Keeping your married name?

[lilaclilypod]

What do people generally do about their name when they divorce?

I took my husbands name when we married, we went on to have 2 children but are now divorcing. Someone asked me today if I will be reverting back to my family name but this hadn't even crossed my mind.

I don't want a different name to my children so I'm thinking of just keeping his name. Is this weird?

What did you do about your name once your divorce was final?

Btw one of my cousins that is divorced and a very good friend both kept it as well, so it is not at all uncommon.

I don’t know any men who changed their name after divorce . So clearly they don’t feel so strongly about still having the same name as their ex.

These men who hate their ex so much - you wonder why they still want to be associated with her. Maybe they just can’t accept that she has moved on and they are clinging to the past.

Planning on changing back to my maiden name

I kept my married name - technically I'm not divorced, I'm widowed as he died 12 days before the nisi was pronounced. My maiden name is foreign, difficult to spell and even harder for an Anglophone person to pronounce. Besides, I can't be bothered with the admin hassle.

I still have my married name and it’s not even my DCs name. It’s mine now though. I’ve built a business in this name so it would mean rebranding, which frankly seems more hassle than it’s worth. Besides, I like it.

Kept it, too much of a pain to change all the documentation and life admin.

It was my surname - I made the decision to use if when I married XH and so I made the decision to keep using it after we got divorced.

It's a personal choice op. I find it surprising that so many people can't understand why you would want to keep HIS name after divorce but my situation is similar to yours in that I don't hate my ex, our dc have that name and it has been my name for almost 20 years so I don't see it as HIS name. It's just a name but I'd like the same one as my dc while they have it.

I am not who I was when I used my maiden name so that seems even more crazy to me to go back to that.

My ex actually told my dc when he has them one weekend that I might change my name post-divorce so no idea how he feels about the fact that I haven't but that wasn't for him to say anyway. My name is my choice.

My mum still has her married name, been divorced 25 years.

Kept my married name partly to have same as children and because of work. Second marriage still kept it - cba to change it and pleased I didn’t as just getting divorced for the second time 😂

Newly divorced and I’m keeping my married name. I like it and can’t be asked with all the hassle to revert back. Only change I’ve made is that I’m addressed as ‘Ms’ as I think I’m to old to a ‘Miss’.

Cant wait to change mine as soon as absolute through. My 2 grown up children going to change theirs too. We collectively dislike it!and ex has no contact.

I changed back to my maiden name as the divorce was going through. He was a twat.

my parents divorced when I was in my teens and DM kept her married name. She didn’t want to have a different name from her kids (I’m the youngest of 4 so all adults now) and they got married young so she had had the married name for longer than she had kept her maiden name.

I kept my married name until I remarried years later. I wanted the same name as our DC who were still young . Ex remarried very quickly and new wife wrote to me ( a long time ago!) telling me - not asking- to drop my married name as it was now her name . I ignored her and the subsequent lawyer’s letter !

I kept mine as wanted the same name as the kids. Started using Ms instead of Mrs though

I kept mine - exh changed his so its now mine and ds's.🤣

Personal choice. I never changed mine in the first place I can quite well see the reasoning around why a father should get to keep the same name as his children in the event of divorce and the mother doesn't.

All family members having the same name never mattered particularly to me, but I know it does to a lot of people. Also, hand-in-hand with the strong pressure still out upon women to discard their identifies on marriage, there now seems to be a growing expectation that those women will simply hand back that name like some kind of expended borrowed item if the marriage doesn't work out.

Those expectations don't sit easily together, IMO. It's your name. It's not on loan to you from a bloke. If you want to keep it you have every right to do so.

I haven't used mine throughout my 20 years of marriage. Now we're divorcing I'm going to use it as it's going to be me and the kids much more frequently and I don't want travel etc to be a bother

I've always used Ms - before and during marriage and will use it after divorce has come through

This. My father rejected me years ago, then I got divorced. I switch between “their” names but neither seems a good option for me. My kids are both independent now so not as if I need to use my married name to maintain connection in peoples mind.
im actually seeing benefits of having 2 names I use . My married name was on all my legal, financial and government type docs and remains that way. All my other internet use is via my maiden name - adds a level of security that completely different emails. I then use my maiden name for casual face to face stuff…like trades, random introductions. Once people know me well enough to know I’m divorced I’ll tell them I’m officially married name. Obviously people who knew me from years before and therefore long term firends etc know me by my official name
i do same thing with my first name to be honest
all social media and random comms I use my 2 initials without a space- that works on all e sites as some folks have 2 letter first names
my full name is my official name - and what people who don’t know me well call me
Then I have a couple of shortened version of my first name - used by those that know me well ( oh, as well as mum ! )

I did think about changing to my Mums maiden name- but that’s patriarchal anyway so where do you stop.

Very interesting history though with my married name. By ExFIL was given his surname by his mum on his birth registration even though she wasn’t married and it was not her maiden name. She’d been married before WW1 and her husband had died in war. My FiL was born 10 years later, and we don’t know who his father actually was. It certainly wasn’t the person whose surname he got. So in some ways my FiL’s name, my married name, was a matriarchal decision- which will do for me.

I'm back to my maiden name now but kept my married name until both boys were finished with school

Kept it. It’s better than my maiden name, it’s my professional identity, and divorce at his instance was a shed load of busywork for me and there’s a saving in time and effort right there.