Name change - Korean lady, rivers of corn, Wooly Hugs etc!
We had a real shock last week - XH had a heart attack at work, and the paramedics could not revive him. He was in his early forties so a total shock. Mixed reactions from me, sad obviously because he was so young and he is my child’s father but mainly a sense of relief that he couldn't hurt us any more.
He was a nasty piece of work, violent, financially and emotionally abusive, I’ve had MANY threads on here about things he’s done including being arrested for DV to his poor fiancé in front of my daughter three times in the space of a couple of years. She is now 11 and has not seen him for many years following this third DV incident and SS involvement. It took a CAHMS referral and months of counselling before she stopped having nightmares - she was terrified of him. He was welcome to call/Skype her but these had dried up to less than once a month, so he wasn’t a present fixture in her life at all. Even though she hadn’t seen him in a long time she is still affected by what she witnessed - she had to do an autobiography for school and wrote in quite harrowing detail about that night, so much so I emailed the teacher just to check it wasn’t going up on a notice board somewhere, as it made for some shocking reading! My poor girl has been through so much - she is safe now though, and I’m doing my best to show her love every day.
We left him when she was 15 months old and he had decided to “teach me a lesson” by sellotaping her into her high chair and cutting her hair off. Since then we have found a little house, got two lovely cats, built a happy life for us. I’ve even met and married the KINDEST and most lovely man you could ever meet, who comes with two lovely kids of his own so our family is complete. DD adores her stepbrother and stepsister and we are really happy.
She has in the past expressed sadness that she is the only one with a different surname. DH, DSS and DSD are all, for eg, Smith, I have double barrelled my maiden name so I am St John Smith, she is Parker (not real names, but same number of syllables). I asked XH many times if he would permit me to add my surname to DD’s name so that she would feel part of the family - he always refused, as a control thing more than anything else, he wasn’t seeing her at all (and certainly wasn’t paying any child maintenance for her - current CSA arrears stand at over 12k!). However, he has now died so I have sole PR. I know it’s early days and it’s still raw, but if DD is still keen shall I do it? Her new surname would be the equivalent of Parker St John Smith which is a HELL of a mouthful, but I think it would be fairer than for eg making Parker a middle name and keeping only mine as surname.
So AIBU to consider this? Or a cold hearted cow as he’s not even in the ground yet?