AIBU to feel sad about my son marrying young and changing surname?

[Cathryoi]

Hi all, so my DS is 23, 24 in August. He’s in the first year of his training contract on the path to becoming a qualified solicitor we are very proud of him.
He has been with his girlfriend who is 22, almost 23 since they were 15/16 (she was in Y11 and he Y12). They got engaged over a year ago and are getting married in the summer.

I feel so sad that they will be both so young while getting married, at just 23! I’m also quite sad that DS is giving up his name entirely in favour of her late mums maiden name (she’s also giving up her current surname).
They aren’t having a massive wedding or anything but I just imagined life a bit differently for them.

AIBU to feel sad they are getting married so young and sad that DS is giving up his name entirely?

The name thing can be seen as unusual but in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?

My dad took my mam's name on when they married as he HATED his own.

And my fiance goes by a different surname than his legal name (boring story; I'll elaborate if anyone gives a flying fuck).

DP hasn't legally changed his name yet. And we aren't married yet. So currently, me, DP and our two toddlers all have different legal surnames which causes questions sometimes (as in registering their births etc). As neither of our children together have either of our surnames.

"So you're Bob Smith, you're Sarah Jones, and your children are Fred and Julie Tate.....?"

(I know you can actually choose completely different/random surnames for your children when registering the births but I imagine that isn't common).

I haven’t said anything and I won’t as I know it won’t go down well.

What exactly do you want to say to them?

If there were no consequences what would you say to your son’s face?

this thread is very identifiable OP and you might want to ask MNHQ to remove it. You can report your own posts.

I got married at 21, 15 years later one of the best decisions I ever made. I got to marry my best friend.
Your son has been with his fiancee for years already, they are obviously very serious about each other.
Think how lucky they are to have found each other so early on in life, some people have to wait years, they can grow together. Changing surnames may seem a little strange but it's obviously in rememberance of your DIL late mother. Instead of thinking of it negatively think how caring your Son is that he wants to honour his late MIL like this. It means you have brought up the most caring loving Son. You should be so proud of him.

I have.
We're still together since 1968.
Admittedly it's quite unusual.

Wow the misogyny in this thread ! So a woman changing her surname is ok but a guy is not ? Why ?

The happiest couple I know were high school sweethearts who got married young. Tbh it sounds like they both value family and have similar values so it may work out beautifully.

I’ve never shared a surname with my children (as my ex, who I didn’t marry, had a massive tantrum at the idea of anything other than his surname, which regrettably backed down to). I don’t feel any less close to them for having different surnames.

Your son is older than we were when we got married in 1980, and we’ve never had any regrets. If you know that you’ve met the right person, why wait? Most of our friends were also married in their early 20s and with one exception are either still married or were with their wife/husband until one of them died. I think it’s very touching that your son and his fiancé have chosen to honour her late mother by taking her maiden name.

If you've brought your son up to be a lovely adult then you're being ridiculous. My hsuabnd and I dated from when we were 18 to 24 before getting engaged. On his side they were all older before getting engaged but we were far younger getting together than any of them. Whilst I adore them even now I'm still a little upset at their reaction to our engagement which was basically we were a little young and they expected it to be many more years if at all he was ready to settle. And that was in a massively Catholic Irish family. In terms of names, I changed mine to his as we were both delightfully in love with the idea of being Mr & Mrs at the time. That's the only thing I'd say about being older is with hindsight I'd have kept my name for my profession and changed it for home but maybe we would have gone mine as he didn't like his.
In any event I digress.
Yes you're BU to be upset about your son "marrying young" and changing his name. He sounds like he has it handled.

It sounds very romantic.

He’s clearly a very bright boy - admittedly it would confuse me too, the change of name , but hey- ho, these are modern ways .. trust in him, he’s doing you proud, enjoy the wedding and that he’s very happy 😊

I can understand having concerns re the marrying young (although it's often very successful) but the surname thing is a total non issue surely? So weird to raise it as a concern at all.

It's young, but they're both adults, lots of people get married young. Try to be happy for them.

The name is irrelevant, who cares about a name? It's just a label.

I would be concerned too, it sounds like he has been under some pressure to marry her and convert to her religion. If this was a 23 year old woman I think the responses would be different. Is she a lot more assertive than him?

If she's not got a career sorted he's likely to be the much higher earner. He should keep his surname professionally.

All you can do is suggest keeping his surname for professional use, not to rush in to kids and don't mingle finances. He's a solicitor so would have covered family law in his degree. If it's a "starter" marriage then he just wants as clean break as possible.

My DS did exactly the same thing- married what I would call early-they were both 25 and had been together years !
They have been married 4 years now
That would have been unusual when I was their age in the 90s but seems more normal now?!

Either this is a stealth boast or @Cathryoi doesn’t know a good thing when it comes along.

DH was 24 when we go married. That was 26 years ago. We still married, and we did actually talk about us both changing our name to something new (we chose the name of the university building where we’d first met) to give us a neutral start, but in the end I just didn’t change my name at all until DS was born, 8 years later.

Sounds like he’s building a great future. I wish my DC were more settled in relationships and career-wise. Yes, 23 is young but in ‘the old days’ it was a normal age to get married.

I think that marrying young has many advantages:
Both still developing, so they will grow together and be flexible developing their household around each other.
They may even decide (shock horror) to have their kids quite young - getting it out of the way and also still having the flexibility to bring kids into their household routine.
And you might be a younger grandparent too, maybe you will have work as an excuse to avoid childcare and you will have more energy for them

I think it’s lovely they are marrying so young - in this day and age of everyone waiting a decade or more to get on with life’s big things like marriage and children I’d be very happy if my children married that age to someone they loved. And hopefully then they’d be young parents too - you’d be a “young” grandparent by societies standards but get to be around for your grandchildren as they get older rather than the trend these days to have kids in your late 30s early 40s grandparents are well into their 70s

There are Catholics of all shapes and sizes and lots of lots of progressive and liberal ones who use it as a way to spread a message of love and acceptance. I grew up in a Catholic church like that, lots of singing and charity work. It was great to be honest.

Re marrying young when you read the threads bemoaning all the awful single men in their 40s and the dreadful dating scene, the usual response is that the good ones all get snapped up at university. This isn't really that different?

They've been going out for eight years - a third of their lives! They've already demonstrated their ability to commit to one another through changing circumstances much more than many couples have when they get married. I suspect most people who get married at 23 and then divorce have only been going out a couple of years. Equally though even if those circumstances lots of marriages do last. I know couples married younger than that who are still going strong after 50 years or more!

He's only a few months into his training contract, which means he won't have built up any real reputation in his current surname yet. And he'll know that. So I can't see that being a particularly persuasive line of argument.

My son age 21 is engaged and I think he's too young although his fiancee is Muslim (by culture rather than actively practising) and it's more expected in their culture to at least be engaged if you live together. I'm a bit worried but haven't said anything as it's not going to help and it may well be fine. I'm still married to his dad who I met when I was 21!

The name change thing I think is great and really refreshing to hear of a man changing his name on marriage. She's changing hers too so it signifies their new life together. I only know two men who changed their name to their wife's. One because his "maiden' surname was Gay and he couldn't wait to get rid of it. The other because his surname was Smith or Jones and he much preferred his wife's more distinctive name.