DH and I got married last year. Beforehand, DH had suggested of his own accord that he take my surname. His is quite difficult to spell whereas mine is more distinctive. I said that was entirely his choice - I was also open to double barrelling our names (even though it becomes quite a long, odd mouthful) or we could each stick with our names and have a think later about what to do for any children. I just would prefer not to take his as I feel a bit odd about the tradition.
We ended up sticking with our names after DH aired the idea of changing to mine with his parents and after initially not saying anything, his DF seemed to get pretty upset about it on our wedding day and it left a bit of a cloud.
Roll on to now when we've been TTC for a while, so the question of names has come up again, and DH says because of his DF's reaction any children will definitely need to have his surname or his surname followed by mine, or his DF will be "devastated".
I'm a bit annoyed that tradition is overriding the option of taking my name - which was DH's preference - but I don't want to be hypocritical as I appreciate I'm being a bit inflexible in not wanting to take his. I see the only suitable compromise to be the double barrel but the result would be pretty long and impractical - is that a bit unfair on a child?
Even if we don't manage to have a child I think we need to get to the bottom of it, as every time I visit DPIL they ask if I've changed my name to theirs yet...