Ex wife still has husband’s surname

[ByCyanPlayer]

Am I wrong to be peeved that my husband’s ex-wife still uses his surname, despite them being divorced 28 years and they were only married for 2 years? They share a son who is 30 but I fail to see why she can’t go back to her maiden name, plus she isn’t the type to be bothered about her and her son having the same surname.

This is ridiculous. Of course it's her name, whether she changes it on marriage or changes it for any other reason, once it's changed it's her name.

Your suggestion that her married name is on loan from her husband, never belonging to her, is the opposite of feminism

You’re the 2nd wife. They have a child together. Why on earth would a mother not want the same surname as her child?! It’s all legal. You need to get a grip.

But its nothing to do with you what name she uses. But even so I can see why you dont like it. But she might not like you being married to her ex and using his name which is hers

You don’t sound like a feminist. Feminism certainly isn’t about dictating to a woman how she should behave, which is what you are trying to do.

You are VERY unreasonable. That became her name FOR LIFE, when she changed it. Divorce doesn't change that. And she was the first wife, and the original. It does not matter how long they were married. It's her name. I think you need to grow up.

@ByCyanPlayer Did you change your name when you married him?

Would it be helpful if you and husband changed names to your maiden name ?

We can’t be serious here…. She shares the name with her SON regardless. It’s literally her name, she’s changed it, it’s the SAME name.

DH ex wife kept her name after they divorced too. I didn’t give a flying fuck becsue it was her name and it affected me in zero ways. She did get married about 15 years later and change her name then, but for the whole 15 years she had the same surname as me it made absolutely no difference to my life.

Oh dear! This isn’t the feminist in you, it’s your internalised misogyny. Or at least your deeply ingrained acceptance of patriarchy.

It is her name.

As the posters have said, women own names too.

Almost everyone’s name has come from someone else, father, mother, spouse. It’s vanishingly few who have made up their own surname.

Therefore it’s her name as much as his. It’s her name as much as someone who is estranged from their parent owns their own name.

Cruel and unnecessary

My DSis did change back to her original name after her divorce. But then, her XH had been abusive and they didn't have DC together. (She’s been happily married now for a long time, so she changed to her second DH’s name.)

By contrast, I have a friend who still keeps her XH’s name, despite the breakup having been acrimonious and her having been with her current DP for eight years. She and her XH had no DC either.

The feminist in you needs to go back to feminism school.

Aye well, they just want everyone else to take what they want to happen as gospel 😃

Personally I find the title Mrs followed by the husband's name (and some people even use his initial too! 😖) to be rather offensive - it's as if you've been badged as a possession.

When I first married in (ahem!) 1980 and refused to take my husband's name it caused all sorts of ructions. Both my father and his father completely refused to accept it, even my employer hadn't put me on the payroll because they were waiting to know my husband's surname!
My father continued to send me cheques (eg for a birthday present) in my married name for years. FIL apologised profusely to anyone who needed to know my surname saying "oh they've only just got married she hasn't had time to change her passport yet".

In my second marriage I foolishly allowed my daughter to take her dad's name (he was much more concerned about it than I was ... again, that "ownership" thing), which caused me all sorts of problems later on, eg dealing with the school, the doctor, etc.

So I have been divorced, widowed, have brought up a child, and bought and sold my house a few times, all using my maiden name and without any serious issues.

My DSis did change back to her original name after her divorce. But then, her XH had been abusive and they didn't have DC together. (She’s been happily married now for a long time, so she changed to her second DH’s name.

I absolutely 💯% understand why people will change their name after being in abusive relationship and to be fair I was in that position I would too.

It became HER name when they married and agreed to use it.

YABU. None of your business

its not “his” name, it’s her name, and she’s entitled to keep it especially since that is also her son’s surname and most people who’ve had children in a marriage want to keep the same surname as their children for a variety of reasons, some emotional and some practical.

Being so bothered about this issue, as a presumably fairly mature adult, suggests a degree of insecurity about your partner’s ex. I’d focus your attention on why you’re so insecure rather than on why another woman wants to keep the same surname as her child.

If you're a feminist then surely you support a woman's right to make her own decisions?

She chose to take his name and she chose to keep it, it doesn't matter if you don't understand it or would do it differently.

@TheIrritatingGentleman As a feminist I don't support the patriarchal norms such as taking my husband's last name.

Which is your right. The same as it is hers to share a family name.

Wanting the same name as your children is understandable but the child/children are in their 20’s. The OP changed her maiden name for her first husbands and I understand completely that her new husband would prefer her to change it to his once married rather than keep the x’s. I actually feel sorry for husband number 2 if his new wife prefers to keep the name of an ex rather than take his.

And so I’m sure you’ll see that attempting to dictate that a woman should change her surname after divorce is as bad as dictating that she should change her surname upon marriage.

That's pretty much what it is, a title, not an identity: Mrs John Osborne means Wife (Mistress) of John Osborne.

Absolutely, I supported her through that period and she talked over with me whether to change back to her original name. (I loathe the term ‘maiden name’.)

If you marry a man and take his name then it becomes your new name. If he is happy for you to change your name to his at that point then he must accept that it carries the risk that, if the marriage ends, you may well keep that name and it is not his business nor that of any subsequent wives. In the case of the remarriage of my exhusband to a very much younger wife he had done pretty much everything before ( had a big wedding, bought a first house, then moved to a bigger one, had a baby and another baby). I had the name first and there weren't any ' firsts' because he'd done them all already. She divorced him in the end and even that wasn't a first, I'd already done that too.