it wrong and would make sure I didn't do it again.

I'd be fucking furious though that is be considered some precious little flower incapable of having something explained to me and having entire family humour me rather than just telling me.

What's that about

I agree that people should make an effort to get the recipient's name right, but if a letter or parcel arrived addressed to Mrs H Japonica instead of L Japonica, for example, I wouldn't cut my nose of to spite my face and return it or not open it. For a start I wouldn't know who to send it back to without opening it, and secondly, if it was a handwritten letter I know it won't be something unpleasant like a tax demand.

Wow, Major Snittens (not sure that IS your name, but I sense you're too well-bred to mind), thank you, THANK YOU for using so very few, such well-chosen words to make sure we know you definitely don't, not one bit, no-way-no-how care AT ALL about this issue, not one teensy, tiny shred. Was it your phenomenal upbringing that also taught you to be so concise? I also 100% agree with you that Titty is 'self-indulgent' and 'obsessive' to ask her aunt to use her name - I'd almost go for 'uppity' but defer to your upbringing in this, as in so many things.

My wife has kept her name, we get a mix of mrs and mrs Pan and her name on cards, she really could not give a fuck and just appreciates the gesture of someone thinking of us and sending their best wishes.

Exactly! A bit more gratitude and a lot less self-indulgence from some of these posters is a bit in order! Wanting their own names on things, I've never heard the like.

So we have it then

Women are ungrateful

Difficult

Indulgent

Too stupid to understand different choices

Hysterical banshees left angry and flailing should a mistake be pointed out.

We should probably stick to sewing and kittens wouldn't want to upset anyone now would we.

@LoniceraJaponica but I'm not Mrs Smith and never have been. I'm Ms Sarah Jones, so a letter or package to Mrs Smith has nothing of my name on and could very well have nothing to do with me.

Giles! FFS, it's Mrs Oliver kittens, don't you know. She's very well brought up and independent.

Oh god get a grip!!!
People all over the world are dealing with illness/loss and your worried about a Christmas card..
Is your life that meaningless?
You should be pleased someone actually went to the trouble of sending you one.
I wouldn't bother,you sound like an ungrateful nightmare!

But they didn't send her one did they.

And clearly her life is that meaningless....to other people who can't even be used to use her name.

That's different if it was a completely different name. If I received a parcel address to Mrs K Windsor I would know perfectly well it wasn't for me.