AIBU to address post using Maiden names?

[Notablippifan]

This is a slightly silly one but over something my family does that annoys me at times.

I've been married to my husband for 7 years and when we got married I told my family that I had decided to keep my maiden name as I felt it was a big part of my identity and I didn't want to change.
Anyway my mum's side of the family are very traditional and I could see from their faces they didn't approve of this. From then onwards they've all been sending me post with my first name and my husband's surname. A few times I've messaged them saying "Thank you for the package but you put the wrong surname so you're lucky it didn't go elsewhere" just to make a point. They have repeatedly ignored this.

Would it be unreasonable to start sending them post using their maiden names just to be annoying? Super petty I know but it would give me a laugh!

I had this from a couple of people and was VERY straightforward about it not being acceptable. I’m not British, so generally skip the passive aggressive social dances.

You might want to go with a direct ‘I have asked you to stop calling me X, you’ve done it again, that is not my name, do not do it again’. Don’t pussyfoot around it.

I must be very British in that case as I thought I was being direct already 😂

Yes, when a couple of friends starting giving me grief about this on Facebook after we got married and I made a post to remind people of my name, it all got shut down pretty quickly when I responded to every single person who came on to call me Mrs DHName by calling them by the wrong name.

They didn't like it.

I didn't care.

Are we talking envelopes / packaging that gets thrown away? or cheques with the wrong name?

Honestly I'd let it go rather than upset people who like me enough to send me gifts. If they start sending you cheques in your married name, just open a bank account in that name and cash the cheque.

You've told them, they've chosen to ignore. They're weird people but probably quite old so this situation may not go on for much longer ..........

Someone I know does this. I've I known them about 18 years, been married almost 30. I've always been Ms MySurname Hisurname. I use that on everything.
Whenever they send me something they always put Mrs HisSurname.
I pointed it out and their logic (they're a few years older than me) was that they were taught how to address letters when they were at school, and their way was correct.

When I fill out online forms etc.and people respond, they call me Ms HisSurname, and I have to point out that what I have written in the 'last name' field isn't what they have used.

Bloody annoying.

You genuinely wouldn't mind if one of your family members started calling you Dave? Or Patricia? (Assuming neither of those are your names).

If a member of my family called me by a name that wasn't mine, I don't think I would like it, so I would correct them.

I genuinely wouldn't care. A woman I used to know called me another name by mistake for years. I never corrected her.

Virtually no woman I know of my generation (I’m 51) changed her name on marriage. Certainly none of my actual friends have
I just did a quick scan down my FB friends list and totted it up. 14 didn't change, 52 did, 6 double-barrelled. Nearly all in their 40s, a few older. I think these things are socially contagious.

“Thank you for the package but you put the wrong surname so you're lucky it didn't go elsewhere"

Except that’s not how post works. You could put “petty about a name” on the package and it would still get there if the address was correct.

Either be up front about your preference or keep it hidden, but don’t be PA.

Noted re being passive aggressive. I didn't realise I was so thanks for pointing it out! I'm a bit of a people pleaser at times so I thought I was doing it in a polite way.

Dm does this all the time to dd1 who has decided to keep her maiden name. She has been married almost 5 years now and I think she's given up with her! Also both her and husband are doctors and she often gets Dr and Mrs - even from grandma. It is slightly awkward if post is addressed to her Dr husband's name as they both have the same initial.

I'm 58 and all my friends of a similar age - married late 80s/early 90s changed theirs.

As someone who’s ex husband changed his name to mine I feel very strongly about name changes. I’m obviously in the minority, but I’d definitely do it! They are rude and very out of date.

My own parents repeatedly double barrelled my surname when I was married to xh, despite me never changing my name. It's rude and petty but you're not going to make them stop doing it because they are the ones that think you're in the wrong.

I just said "that's not my name" every time. Only stopped when we got divorced, maybe you'll have to take drastic action OP 🤣

But even then, I would get in touch with the old "aunty" who had sent it, tell her that I couldn't pay it in as the name was wrong, she would send a corrected cheque to the name she had always known me as, then the following birthday/Christmas/whenever it would happen again.

As PP said, she likely assumes that she is correct and that you have been lazy and remiss in not telling the bank of your 'new proper' name.

Some people are real sticklers for what they believe to be 'right' and just cannot fathom that other people do things differently - even when it is about your own name and it makes no difference to them at all. Just look at the threads about 'table manners' on here - the last one had some common-sense, surely uncontroversial points about actual manners and consideration but it quickly descended into people holding their cutlery the 'wrong' way or cutting and buttering a whole roll instead of tearing it and buttering a small piece at a time.

Some people have very insular lives and feel really out of their comfort zone when other people do trivial things in a slightly different way from them, which they arbitrarily assume can be the only right way of doing it.

Your aunty probably thinks "Surely, she will have had an opportunity to get it corrected by now - it's been a year since it caused a problem last year, so all being well, she will have got it updated by now so that it's all correct and HER FAILURE TO SORT IT won't cause any more problems".

You should absolutely do it. And make sure you call them Ms, not Miss. People like that usually (claim to) think it denotes a divorcee.

No, that’s not polite at all 😂 If you’d said it to me I’d just think you were a dick and be less likely to do what you wanted!

I just said "that's not my name" every time.

I'd have grabbed their phones when they weren't looking and change their ringtone for when you call them to the Ting Tings

Why didn't I think of that 🤣🤣 also thanks for the earworm 🙈

Are any of the offending relatives men OP? If so, be sure to address them with their wives original surnames, or their mothers.

I do roll my eyes when I get a "BlazingWorld HusbandName" or "Mrs HusbandName" especially when it is from someone my own generation like a cousin or friend. However I do know it is hard to remember who has changed their name and who hasn't. I had to check with my own sister today. I tend to assume people have kept their maiden names unless I know the opposite, as the vast majority of my friends and family have, but others will assume the opposite I guess. If I thought someone was addressing me as BlazingWorld HusbandName because they thought they were right and I was wrong, rather than because they couldn't remember, then like you I would be irate.

I do love the people who actually, truly, genuinely believe that it's illegal for a woman not to change her name on marriage!

Do they think that women's prisons are securely holding Sarah the serial killer, Beryl the bank robber, Andrea the arsonist and somebody who doggedly claims to be Miss Brown, even though she has been caught red-handed getting married to Mr Robinson!

They're generally not doing any thinking at all.

No need to be a people pleaser when it comes to this OP, it's not as though they mind how you feel when they use the incorrect name, when they know and have been told.

Saying you're worried it will go to the wrong address is a bit daft; it obviously won't and ultimately it's all still you going around the houses trying to get them to stop doing it rather than have a firm conversation.

I'd point out that they know I have not changed my name when I married and I consider them not honouring that uncomfortable, that I understand their views but have made my own decision and that is the end of it, so please could they use my correct name going forward to avoid an issue. If they don't want to then I'd ask them to just not send anything at all going forward.

Thanks! That's really helpful. I'll try this out 🙂

No need to be a people pleaser when it comes to this OP, it's not as though they mind how you feel when they use the incorrect name, when they know and have been told.

Yes, definitely. Understand that you are accepting being called by a name that isn't your name, because they might get upset at you being allowed to be called by your actual name.

It's like an adult equivalent of when you get obnoxious grandparents who don't like the fact that you've called your new baby DS Cameron, so they decide that they will just call him Robert instead.