I got married twelve years ago, have been with DH for over twenty years,
When we got married we both kept our names. I don’t think women who change their names are wrong at all, I just couldn’t imagine myself with DH’s surname. I like my name, it links me to my family and my heritage and DH had absolutely no problem with me keeping it so we did. Our kids have DH’s surname, which I don’t mind at all because I grew them in my body and have no insecurity whatsoever about my connection to them. In our unit of four it’s all fine and not an issue at all.
Turns out that to everybody over 60 in our family this is a very Big Deal. For twelve years now I receive mail to ‘Mrs OPfirstname DHsurname’ or, worse, ‘Mrs DHfirstname DHsurname’ - I really don’t like being called this one because mainly IT’S NOT MY FECKING NAME. Before we got married we mentioned that the names wouldn’t change. Everybody knew. Nobody seemed to have an opinion and it was all fine, we thought,
But the wrong name is every single piece of mail we ever receive from PiL and my own DF (DM died before my wedding but was always v on board with me keeping my name as it’s a thing I decided I would do very young). I’ve reminded them once or twice in a v friendly ‘that was so kind, thank you, btw I kept my name when we got married’ but it is ignored over and over and over again.
i cannot be bothered to take it up with the in laws, because I don’t want to get any backs up there but WIBU to ask my own father to call me by my actual name, which is the name he also has?! It can’t be that hard to remember. I recently achieved something very important and DF was so pleased when I sent him the certificate which has MY ACTUAL NAME on it and not the name he has decided that I should be having.
Perspective-wise I have this filed under ‘shit I shouldn’t really have to care about’ but it does hurt quite a bit to see birthday cards addressed to Mrs DH every year. Every year I decide it isn’t worth making a fuss about but it does upset me so WIBU to drop DF a text or something saying ‘Hey DF, do you think you could use my actual legal name, the one you gave me, in correspondence?’ Urgh I know I should probably drop this.