Mr and Mrs his initial surname 🤬

[ottermadness]

I just hate it, I’m not a Mrs and I have a name.

It’s nice that people remember to send anniversary cards though so I’m not going to be impolite.

AIBU that this gives me rage!?

YANBU and it drives me mad
I was thinking about this the other day while DP on the phone to MIL. Granted she is elderly now, but she has been doing this for about 40 years now
She probably isn't aware of it - because she's not a very reflective person- and I think she intends to be kind to me but, she clearly sees me as an adjunct to her son and the mother of her grandchildren
she consistently- always- sends cards addressed to Mr and Mrs his intial his surname. If it's just for me it comes to Mrs my initial his name-myname, which is actually closer to my adult daughter's name.
Over the years she has given me, without fail, toiletries and jewelry which are nothing remotely like my taste, even a cursory aquaintance with me would suggest that a book token would be more welcome than a cheap set of toiletries in a pink washbag. I know people will say I should be grateful but why, really? it shows zero thought or consideration.
In addition to all of this she has never shown the slightest interest in me and what I do- I have done a variety of interesting jobs and studies, which have involved travel and anyone else would ask about .

PLUS, she objected to the DCs being double barrelled because DPs surname might 'die out'
I may sound ungrateful and petty but the other day I could hear both sides of the phone can and she asked after the DCs but not me....I'm obviously only of interest in my support capacity.

As for the his initial, is that not technically correct for letter writing?

it's old fashioned tripe and i have told anyone who has addressed letters to me like that to pack it in forthwith. Two have carried on and i have continued to completely ingnore it and them. Works for me.

It's over 200 years since George Gordon Byron wrote that sickening line: 'Man's love is of man's life a thing apart. 'Tis woman's whole existence'. A whole two centuries later and it seems women's desire to relinquish their own identities to this ideal remains undiminished. That's their choice: incomprehensible to me, but theirs. It's when they try to impose that choice on me by insisting on the Mrs HisName bollocks, of constantly questioning or challenging any woman who doesn't pay due concession to 'tradition', that it becomes intrusive, not to mention tedious in the extreme. Incidentally it doesn't matter what you've 'been taught', if you persist in doing this against someone's expressed preference you are being thoroughly obnoxious. And judging by this thread, it's a very common issue.

As to the insistence that a name change does nothing to diminish identity: there's nothing so fundamental to a person's identity than their name. If you adopt someone else's name on marriage, what you're doing is discarding the name associated with your own family of origin: your history, your past, your formative years that shaped you into the person you are. You're discarding that to take on the name of a family with whom you don't share that history, that past, that fundamental era whose values - for better or worse - have set you up for the rest of your life. Whatever the protestations people make about this having no impact whatsoever on their identity, unfortunately this is inescapable.

Not my circus, and people can call themselves what they like, take on another family's identity, create a new one of their own, quadruple-barrel themselves Babcock-Humperdink-Ponsonby-Smythe, or crack on in any way they see fit. That seems to me the fundamental difference between my attitude and that of the 'traditionalists'.

This doesn’t bother me at all , it’s the correct way to address a letter - all be it from a bygone age

@Sunnyhopefulness

This doesn’t bother me at all , it’s the correct way to address a letter - all be it from a bygone age

No, it isn't. Times change, social mores change. Subsuming a woman's identity into her husband's is no longer correct. We also no longer think placing people in the village stocks or using leeches to cure every ailment is correct, among other things. Do keep up.

@Sunnyhopefulness

This doesn’t bother me at all , it’s the correct way to address a letter - all be it from a bygone age

That’s nice for you. Times change and people move forward, like with medicine, things advance we don’t still do things s 50 years ago just because that was right then. What about people from other countries where their system is different and the woman never takes her husbands name?

@Sunnyhopefulness

This doesn’t bother me at all , it’s the correct way to address a letter - all be it from a bygone age

Not to me or the OP it isn't. In those cases, addressing a letter to Mrs DH Surname is using the wrong name. The correct way to address any letter is to send it to a person who exists. As far as I am concerned, Mrs DH Surname is a fictional person - none of that is my name.

British gas and virgin media do this ALL THE TIME.

The account is in my name and set up by me. My husband is a named contact ONLY so why are you sending me correspondence to Mrs 'H' Tastic?

When I complaint, they don't get it.

I had experiences with both the National Trust and the Halifax where I set up a joint membership/account with my name first, then DH's. Both organisations then listed him first (my surname comes first alphabetically too!) and address letters just to him, plus at one stage the NT wouldn't let me make a change to our membership 'because I wasn't the primary account holder'. Apparently even the software is sexist.

I think it is just very old fashioned. I know my dad writes his Christmas cards and addresses them to Mr & Mrs (mans) initial surname but he doesn’t mean anything by it. To him it is polite and what he was taught was correct. He is a sweet old man so there is no way he would want to cause any offence...

I think the people saying YABU are stuck in the 40s

as if the "witty" comments trying to put people down are helpful... Are you so insecure in your own choice that you need to make a dig?

I don't care what YOU think, I like having the same name as my kids, and I have enough personality that choosing to use DH's name has not made me loose my identity or diminish me in any way shape or form.

The OP is not BU at all to have preferences, but some posters need to get over their own insecurity and accept that some of us made other choices.

I kept my name, 32 years ago, all my friends know this but if they send me a birthday card they address it as Mrs husband’s name.

If we go to a restaurant or hotel and I’ve booked it they call my husband Mr Temple.

@JaniceWebster The OP and poll was about whether it is reasonable to refer to women by Mrs husband’s initial and surname, not about whether it is reasonable for a woman to change her name upon marriage. Change your name as many times as you choose, you don’t need to justify it to us, but it’s rude to refer to a woman as a name that isn’t hers surely.

I was discussing this with colleagues recently, and what really suprised me was that I was a lone voice in rejecting the sexism (and the only one of 6 of us not to have taken their husband’s name on marriage). I could sense that they were considering me a curiosity in my views, a militant feminist even

It doesn’t bother me. It’s the traditional mode of address.

I didn’t change my name and I’m Ms, not Mrs. The bloke often gets called Mr Human. He doesn’t bother correcting them any more and agrees that’s who he is.

I kept my name, 32 years ago, all my friends know this but if they send me a birthday card they address it as Mrs husband’s name.

Then your friends are being rude, unless this is a joke between you all.

@Phineyj

I had experiences with both the National Trust and the Halifax where I set up a joint membership/account with my name first, then DH's. Both organisations then listed him first (my surname comes first alphabetically too!) and address letters just to him, plus at one stage the NT wouldn't let me make a change to our membership 'because I wasn't the primary account holder'. Apparently even the software is sexist.

I wonder how long ago that was. I've never had an issue with the NT, so maybe you got unlucky.

My name was always first, and it was my bank account, so they couldn't really argue there.

I came across an article once, where someone was writing about the Duchess of Cornwall and the invites to the events she hosts, eg dinners etc, like businesswoman of the year type thing.

Seems she dislikes people using Ms as a title and insists on women choosing between Miss or Mrs. Her ladies in waiting would be calling people to ask which they would be using.

That's actually rather rude of her, if true, to think she has the right to dictate the title others choose to use.

She’s the Duchess of Cornwall. She can do as she likes.

its the traditional way of addressing an envelope, taught in school in the eighties! However i do you undertand what you mean, even worse when i first got married people would give you your husbands initial even when addressing a letter just to you . ie mrs ( husbands initial) jones. When i send cards to a couple i dont write initials just mr and mrs surname. if an older relative addresses an envelope in the old fashioned traditional way i really cant get het up about it, the practice will die out eventually ( fingers crossed)

yeah, the Duchess of Cornwall can do as she likes (within the law) and I can judge what she does as I like
I'm disappointed actually I was under the impression she supported women's charities

She can support women’s charities and have traditional views on modes of address, they’re not mutually exclusive.

My own mother addressed my birthday card Mrs HisFirstName HisSurname... It looks ridiculous, just his initial wouldn’t have been as bad!

I don’t mind the concept of the woman taking the man’s name though. I think it gets messy through the generations if surnames don’t get inherited in a logical way... it is kind of the point of a surname /family name.
And yes it has sexist roots and could have gone the other way (man taking woman’s name) but then the men would be complaining. Just my thoughts! I am biased as DH has a lovely surname and my maiden name was odd :)

I wonder if people who are divorced, but keep their married name, have this issue?

@Dumbie

I wonder if people who are divorced, but keep their married name, have this issue?

This was my mum, I don’t believe she ever did.