Seriously Regret name change

[Nostrings457]

When I married I took H’s surname and our children then had that name. After 10 years our marriage has ended. He has behaved appallingly and not made anywhere near enough effort with the DC. I am filing for divorce. I don’t want to keep his name - but for professional reasons don’t really want to change but also want to have the same name as DC.

I feel so bitter and annoyed at myself for taking his name (but At the time wouldn’t have had it any other way).

I’m in the depths of heartbreak at the moment but this is really getting to me. Does anyone have any advice or experience?

Don't do this unless you have a very good memory. I tried this and changed only changed two things things to my married name - one bank account and the car registration but it caused me chaos where I couldn't remember what name I had given when

In the end my husband left me for someone else within a few years so I changed the two things back to my birth name and kept my own name even after marrying DH and having DS. It has made my life much less complicated,

A major part of the reason I haven't changed my name is laziness and resentment that only women have to do all of that paperwork after getting married - (passport, all bank accounts, gas, electric, telephone, council tax, share companies , car registration and insurance companies, credit cards, driving licence, doctor, Insurance companies, mortgage and loan companies, subscriptions, pension companies, Inland Revenue, schools, work, reward cards, shopping and online accounts)

When we last moved I made a list of the people and institutions I needed to contact with my new address and it 86 contacts, all of which had a different process to change address. It took months if not a year to to do them all
I imagine changing your name is even more complicated and have no wish to do that any more often than is necessary and having the same surname as my son in day to day life is of no importance to me at all. It isn't how it works in a lot of countries so I don't really care

Ms is equivalent to Mr and isn’t an indicator of marital status. In your shoes I’d change your surname to the one you wanted. I have never had the same surname as my children and it has never caused one moment of bother and nobody has ever questioned it. It is perfectly common these days for family members to have different surnames and the vast majority of professionals are aware that this isn’t the 1950s and behave accordingly.

I had a really interesting conversation today with a nurse (about a different matter) and she said’ “It’s time women put themselves first - not behind men or children or friends or colleagues. Put yourself first here”. And she’s right. Put yourself first.

I feel it is one aspect of modern society which is still incredibly in the dark ages - that it is so bloody difficult to effectively revert back to your maiden name after divorce. The admin, the hassel

no more admin and hassle than changing your name when you get married. But strangely that’s never a problem…

I would keep the surname as your children have it too

It looks very common when the mother doesn't have the same surname as her children

We’ll as a “modern woman” I took my husbands name because keeping my arsehole fathers name didn’t exactly feel like the modern feminist statement some people claim it to be

If you didn't like your fathers name you could have changed it anyway to something you liked. Why wait until marriage?

This.

I’ve kept my married name. I feel it’s my name now. I don’t associate it with my ex H . It’s also my children’s name. I also don’t feel any association with my maiden name even though I had it longer than my married name.

Why is it "common" to have a different surname? Is 1886 your date of birth by any chance?

Heh. Bring on the " common" then. Personally I think it looks fabulous when a mother has a different name from her kids.

100% change it back. Psychologically you will be making a break. Your children having different last names won’t matter. This is about you and your identity. And that matters.

I’d say completely the opposite. Many women with professional careers have kept their birth name because that is how they are known in their field and they don’t want to lose their professional identity.

Is being married and assuming your husband’s name more important than that? I don’t think so.

What a kerfuffle. Why would you bother?

I do believe a lot of women change their names on marriage because it's seen as 'the done thing', or sometimes because they even think it's a legal requirement. Whatever is the case, it irks me no end that a woman's name is so often considered the 'real' property of a man who has graciously allowed us to loan it from them until they become tied to another man and take on his identity to match.

I say bollocks to that noise, and to making my own life harder by having two different identities in two different contexts. Professional women, actors, doctors etc, never used to change their names: that's a more recent, retrograde step (albeit there were fewer of those professional women around back in the day).

My name is my name, as much as my brother's is his. Women can call themselves what they want, but it's interesting to see so many threads from people who did change, and who regretted it, and who have difficulty in seeing their actual, own names, as in fact belonging to them.

It's yours. It's only the hideous tag 'maiden name' that I want to see in the bin. Awful.

Change it back. There are many cultures where parents and children don't have the same name. The closest being Spain. Only siblings have the same surnames, spouses, parents and children have different names. If anything they are even more family focused so it really makes no difference.

It looks very common when the mother doesn't have the same surname as her children.

Give over.

"Yes, this is one of the reasons I was so angry when my ex told our kids I might be changing my name soon. He has no idea what I will do with my name, it is none of his business and it's not him who has all the hassle that goes along with it (as well as all the hassle of filing for divorce, buying him out of the house, etc when he had the affair)."

There is something quite perverse about men who have a strong opinion about what their ex wife does or does not do with "their" surname after divorce. In my opinion it is quite a big thing taking someone else's surname at marriage, if the relationship does not work out, surely there is no "right" to demand the surname is or is not changed.

I sometimes wonder whether it is OW / wife number 2 waiting in the wings who has some ridiculous notion that she wants to be the one-and-only Mrs X out there in the world and that is why you must revert to maiden name. How horrible to have two women in conflict over a man's surname. Ridiculous!

It looks very common when the mother doesn't have the same surname as her children oh do fuck off. What a horrible statement. Do millions of Spanish families look 'common' to you?

@JanisMoplin
Heh. Bring on the " common" then. Personally I think it looks fabulous when a mother has a different name from her kids.

Do you? I think it looks like she's made a sort of vague attempt at independence, by keeping her own name, but has embarrassingly deferred to her boyfriend/husband by giving their children his name instead of hers.

Spanish children have their mother's AND father's names. As do some British children, including mine.

I don't understand. Your husband's name was his name, but your name was your father's name? Why was your name less yours than his name was his? Don't you mean you took your father-in-law's name?

Change it if you want. It'll be fine for work etc

@Sunshineandflipflops
I assume they mean that your birth surname is usually your dad's name.

So if you're a woman, the name you've had for your entire life isn't really 'yours'? But if you're a man, it is?

I don't have my husbands surname but my children do.

The reason for this is that my birth family were abusive and I have had no contact with them since before I married DH. My name is my name but I didn't want my three children having any connection to that family, who they have never met and will never meet, and I didn't want them to be easy to find if anyone came looking for them.

How embarrassing for me eh?

Sometimes you don't actually know everyone's reasons for doing things and maybe going round making assumptions and judgements about people based on the tiny bit of information you do have, is something to be embarrassed about?

Double barrell officially, but use your name as your every day name.

You have a point. We could go further. But when I got married 25 years ago even keeping my own name was unusual.

You could do a reverse Jessica Ennis-Hill. She added her husband's name when she married; you could put your original surname back into your name on divorce.