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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU for wanting my wife-to-be to take my surname?

256 replies

confusedandsleepy · 13/01/2020 02:12

Hi all, I know I'm new here, but me and my wife to be wanted a bit of outside help.

We are due to get married in October and a few days ago my partner told me she wasn't sure if she wanted to take my surname as she wasn't sure if it would sound right. Ever since I proposed I have thought of her with my surname, at first it sounded a bit odd (having known her with her surname and then suddenly the thought of a different surname will obviously sound a bit odd).

This hurt me quite a bit as I wanted her to have the same surname as me and our daughter (our daughter has my surname and it's not the name she has a problem with, it's just that she doesn't think it goes with her first name). But to me, part of getting married is ending up with the same surname.

AIBU for wanting my partner to take my surname when we get married this year?

OP posts:
raindropsfallingonglass · 13/01/2020 10:19

I did change my name (but not at work) because I wanted to. I would definitely not have changed my name if I didn't like the new name at least as much as my old one, and I wouldn't have been impressed if my DH had insisted. I think he did like the idea of me changing my name (which is odd because he comes from a culture where women don't usually take their husband's surname), but there is no way he would have insisted, and it may actually have been a dealbreaker for me.

aSofaNearYou · 13/01/2020 10:26

Yeah I would be very interested to know how you would feel about taking your partner's name instead.

McCanne · 13/01/2020 10:30

Her name, her choice.

Bluewavescrashing · 13/01/2020 10:33

Read The Handmaid's Tale OP.

windycuntryside · 13/01/2020 10:33

Wish I’d never changed mine. It’s outdated and patronising. She can call her Mrs and retain her name. Yabu. Don’t start married life dissatisfied that she didn’t do what you expected. Talk and agree first.

CandiceSucksCandy · 13/01/2020 10:42

YABU
I wish I hadn't given my surname up.

Emmelina · 13/01/2020 10:47

Double barrel them. Or change your and your daughter’s name to hers.

MilleniumHallsWalledGarden · 13/01/2020 10:48

YABVU, read this blog post by Deborah Cameron (Oxford University's Professor of Language and Communication) here

differentnameforthis · 13/01/2020 10:58

YANBU to want it. But you can't force her.

StegosaurusRex · 13/01/2020 10:59

YABVVVVU. It’s her name, it’s up to her.
My exH changed his name to mine because he wanted a ‘family’ name and I didn’t want to take his. I like my name and there’s no logical reason to change it

Cohle · 13/01/2020 11:04

YABU.

Change yours if it matters so much to you.

EnchantedByGin · 13/01/2020 11:04

I don’t think you’re unreasonable for feeling a bit disconcerted by her telling you this when you assumed that when you were married you’d all share a surname/family name. Traditionally that’s what’s been done and if this is the first time this has come up, it’s not surprising that you’ve been a bit thrown.

She is also definitely not being unreasonable telling you that she’s not sure she wants to, or that she isn’t going to. After all, it’s her name. Not yours that will be impacted. If your desire for you all to share a name is strong enough, is there a good enough argument for you not to take hers? Why don’t you all change? Go double-barrelled? If that won’t work. Mix it up and choose one which is a mixture of both names?

The whole naming thing is seriously emotive in so many ways, but also because it boils down to our identity.

FWIW I didn’t think I would change my surname when I married. My mother didn’t, and while I am not close to my father, it was my name. Our eldest was born before we were married and my DH is very traditional so I knew it was very important to him that our children took his surname, and I wasn’t bothered about having a different name to them, right up until the month before our wedding when I was taking our baby on a flight on my own and we were checking in but there had been a problem so they were trying to amalgamate flights and having taken all our passports to sort this, the member of staff dealing with this called out to ask “who is flying with the infant please”...and like that I changed my mind that I was going to change my name. Still kept my maiden name on my email though...maybe that’s my small act of rebellion. 😉

FramingDevice · 13/01/2020 11:45

I don’t think you’re unreasonable for feeling a bit disconcerted by her telling you this when you assumed that when you were married you’d all share a surname/family name.

Or 'You're feeling disconcerted by your own patriarchal assumptions that your wife would divest herself of the name she has had all her life and arbitrarily rename herself after you'?

FramingDevice · 13/01/2020 11:51

Our eldest was born before we were married and my DH is very traditional

If he were that 'traditional' he would have held off on impregnating you before you got married.

Funny how 'traditional' seems to mean, in the context of these threads, something along the lines of 'Weirdly determined to stamp his ownership over his wife, rather like a tomcat spraying his territory'. Unattractive stuff.

Frankly, I'm astonished anyone wants to marry these 'traditional' insecure dinosaurs. To paraphrase a delightful insight on the other current thread about deluded women who appear to think that every other woman is dying to shag their unprepossessing boyfriend, 'I'd rather eat my own liver than shag a man who feels strongly about renaming his wife.'

Drabarni · 13/01/2020 12:02

YANBU, I think a lot of posters missed the bit where you said your children together have your name and you wanted to all have the same surname.
Posts of you changing your name are immaterial. It's also not because your fiance doesn't want to change her name, she just doesn't like the sound of it.
Have you suggested double barrelling, does she think this would sound any better?

YouJustDoYou · 13/01/2020 12:03

Why should she lose her identity just to appease a man?

SchrodingersBox · 13/01/2020 12:15

To hear both sides of this discussion in a calm and reasoned way this is not the place to come.

BorissGiantJohnson · 13/01/2020 12:22

I've just checked and apparently it's not the 1950s anymore. I hope this helps with your predicament. Yabu.

Sockypuppet · 13/01/2020 12:24

Hilarious. She took an enormous financial risk by bearing your child without the legal protection of marriage. You do realise that in this country that means she was compromising her health and career at absolutely no financial risk to you?

And now you're all puzzled as to why she doesn't want your name lol

FramingDevice · 13/01/2020 12:28

To hear both sides of this discussion in a calm and reasoned way this is not the place to come.

Perhaps because there isn't another 'side', only a manchild tantrumming because his new toy won't let him put a big name sticker on her.

I mean, if this were a real situation, obviously.

JesusInTheCabbageVan · 13/01/2020 12:28

I took my DH's surname because as I saw it, 'my' surname was actually my dad's, rather than mine, and given the state of my relationship with my dad as a child, I just felt like I'd rather have DH's name since that was the only choice.

YABU btw.

NeedAnExpert · 13/01/2020 12:29

I took my DH's surname because as I saw it, 'my' surname was actually my dad's, rather than mine,

So women never own their names? Only men?

CodenameVillanelle · 13/01/2020 12:30

Yes YABU
Can't even say more because this makes me too cross

QueSera · 13/01/2020 12:31

On principle I didn't take my husband's surname - I have one already (even though I like his surname much more than mine). An expectation that a woman should take a man's surname upon marriage seems very sexist to me - erasing her identity, subsuming it under his, as if she becomes his property. YABVU.

PhoneLock · 13/01/2020 12:32

So women never own their names? Only men?

I've got my own name. It's the same as my husband's, but it's mine too.