Is this odd, or is it me?

[tallulah]

Went out Xmas Eve and got home to find the ILs had called. DS said "They wanted you to sign the cards but I did it instead". What cards? The Xmas cards to other people. After a bit more probing it transpires that MIL had bought cards on our behalf for a number of people on their side, written them and had brought them round for us to sign.

Now I know she used to buy and write cards "from" DH when we first got together, but we've been married for 22 years and I'm perfectly capable of deciding who I want to send cards to! I assume she has been doing this all these years and DH has never mentioned it... I wonder if anyone wondered why we sent them 2 cards every year?

I was furious when I found out, now I've calmed down I'm just irritated. Does anyone else find this odd, or is this something that other MILs do?

(I would also mention "in passing" that aside from MIL and FIL the whole of DHs family refuse to accept our double-barrelled surname and always address cards to me and the children using DHs old surname that none of us use. This year was the first time in 20 years that his eldest brother used the right name on our card...)

How strange about the cards - I would say it's a bit weird too. I think I would have to say to her that you already send cards to these people and she has no need to do so on your behalf.

Can totally understand about the surname. Every year my nan phones up and asks what name she should write on our xmas cheque. She knows full well what it is. We get letters addressed to alsorts, my old name, dh's old name and various combinations of our double barrelled surname too. Annoys the hell out of me.

Definitely sounds odd tallulah.
The name thing... I have a double barrel with dh's and my name, dh doesn't (law here - only the partner whose name's not the 'official' family name can have a double barrel). ILs and their relatives routinely ignore it - Xmas parcel was addressed to 'family [dh's first name] [dh's surname]'!

FIT - is that true about double barrelled names? Me and dh changed our names when we married without the need for deed poll or anything and all our official documents are in that name. The kids names were changed by deed poll with the consent of my ex-dh. I didn't realise there was a law re the use of them.

This is Germany QE, where there is a law for êverything^ You either both keep your name, which I didn't want due to problems with my family, or choose a 'family name' and either both have it - which I also didn't want as I didn't want to 'disappear' completely - or this arrangement whereby the non-family-name partner has the double barrel.

should have been an italicised everything!

That does sound very odd. My MIL may write some of her cards with our names on (for all I know) but I would definitely have words if she was writing cards for us to sign - and we've only been married for 1 year. Very bizarre. Question is, how do you (tactfully?) tell her to stop it. Can dh even remember who they were for? (Mine wouldn't).

My family and his tend to address us as "Mr and Mrs P [Dh's surname]" despite knowing I have kept my own name, I made a bit of a song and dance about it with my grandma - she'd written us a cheque addressed that way and I said "ooh, I don't know if our bank will accept that, after all I'm not Mrs P [dh's surname]". Her response was "you are". We could have been there all day, so I pointed out what I was trying to say was that our joint account was in my name, not Mrs P anyone, so could be a problem. Bless her, she is in her 80s.

FIT(and indeed others) a friend of mine in Sweden had this approach to her married name. She took the first two letters of her surname, the first two letters of his surname, and added 'us' to symbolise their togetherness. (They both adopted this name, and a bit weirdly, his child by a subsequent relationship had it too).

With me and dh that would make our name Pinuus Might mention that next time someone gives me grief.

hmmm I would be Mawaus

We couldn't solve this problem (neither wanted to take the other's name, double barrelling was too long, and couldn't find a compromise) so ds has my surname and dp has his own. It's not a major deal - we're not married anyway, but people do get it wrong, and I noticed this Christmas most people used our Christian names on the envelope because they are not too sure what they are meant to write!

Thanks for all your responses. I feel better knowing other people think this is odd! Not sure how I'm going to tackle MIL about it but I think I'll wait until nearer next Xmas!

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn