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?

I get ‘Mrs DHFirstname DHSecondname’

I am ‘Ms Myownfuckingnamesthanks’

can’t be arsed to get worked up about it though. They’re wrong, their problem.

It is annoying in the extreme. Has your husband addressed this with her? He should, and should additionally tell her that he totally supports this decision, and took part in making it. If that doesn't make any difference, this may not be the hill you choose to die on. While annoying, it is small in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, told them several times. It’s been going on so long that I just ignore it now. She also bizarrely sends us an anniversary card every year, not sure how she worked out our imaginary wedding date. 🤣.

So weird! What did they say at the time?! Like I said, I cannot imagine what the response could be to ‘don’t call me X, my name is Y’.

I can only suggest you address her cards equally wrongly - see how she likes it.

When I got married I double-barrelled my surname because there are no boys in the family to carry my maiden surname on, I have a daughter & she has the same double-barrelled surname too. We've been separated for 13 years & my daughter has changed her every day name to just my surname - her choice.

She is being unreasonable - anything goes these days, it's personal choice.

YANBU in finding it annoying, but I'd let if go. Life's too short. However, if she 'corrects' your name to other people while with you, then it is perfectly reasonable, and totally logical, to correct her back - just be straight. Oh MIL, but that's not right, my/our name is... TBH it obviously irritates her, but she should be 'letting it go' too

Personally I'd be making 'light hearted' comments to these other members of the family 'oh she's always getting my name WRONG, we do have to keep reminding her' with accompanying eye roll. But that's just me!

I think deliberately getting someone’s name wrong is very offensive. It sends a clear message of disrespect of them as a person.

I happily changed my name when I married. My mother changed my name to her 2nd husband’s when I was a preschooler, and I was glad to be rid of it.

I always find it fascinating how the same people who claim it’s no big deal for a woman to change her name with marriage get very loud when either she chooses not to, or, somehow worse, if her husband takes her name.

Has your husband considered taking your name? That way you would all have the same name.

100% this. I hate that convention so much. I genuinely find that it offends me!

@Eightiesfan I don’t think it’s an older person’s thing. See my pp.
My late MiL was born in 1921 and my late StepMiL born in 1926. I am a boomer. Admittedly it was unusual back in their time for a married woman to keep her name , but not unheard of. It was also very rare and fairly scandalous to live together without being married well into the 1970s - and children of such unions did suffer in most communities.
For those of you who think marriage is just an expensive piece of paper, do check your legal position (wills, house deeds and financial) and what will happen in the event of a serious illness, death or split up. There are loads of threads on here about that. Securing your future without a marriage can be more expensive than the marriage certificate, especially if you have given up career prospects, pension, and /or gone part time to look after your children and the home.

I don’t mind being referred to as Mrs, I’m proud of my marriage and happy to be associated with it. I don’t feel it compromises my sense of self but I can understand for others they might feel that way or have more of an attachment to their father’s name.

It isn't my father's name. It's mine.

Yep. And applying that same principle, when you change your own name you take your FILs.

I don’t mind being referred to as Mrs, I’m proud of my marriage and happy to be associated with it. I don’t feel it compromises my sense of self but I can understand for others they might feel that way or have more of an attachment to their father’s name

How do men get to show they are proud of their marriage?

Why is it that a woman's name is her fathers, but a man's is his own? By that logic haven't you just swapped your fathers name for your father-in-laws name? Or is it only men who "own" surnames?

Or is it only men who "own" surnames?

That's the evident underlying belief.

@Riv Miss, Ms and Mrs all have their origin in the title "Mistress", once used for all adult females regardless of their marital status. My point is that Miss and Mrs (pronounced missus) then became the norm for single and married women respectively. I refuse to use a title that is not pronounced as a proper word. That is my prerogative, just as it is the OP's prerogative to continue using her maiden name with the title Ms if that is her preferance. Use of either title declares one as the property of the man whose surname follows so I, personally, fail to see the point of the use of Ms at all. That notwithstanding, one should always respect the wishes of the person bearing the name and title was my point. And not impose what we believe to be "correct".

Perhaps Goodwife and Goody should be brought back.

Yes exactly.

There is much to be said for being high and mighty and rejecting husband’s name, for “your” name… well it isn’t, it’s your father’s name…

I thought I’d rather like to have my Grandmother’s name as I respected her enormously. However ultimately that is her father’s name, and so on it goes…

Really the only way to be truly independent of patriarchal name descent would be to rename yourself upon adulthood. Or to have something like the Spanish system of two names.

Good grief have you nothing else to worry about apart from a 19th Century fashion for the social climbers? Call yourself Smith nad be done with it!

No, it isn't. It's your name. The idea that names only truly belong to the first person that ever held them is the only place the 'it isn't your name it's your father's' can ultimately go, and it's silly.

There is much to be said for being high and mighty and rejecting husband’s name, for “your” name… well it isn’t, it’s your father’s name…

Am I reading this correctly? Ignoring the weird language about being high and mighty and "rejecting" the poor husbands name...

So my name is my fathers' name, but my husbands name is his name. So I can be "high and mighty" and keep my fathers name, or swap it for HIS fathers name, but because he's a man it's actually his name whereas I just borrow surnames and swap between father/husband? Have I got that right??

I get so tired of the idiots who insist that no woman ever owns her name. No matter what she does she's either borrowing her father's or her husbands.

Go be a good little handmaiden elsewhere and please stop boring me.

I would like this on a t-shirt please

To all who took issue with what I said.

In the U.K. men’s names on the whole are seen as something constant throughout life. Whereas women’s - generally (don’t get the hackles up) change according to the man she marries, may change back to maiden name if divorce and then change again upon new marriage..

I think if you take issue on changing to husbands name, and thus losing your identity, then you would also have to take issue with the fact that your mother’s identity has also been wiped from your name, only father’s given…

So I think double barrelled akin to Spanish system would be preferable so women are treated equally.

That men's names are often seen as a constant in the UK while women's are not is exactly the double standard a lot of us are unhappy about...

You can do Mr & Mrs Smith or Sandra and John Smith. I am not Mr & Mrs John Smith. That is so out dated.
Yes it is and I'll admit to taking a few years to realise this - when you're taught the 'correct way' to title an envelope as a child, it needs pointing out when it's no longer appropriate. To make this mistake out of ignorance though is forgivable, whereas continually 'getting it wrong' when you've been told to stop is rude and inconsiderate.