Being called Mrs *-*

[LorlieS]

I'm married and a Ms My Last Name - His Last Name (hubby also double-barrelled when we married).
So why do so many people insist on addressing me as a Mrs?! AIBU to be annoyed by this?

So what? She didn’t borrow the name from your husband. It became HERS. Maybe she’s realised changing your name for a man is idiotic and doesn’t want to repeat the mistake. Maybe she shares the name with children. Maybe she just doesn’t want the administrative hassle of changing it. Whatever the reason it is precisely none of your business.

I’ve a friend who changed her name on marriage and went on to do a doctorate. She’s now divorced and remarrying and keeping the name of her first husband. And she has every right.

its pathetic that you think this.

I get that you're a Ms, I dont think it's fair to question other people preferring to follow tradition and being a Mrs if that's what they want to. And I also couldn't get myself in a tizz about people at school calling me Mrs or Miss or Ms or whatever. But I get that we are all different.

@OneMoreTime23 Sadly they are not the only ignorant one here. "Automatic" title my arse!

When did I piss on your chips? So unnecessarily aggressive.

There was a teacher at my primary school in the 70's who insisted on being called Ms. She was horrible and was really irrationally angry if any little 8 year old accidentally got it wrong. I was terrified of her and as a result I hate Ms. It just makes me think 'miserable, bitter old woman'.

I get called Miss all the time at the school I work at even though I'm Mrs. I just couldn't imagine it ever upsetting me.

You were sneering about someone who ultimately made the same choice as you.

So what? I wasn’t sneering at you. And I wasn’t sneering at all. I said I find it odd and I do. That doesn’t excuse your unnecessary aggression.

Why? Do you have some sort of resistance to the letter r? I mean, what is the point?

@ForTonightGodisaDJ Oh yes, I have a phobia of the letter r. That's literally ìt!
FGS.

Changing your name is not 'for a man' necessarily though is it? I changed mine because I despised my father and wanted to dump his poxy name. I gave my daughter her father's name for the same reason. I changed it for myself, because I wanted to, for my own reasons. It's a few years on and I'm still happy with my choice.

Why wait for marriage to do it? Why change it to (presumably) the man you married’s name?*

*Unless you married on your 18th birthday, of course and it was truly the first opportunity you had and he happened to have the name you would have stabbed a pin in in the phone book.

Was your dad the only one with the name? No other relatives with it? Have any brothers ditched it too?

That’s why it hasn’t taken off as much as it should have. People are confused by the tailblazing women breaking the mould. Were it not for that pesky “r” they’d see us for the trailblazers we are. 😏

Yes, I have other family members with the name. My sister kept it for professional reasons for example. But I didn't want it. I was happy to change it, to be the same as my husband's and my daughter. It shouldn't be an affront to anyone who chooses not to change their name, and my reasons are perfectly valid. I'm very content with my choice, it harms nobody, and that's what matters.

I so agree with that last bit. However that is also why I get annoyed by the it has to be 'ms/mx" brigade. As "I" get to decide what "I" want to use. I have chosen Mrs. If you have chosen Ms or Mx I will use it (once you have taught me how you pronounce it - not everyone says it the same) however give me the same respect and accept I made a different choice to yours.

I so agree with that last bit. However that is also why I get annoyed by the it has to be 'ms/mx" brigade. As "I" get to decide what "I" want to use. I have chosen Mrs. If you have chosen Ms or Mx I will use it (once you have taught me how you pronounce it - not everyone says it the same) however give me the same respect and accept I made a different choice to yours.

OK, but how are we all supposed to KNOW each other's preferred titles or marital status? Go around wearing t-shirts with "I prefer Miss" or "I prefer Ms" or "I prefer Mrs" emblazoned on the front?

If you are only prepared to use "Ms" if the person has literally told you that and told you "how they pronounce" is, well, what do you do when you don't know if someone is married or not? It's actually pretty intrusive to go around peering at people and making judgments about whether they "look" married etc., and yet such judgment are unavoidable unless you use "ms" as the default form, since we no longer live in a Jane Austen world where married women wore frilly caps etc. to advertise their status.

I'll happily use Mrs or Miss if someone emails me and actually puts "Miss" or "Mrs" in brackets after their name or signals their preference/status in some other clear way, but if I don't get that, I'm going to use Ms. which is the normal, polite, professional default way to address a woman in most of the English-speaking world.

That's fine & your choice - I'm outlining my reason for personally not using Ms. The OP was suggesting all women should use Ms & I was explaining why I don't want to.
You do you x

And I'm outlining why your perception is skewed.

I don't care what title you choose to use, and I don't make any judgements based on it, but it sounds like you would judge me for me choice.

Odd that you didn't write replacing her own name with her FILs. It would've made exactly the same amount of sense.

Then you need to tell that, otherwise they won’t know will they.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to change tradition, it’s just daft to expect people to read your mind and know that’s what you’re doing.

Tell them you prefer Ms. Personally, I wouldn't get upset about it though.

Changing tradition does also mean acknowledging that things have changed and changing our automatic assumptions, though. We’d no longer think it acceptable for a teacher to automatically assume all the parents of children in their class were married, or heterosexual for example, and to then call them daft for objecting to the assumption because of tradition. Women not changing their title or surname upon marriage isn’t so completely new and unusual as to be something you’d clarify rather than assume.

Yup, always odd when someone doesn’t say what you think they should, isn’t it? 🙄