Aibu to want to be a Mrs even though I'm now divorced?

[flirtygirl]

I kept my maiden name and used my married name for the years I was married (13). The married name I've been changing over now but for years I was Miss C Smith or Mrs C Smith Jones (both show on my credit report, passport is in one and driving licence in the other) .

I now want to be Mrs C Smith instead of Miss.

No idea why but it hurts me for people to think I'm a single mum who has never been married, is it my internalised misogyny?

I know it shouldn't matter to be but it does.

I think @bertrandrusell is bang on

If there was an advantage to announcing your marital status men would do it

Has anyone ever had a DH take their wives surname? My sister got all kinds of grief from her DH when she said she would continue to use her own name after marriage because they were now a family & should share a name. I said ‘well he could take yours’

I've always used the term Ms since turning 18 really.

However on my official bank documents and driving licence I am still miss. Does anyone know how to change these over?

As yet another never married Ms who has been DBS checked to the nth degree and never had an issue, I'm not sure I have confidence in the process if it's run by people who don't know that the title, and last names for that matter, are not a definitive indication of a woman's marital status.

“ I just use Ms. Same with most women in email now - it’s easier to just use Ms than risk getting it wrong”
I think you are absolutely right to use Ms. But why would “getting it wrong” be such a disaster? Why is it so important to get a woman’s marital status wrong?

Because Miss or Mrs defines marital status for women possibly leaving them open to judgment where men face no such barrier.

Why should women have to declare their status and men not?. That's why Ms is the common sense option.

I can't think of a single divorced woman in my friendship circle who has changed anything upon divorce. So if they were Mrs ex husbands name.. They stayed Mrs Exhusbands name. (The majority) If they had chosen to keep their own name (a few) they still kept their title Mrs.

It may be an age thing. We are mostly late fifties/early sixties.. and Mrs for us means married or have been married.(divorced or widowed) . Miss signifies unmarried/never married.
Don't know any Ms. Again probably a generational/ geographical thing. Self and friends are mostly rural Home Counties.. which is quite a conservative mindset .

Ms isn't for used to be married.

Bertrand - well some women might get offended if you call them “Mrs” and they’re not. I guess it’s akin to presuming a woman has her DH’s name when she’s married, whereas she’s actually kept her own. Or if you have just got married and decided to take his name and be a “Mrs”, it might be mildly irritating to be called “Miss”. Perhaps patronising even, because in some sense it can denote youth / inexperience? I’m not saying this is right or wrong btw. I’m just aware that people may feel differently about these things and why risk offending people?

DH's ex wife had kept his name and was Mrs still and had the same initial as me. We both lived in the same (extremely small) town and were both Mrs B Smith. I kept getting her mail and she kept getting mine. People mixing up us in the paper, phone book etc. Was very upsetting for both of us. She changed her name in the end thank god!

Thank god, eh?

This exemplifies the whole fucking sexist problem.

According to this ‘traditional ‘ set up we accept that:
A woman’s name is never her own. It is either her father’s or her husband’s
A woman adopts the branding of whatever man she lives with
A woman has no right to that brand once she leaves the roof of the man who ‘gave’ her his name
A man always owns his own name.

Clicky this whole ‘awful’ and ‘upsetting’ situation could equally have been solved by you not changing your own name, and / or by your DH adopting your name when you married him.

But you seem to believe that once you married him his first wife no longer had rights to call herself by ‘his’ name.

When I divorced I went back to my maiden name on social media and at work but I've never got round to changing my name back on anything official as it's a bit of a pain and I am still mrs married name for the schools etc

“ I’m just aware that people may feel differently about these things and why risk offending people?”

I agree that Ms should be t default “title” for women. I suppose I asked the question because I think it should be the default for positive reasons, not because to get a woman’s marital status wrong is such a big deal that they might be offended, and Ms should only be used if you don’t know whether a woman is married or not. iYSWIM.

But you seem to believe that once you married him his first wife no longer had rights to call herself by ‘his’ name.

My ex's second wife felt this I think, and I think he would have preferred me not to keep using "his" name, but I did what I felt was best for my children at the time and for me professionally.

Now I have had "his" name for over 40 years - far longer than I had my maiden original name, so I think I'll keep it (can't be bothered changing all my documentation anyway).

I suppose women are just choosing between 2 different men's names and if you had your fathers for 25 andcyour husband's for the most recent 25 then i get that if you want to keep it it is yr right.

Sad to read that some posters think Ms complicates things. It doesnt. We will get there in the end. Women will eventually all be Ms. I believe it.

Im one of the women offended my mrs.

I paid deposits to put my children's names down for the school i went to. Ms Cambon, that is who the money came from. And the acknowledgement of receipt of money was sent to mr and mrs child'sname.

I couldnt resist the tempation to tell the office that as i hadmt mentioned him at all in my application why did they send a response to him. He could have been dead!

I have never had my father's name. It's always been mine. Just like my brothers name has always been his (although he changed to include his wife's name on marriage).
Always been Ms too, but I don't like it. Mzzz. I would prefer Mistress. Mistress Ifnot.

This may be generational. Most of my older friends remain Mrs and keep the same name as their children. Each to their own.

I've used my own surname through every marriage I've had and my son has my surname also. I do now use Miss but I'm 57 and would rather be Mrs as I'm an adult not a child and Ms is so upronouncable - is it mzzzz, mus, what?
My mum wasn't married when I was born so we used a distant family name so she could pretend to be married but I changed it to my grandfathers name when I grew up as I loved him and he was a war hero and now I'm making the name my own.
It's so sad the strong women in my family had no female name handed down to them, they have always been nameless and just inherited the names of their fathers or husbands throughout their lives.
I'm trying to make this surname my own.

I've been thinking about this. I will be filing for divorce soon and don't know wether to go back to my maiden name or to be Mrs miss ms... so I'm reading the replies lol

I never changed my name and always used Ms. Can't see why it's anyone's business what my marital status is and never did.

I am a divorced mother of two and proud of what I've achieved as a mother and in my career. I would never cast shade on single mothers - they are superwomen!

@AwkwardSquad do you know the Nellie McKay song about feminists not having a sense of humour? Google it

Use whatever you want. Ms hasn't worked as well in this country as I hoped (used since 18, through single married divorced). I quite like the idea of people using Mrs or Miss regardless of marital status, so eventually it won't reveal anything.

@horse4course thank you, excellent tip

Here it is for everyone to enjoy mckay feminist song

I recall my French teacher (evening class) lamenting the day that she was first called Madame rather than Mademoiselle.

Any grown, adult woman wanting to be addressed as 'my little lady' has to be a little bit odd.

I'm surprised to be reading this thread on what is in many ways an enlightened website, particularly by comparison with other internet discussion sites. Imagine this kind of lengthy conversation for business carried out on a superficial basis, of snarky MiLs persisting in addressing you as Mrs HisName when they know you are called no such thing, rudeness from strangers because you've checked the marriage box and not the corresponding 'Mrs'. (NB 'Ms' is perfectly acceptable to me but 'Mrs' makes my hackles rise. NBB. I have no wish to disguise the fact that I'm married, wear a wedding ring, but don't see the need to advertise that in every social context I might encounter, especially since men don't).

I'd internalized the false modesty that a PhD-holder using the 'Dr' title was naff, but in view of the fact that it doesn't denote either marital status or gender, it's now the title I use by default.

Some of the attitudes in evidence on this thread are the reason why.

It’s just such an awkward one orally : it either sounds like a bee buzzing or as if you are saying Miss oddly or with a southern states American accent.

No, it's actually "Mrs" that is often pronounced Miz in the Southern US. I think it's one of the reasons that Ms has been accepted so readily here (I live in the US Deep South). People had essentially been saying it for years.

They (Miss, Mrs., and Ms) are all abbreviations of the same word: Mistress, which originally denoted a woman of status and not necessarily a married status.

Ms is so upronouncable

No it's not. It's Miz, rhymes with Liz or fizz or whiz or any number of syllables that end with a "z" sound.