To say something or should I just drop this re surname

[geminicancerean]

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.

My in-laws are both in their eighties and have no issue with addressing post to my husband and I correctly - Mr and Ms D-B (we both added on). They are great 😀

You could all have the same surname but it could be yours and not your DH’s.

It is rude but it's only an envelope that you chuck away or recycle after opening. Is it worth creating drama over?

My parent and one of my friends always mispell one of my children's names. My parent mentioned early on that it should be the spelling they use but I'm not sure if the error is deliberate or they've just forgotten. My friend is in her own world so I assume she's never once noticed that her spelling is incorrect.

Ha - yes . It was a long, long time ago . He didn’t actually want to control me .
He’d absorbed some barmy idea from growing up in a v traditional environment that he should look as though he could if he wanted to in order to keep the respect of his peers . x

I get this - and I’m not even married! It’s extremely annoying but not worth getting worked up over.

Why should you drop it or behave as though something as fundamental as your own identity is a triviality, a thing that doesn't matter, a fuss you shouldn't be making? To be addressed by your own name is the mimimum courtesy people are entitled to expect.

I've been married 18 years and I still get this ignorance from my in-laws.It can hardly be a 'correct form of address' if the name is completely incorrect, being one I've never used.

IMO this is just another way of putting women back into their boxes for daring to assert their own identities. Tedious.

My lovely grandmother ( born 1914 ) was so proud I’d been able to do the things she hadn’t been allowed / had the opportunity to do because she was female & completely ‘got’ it too

The cheque was handed to me by my Dad as a kind of ‘gotcha ‘ soon after I’d married and had said I didn’t want to be ‘Mrs Husbands First and Last Name ‘
The idea being I’d change my name so I could access the money . My Dad was being protective of me in a funny sort of way . He said he was worried my new husband would think I was ‘uppity ‘ . I am definitely uppity !🤣

It's your name as much as it is his.

@IloveOwlsandPenguins When I was a primary teacher and I got married in the Christmas holidays the Office Manager in the new year asked me what my new "Mrs" name was so she could update the system! Erm...title and surame exactly as before. Then apparently there was a discussion around the office as to whether our marriage was a legal one 😆

My grandmother (b1914) too . I miss her very much. She was so immensely supportive.
I knew women who married army officers 34 years ago who were barred from the Officers Mess for refusing to wear a badge with ‘Mrs His ‘First Name / Last Name ‘on it .
It’s hard to resist that sort of pressure because one can feel one is making a ‘fuss about nothing ‘ & embarrassing your husband whilst at the same time realising it is really important that each and every human being has the right to the name of their choice .

If they're anything like my MiL they'll do it all the more. She knows it annoys, and DH has repeatedly told her to stop doing it. She hasn't.

I'm not in contact with her these days anyway, and it's probably the last small way she has left of trying to stick the knife in. I'm long ago past caring.

30+ married and over 60 myself. I did train my DF and MIL write me cheques with correct surname but it was a long road. DP set up will and powers of attorney with my married name so I had to produce marriage certificate frequently in these legal processes during stressful times of illness and bereavement.

My particular pet hate is when we rec correspondence addressed to Mr and Mrs Husbands first name and surname. This is not the 19th century.

I have the same thing. Not just old people either!
I don't open things misaddressed, husband does and then I forget about it till the next time.
(Our kids have just my surname, by agreement)

Of course you aren't BU, albeit you don't need to stop at your own father here.

It would be ok to give them one more chance. If, after you explain and remind, they choose to continue, they're being cunts. That's when you respond in kind. Ensure every correspondence is addressed to Mr and Ms Wifes Birthname, and be really ostentatious about it.

Ah, I had this when I was married.

I had double barreled , my former mother in law insisted on sending cards etc to me with just my ex husbands surname.
I had enough, and sent her a card addressed to her with that surname ( she had remarried). She called and told me it wasn’t her surname. I pointed out it wasn’t mine either. She stopped.

Some people need telling the hard way.

It works both ways, though, doesn't it? Like with so many things, why is it YOU making a fuss if you don't want to do something that they consider trivial; but it's not THEM making a fuss if they insist on you doing it?!

When someone writes Mrs DHfirstname DHsurname that should be fine to you as it is addressed to the wife of DHfirstname DHsurname, i.e. correctly using DH’ name. So on that front YABVU as you are the wife of DHfirstname DHsurname.

When someone writes Mrs DHsurname or Mrs OPfirstname DHsurname they are clearly in the wrong.

Why not?

Absolutely FUCK THAT.

Unless there is some way to denote that DH is the husband of me, nobody should be addressing me in such a way.

I don’t use Mrs, nor his first or last names ever under any circumstances. That person literally doesn’t exist. So the person insisting this is in any way correct doesn’t exist to me.

Or much simpler would be no one change their name and there is only one word for women just like there is for men?

I have friends in their 30s who didn’t know it wasn’t automatic. When I didn’t change mine, they thought I would have to do something to stop mine changing. Madness.

I bought into this, once upon a time. I've held a doctorate for a long time, and for a great many of those years used 'Ms' outside my professional context. I've since become increasingly impatient with the pointless, irritating discussion surrounding the question of 'is that Miss or Mrs?' I've been astonished at the extent of some of the pushback: the sheer rudeness I've experienced from apparently disinterested parties who I wrongly assumed wouldn't give a furry rat's bum what other women called themselves. And yes, it is mostly the women doing the pushing back.

This is often in the context of computer transactions, such as bigger purchases where a buyer's personal details are entered into a computer for delivery, etc. Most of these don't require marital status, but most computers won't allow for transactions to be completed without entering a title. On one occasion, when marital status was requested and I entered my title as Ms, I got all manner of peculiar questions. My car dealers are excruciatingly rude and I'm sick and tired of asking them not to address me as Mrs. I'm fine with my given name. I have to remind them of this nearly every time I go in. I asked for it to be altered on their system. It still happens.

The 'Dr' title is nicely androgynous and neatly disposes of these irritations. It's not that they happen every day or even every week, but I've been married since 2008 and I can assure you this is getting 'old'. Tellingly, if I raise concerns or requirements and sign off correspondence as Dr S. Goose - no full given name or indication of my sex - I've found I'm far more likely to receive a favourable or at least a considered response.

It's endlessly tedious and IME, far from attitudes having actually moved on since that time, they've have gone very rapidly backwards. I now use 'Dr' by default.

I don't buy this false naivety. I really don't. I believe it's simply another means of trying to put us heretical women, who dare to assert our own identities, firmly back into our boxes.

How can a name change be 'automatic' when people have to go through the onerous necessity of changing all their documents and paperwork? By contrast, those who retain their own family names need do absolutely nothing.

It's not too great a stretch of imagination to work out that the latter is the default position. Your name is your name unless you actively change it.

Therefore - 'your husband's name is your legal name!' - is, IMO, wilfully disingenous. Either that or I'm being such a generous soul that I'm banking far too heavily on some people's general intelligence.