Wife wants to change her first name and surname

[Rockandahardplaice]

Hello,

Just looking for a bit of advice.

My wife has never liked her first name - she thinks it is too common (I personally think it's fine, but obviously she is entitled to feel the way she feels). She is now thinking of changing it. This would make me quite sad, because my "pet" name for her (which she does like) is based on her actual name, and wouldn't make any sense if she changed her name.

However, this is just background really. The real issue is that she told me today that she wants to change her surname (married name) as well. We have been married about 15 years.

She says that she has never liked the surname, no-one can spell it, and she thinks of it as a really ugly part of herself which she hates more and more as time goes by. She is currently going to therapy a couple of times a week, and I suppose you could say she is on a voyage of facing properly a number of issues in her life, which has resulted in a number of changes to her attitude on certain things. I guess this is one of them.

I'll freely admit that our surname doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it is not an offensive name, and correcting people on spelling occasionally has never caused me any serious problems in life. If she had refused to take the name when we got married I would have been offended, but would have accepted it. But now, 15 years later, it feels like a massive rejection of me. In other words, a part of me she was happy to accept 15 years ago, she is not willing to accept now.

She has tried to soften the blow by saying I could change my name too. But I'm rather attached to it, and being an only son of an only son it would probably really upset my Dad as it would effectively end our line. She knows this, so it feels like quite an empty offer.

I've googled this issue, and although there is plenty of advice for husbands-to-be (usually that its only a tradition, and if the wife-to-be doesn't want to take your name, so be it), there is nothing for established married couples where the wife wants to ditch the surname she has already taken.

It feels like a massive rejection of me, although she assures me it is just the name she is rejecting and not me. However, this all comes on the back of several quite difficult years in our relationship, from which we are only just starting to recover, and the last few years (until recently) have been characterised by her rejection of me and distancing from me in a number of ways, so this ends up just feeling like another - whether it is or not.

Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts or insights, I would be very grateful!

Thanks.

Its not about you its about what your DW wants. Would you rather she was your wife and happy or your wife and sad?

Hi 53rdWay - I actually had to look up "mansplaining" - so at least I've learnt something today!

I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone over traditions being "cute and harmless", but the problem is that nearly all traditions, if you go back far enough, are either based in some bloodthirsty religion or a patriarchal institution - mostly because nearly every society was dominated by one or both of those in the past.

In terms of marriage, predicating this on romantic love is a comparatively new innovation.

I suppose my view is that it is better to ascribe new, positive, meanings to traditions, than to throw everything out and start again. I certainly don't embrace Christmas because baby Jesus was born - but I embrace it as an opportunity for families to come together. Similarly, I don't embrace marriage because it means I get a new shiny possession, but because its a mutual declaration of a desire to create a lasting romantic and life bond.

I did something similar to this last year. Ditched my married surname and went back to my maiden name. For me, I had never been very keen on taking my husband's name in the first place but he wanted me to and as he's generally a very nice, reasonable man I went along with it. Kept my maiden name for work and had my married name for home stuff. However, as well as juggling the 2 names being a bit confusing (getting a DBS check was amazingly tricky a few years ago!) the main 2 factors were me becoming much more of a feminist since having my kids and also that my married name just never felt like me. I had loved my old name, disliked the term Mrs and didn't really like my married surname. The nail in the coffin was all the ante-natal and post-natal appointments when the midwife would call my married name out and I would think, "Who's that?"

So after 12 years of marriage I switched everything back to my maiden name. Caused no end of confusion with the council explaining that I wasn't getting divorced, just reverting to my maiden name but got there in the end! For me it was nothing to do with my marriage but I can understand why you're worried if there have been other issues. I like a previous suggestion that your wife trials the new name for 6 months or so if she's trying to find a new identity - just so she doesn't jump into a decision.

I'm not hearing the OP say that he doesn't want her to do it, more that he wonders why she's doing it and what is it saying about the marriage.
Feeling “rejected”, dismissing her reasons, questioning her decision, those are the words of someone who doesn’t want her to do it. Along with ...

If she had refused to take the name when we got married I would have been offended
So you basically wanted her to have your name, she put up with it for 15 years and you can’t accept that she doesn’t actually want it? She’s given it a fair go, why should she have to bow down to you? What about what she wants?

If you are worried that this is her first step to leaving why not make that the basis of your argument. Then maybe you wouldn’t come across as a controlling misogynist.

Lists - yes, the "trial name" idea sounds like a good one.

It seems the name change is a an effort to alter who she is, she is rejecting her current identity in favour of a new one, and you state the relationship has been difficult with a history of her rejecting you.

To be blunt you have no say in it, whatever you feel about it you are entitled to feel but she is also entitled to do and feel as she wishes.

However I do understand why you are concerned and I would definitely make sure you have a back up plan if she turns around and decides her future not only doesn't include your name but also you too.

I hope it doesn't come to it but just be prepared.

However you view marriage, I don't see how whether or not she changes her name should affect that. Is that declaration or life bond somehow less if she has a name she wants?

I mean, I know more than a few people who have changed their names and most of them have great relationships with their family. Changing a name doesn't change that bond if it is there and assuming it does says far more about the assumer than the person who wants to choose what other people call them.

The Mental Load

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

But unlike all of those saying they did this and reverted back to their maiden name, the OP's wife doesn't want to revert to her maiden name. According to the OP, she wants a totally new name, first and last. I've never heard of anyone doing that and there has to be some serious stuff going on in therapy for someone to, in effect, reinvent themselves so totally and utterly.

And let's face it - for all those claiming it may be about not wanting to be seen as someone's possession, why would she suggest the OP changes his name to match her new one. The inference to the world at large will be precisely as it is now.

She wants to reinvent her identity and suggests he do the same, but the children would retain a surname that NEITHER of their parents has?

There's something really major going on here.

Thanks Weezol - awesome article!

Male privilege - check
Mansplaining - check

Yes there is a lot of changing going on here.

I mean, the tattoos. I have several tattoos and they mean a lot to me so I am definitely pro-tattoo BUT I am always suspicious of people who suddenly get several tattoos in a short amount of time.

It implies impulsivity which is unwise when it comes to such a permanent mark. It suggests a sudden lurch, rather than a more natural slide.

So she's going to be called something completely new and her actual body is literally going to look completely new.

It remains to be seen whether this is a peeling off of layers to reveal the woman beneath, or rather the trying on of a person-costume to distract from the woman underneath.

Male privilege - check
Mansplaining - check

Can you explain how?

If my husband came home tonight and said that he was changing his name so that we no longer share a name and his name would be different to the chikdrens I would be seriously questioning what was going on.

If I were to do it my husband, children, family and friends would be wondering what was going on with me and would be assuming that our marriage was over and I wanted to break away from it.

Do you really not think that the OP has a tight to know what is happening to his relationship? Would it be ok for him to suddenly decide to reinvent himself and just announce these changes to his wife with no discussion? That's not a marriage is it?

I can but don't want to

I wouldn't argue with people about the rights or wrongs of it as she is doing what she wants and you can't stop her, in your shoes I would smile through gritted teeth and support her in this.

Sounds a bit ominous to me, she seems to be making a new me. How old are the DCs. I assume they haven't all left home recently, or that your wife is starting a new career or something. And she's realised she wasn't happy before.
This might not be your fault at all just something she is working through but Id get prepared for changes.

I wouod be bringing how you are feeling about the name change in counselling.
Yes it’s her name bla-bla-bla. It doesn’t mean that it’s also ok for her to do whatever she wants with no care about the effect in others, in that case in you as her DH.
You need to talk about it.

Something major might be going on, something major was going on when I changed my names (which was not a revert to anything on my birth certificate), but she suggested he changes his as well, in the OP's own words, to "soften the blow", that says to me that he had a major issue with her changing her name and she put forward the first compromise she thought of.

Some people get a lot of benefit from changing their names. It can be a fresh slate or feeling like coming home or just a step onto a new path. We can't know, but in what the OP has written so far, it sounds like she's wanting to do so with him but doesn't know how and he's not really helping with this 'ending our line' idea which makes no sense when there are already kids with that name and his "but why?" refrain that's so focused on what his name means to him, what that pet name means to him, what it all means to him, to think that's her name too to choose as she wishes.

He has every right to want to know what's going on in his marriage, but that's not what has been focused on so far. I don't think it can be assumed based solely on her wanting to change her name or the physical changes. I mean, around the time I changed my name, I also stopped wearing headcoverings after a decade and, where I'm from, that is one of the big symbols of a married woman. It didn't mean I wasn't still married when I first walked out the door without a cloth on my head more than a little anxious, I just had my own stuff I was working through. Part of that was the cultural expectations that had been ground into me like how my name should be had to be challenged to see what was really me and what I was just doing out of fear.

As the OP says that she has never liked her given name and has found the surname awkward and with the other changes like the tattoos, this seems to me like long brewing issues that can't be put off anymore, not a sudden out of nowhere idea. Changes may be coming, but as she's been unhappy with her name for so long, I can't see why the automatic assumption is that wanting control of her name is a rejection of him.

Totally changing her entire indemnity at once seems a very radical step. I would imagine it springs from something much more deep seated than her views on you or your surname.

I'd be pretty worried if my spouse wanted to do this. Not because of the reflection on our relationship necessarily but because it seems to speak of a pretty significant psychological issues.

BiBabbles - thanks for your comments. She has not expressed anything more than mild irritation with our surname until today, although first mentioned a desire to change her first name a few months ago.

All of her changes are quite recent (from an outside perspective at least), and have come about during the course of her therapy.

So this is all somewhat out of the blue, relatively speaking.

I had hoped the focus would be mostly on "what is going on with our marriage" and "does it mean anything for our relationship that she wants to do that, particularly in the context of other changes" - everything else is relatively trivial.

ShatnersWig (literally the best username ever) - I would imagine she would want the children's names changed if we both changed our names, although whether they would accept that would be another question! So I don't think she is necessarily proposing we would both have different names to our children.

I, for one, was relieved and delighted to take my XH's name when we married because it meant I could legitimately part with my clumsy double-barreled surname, which was forced on me by my over-enthusiastic mother when she married my stepfather and decided I should take his surname as well as that of my father. This whole feminist changing-my-surname-when-I-marry-means-I-lose-my-identity crap is so annoying! Just saying.

This whole feminist changing-my-surname-when-I-marry-means-I-lose-my-identity crap is so annoying! Just saying.

I think you need to separate your annoyance at your mother making you take a surname you didn't want with a woman's perfectly sensible choice to feel her birth name is a significant part of her identity..

Just saying.

OP, I think you article yourself really well and some ppl are making comparisons that just aren't comparable like FGM.

It sounds like your wife has deep issues. It's as though she's discovered things about herself in therapy and doesn't like some of it.

That could be linked to her childhood and relationship with parents and siblings. She may feel she was always the outsider and didn't belong...so wants to create a whole new identity for herself. Not a name they chose, or one she took through marriage , but a name she thinks represents who she is and is in someway symbolic of finding herself.

I would focus on your actual relationship. Your emotional connection with each other and your closeness.

That's what will take you from strength to strength and keep you together.

Clients often present in counselling saying " I don't know who I am".

Some people on this thread are bonkers

If a woman came on here and said her DH wanted to change his whole identity to a brand new one. In no way linked to the family, after going through issues in a marriage and spending a lot of time at therapy. Everyone would be thinking “WTAF” what’s going on behind it all.

She’s not going back to her maiden name. She’s starting afresh. And I would want to know why.

She has tried to soften the blow by saying I could change my name too.

So her wish to change the name isn’t a rejection of you. She’s offered for you to go with her as she change, so it’s not about distancing herself from you.

I wouldn’t have dreamed of changing my name to my husband’s anyway, but I honestly dislike his last name. He doesn’t, which is fine. If we’d got married at a time when it’s wasn’t socially acceptable to keep your name, or had never considered it as an option, I’d have been gutted.