ILs refusing to use my name

[namechangedasouting]

DH and I married 5+ years ago. I kept my name, children are double barrelled. MIL (divorced from FIL but has kept her married name) has always found it personally insulting that I wanted to keep my name. All cards etc. Are addressed to "Mrs DH surname" and for the kids the same. I've really tried to just let it go - she knows these aren't our names so correcting her over and over seems pointless. She's now started "correcting" DH's other family members who send the kids cards addressed correctly. Her latest comment to DH's aunt (whilst we were there) was "they are "DH surname" through and through, why pretend otherwise?"

AIBU in finding this annoying?

yanbu to want your mil to use your name but I guess she has a bee in her bonnet about it so I doubt if you will change her attitude.

I do wonder about what will happen when the double-barrelled children start getting married. Will we end up with their offspring having 4 hyphenated surnames? It can get a little over the top when I see these little ones having to learn how to write their names when they start school.

Just pick one surname, his or hers for the kids. Double barrelled names are ridiculous. What’s going to happen when Mr Smith-Jones marries Ms Brown-Green? Kids with the surname Smith-Jones-Brown-Green. Then when they get married… what, six or eight names. Your MIL probably feels the same. It’s pretentious.

Are you really this thick or is this satire?

I'm now genuinely fascinated by how many people are going ‘what happens when double barrelled people get married?’ as though it’s some new and startling thought that only they have had.

You could:

• Use basic common sense.


• Google it.


• Or, as you’re here, actually read the thread, as this question has been asked and answered multiple times.

Oh, God. 😂😂😂

...

But traditions can change and no one should feel obliged to carry on the tradition if they don't want too and not made to feel bad. Where I grew up in the past girls used to be called after their grandfathers so they had. ina added after the name ie Kennethina, hughina, donaldina, think there is many a girl now very relieved that that tradition has died out. The tradition of naming sons after their fathers was another one. And that was some thing I was adament would not happen, my kids would be their own person and not named after anyone, I find that so outdated. But life would be boring if we were all the same.

No matter how much Poisson , She send you way , if you don't drink it , then it won't kill you.

Just smile at her and nod, do not engage, and just LET IT GO,
This is always the best revenge and one who matters uses your chosen name, so win by being a good person, and just think what a fool in your head,

@Ifeelsuchafool - it’s Mrs. that’s a shortened form of mistress, not Ms. It was used to indicate a woman was married and therefore the property of her husband (which is why a wife was known by the husbands forename and surname - e.g. most married Victorian women were known as Mrs John Smith or whatever) Miss indicated that the women was the property of her father or legal guardian- usually an older brother and they had their own forename to differentiate between the mother and any other female siblings.

I kept my name as changing it seemed ridiculous. I find double-barrelled surnames ridiculous, so children were always getting husband's last name. I don't find it at all offensive to occasionally be addressed by husband's last name. I often use it - for the school, for example, to avoid confusion. But I am my original name on every official document.

Why were they always getting his name, as opposed to yours? And is your husband fine with being addressed as Mr your last name?

My DH answers to my surname as often as I answer to his. We only correct people if we are likely to have a close on going relationship with the person getting it wrong- e.g. next door neighbour we’d take it up with, the local shop assistant that knows us just from using the shop? We’d probably not bother.
We’re very much together- his title is Mr, mine is Ms and has been since I was 14, so around 50 years.

And the children were given the surname that came closer to the beginning of the alphabet. That was based purely on (admittedly limited evidence) research which suggested children with surnames beginning with letters occurring earlier in the alphabet (e.g. Adams) do better in school than children with names nearer the end (such as Yates)

I do wonder about what will happen when arseholes learn to read the fucking thread instead of asking a question that has been asked about eighteen fucking times already and answered more often than that.

Should be a fucking banning offence.

@riv are you @Caiti19 and responding to me or are you a different poster? Sorry, it seemed like you were answering my questions, but it’s a different username and I’m not tagged, so not sure!

I wish I’d kept my name, much nicer than DH’s. But I wanted to have the same name as my children and it didn’t work as double barrelled. So I have his name, it’s nowhere near as nice as mine. Good for you op. Correct her each and every time.

Why couldn’t they have your last name?

@150poundrebate No, sorry, I’ve never changed my username, (just as I’ve never changed my surname) even though I’ve been here for many years.
I was giving general comments apart from the post where I tagged someone, as there seemed to be a few pp following a theme, rather than specific to you.
sorry if I have offended you in some way, it wasn’t intentional.

incidentally @150poundrebate , the children have my surname.

@Riv Oh, I wasn’t offended at all! I apologise if that’s how it came across. I was genuinely just wondering if you were responding to me. 😊

@150poundrebate phew! I suppose I was responding to you in a sense, as you were the main poster on that theme 🙂
In response to your comments on keeping your name because it was less faff: 35 years ago I had a LOT of faff to keep my name. The bank, my employer and the tax office all changed my name to his without being asked (amongst others less important places like the paper-shop and the gym) It took two years to get it corrected back to my own name.

And now I have got in a muddle- sorry, I am just too tired. I seem to have made up a post about the faff of changing a name. 🙄
it was Caiti19 who just thought it ridiculous, not a faff.
night night 🤣

@Riv That's insane! I’d be furious! I’m actually furious on your behalf, 35 years later! I think it’s really fabulous that you stuck to your guns and didn’t stand for it.

I think you may be mixing me up with another poster, though. I’m keeping my name because it’s my name. Nothing to do with faff (or names dying out or my qualifications or professional reasons, or any of the other excellent reasons women have provided on this thread). I don’t need a justification, anymore than my fiancé does. Our names are our names, they weren’t loaned to us.

Hahahaha! No worries! Good night.

Its an old person thing. I get excluded from being a DIL because we're not married but we've been together over 12 years and have several kids and a house. It's like it's a privilege to share her last name or something, like ok maybe I will some day but it costs a lot of money that I'm using instead to raise my children and give them a good childhood. Weddings to me a purely a vanity and I'd rather do something else lol.