Ex husband's new wife wants me to change my surname !

[Amberskies2020]

This really annoys me!!! I was married to my ex for 24 years and his new wife is furious that I've kept my married surname. I kept it so that I had the same name as our children, plus it's what I've been known as for half my life !

Ex and I despise each other and do not talk but this has been put in a lawyers letter.

Did you feel pressured to change your name after divorce ?

Lady Colin Campbell, the biographer, was only married for a year in the 70s and she still uses her married name/title.

Gilderoy people believe that solicitors are representing the law, that when they write letters it is to inform the recipient as to what is legal. They are indicating that the recipient is legally obliged to comply.
Otherwise what are they being paid to write a letter for?

@DeRigueurMortis

Dear Solicitor,

Thank you for your letter dated xx/xx/xx requesting on behalf of your clients that I revert back to my maiden name.

Having given the matter the very minimal consideration it deserves, I have concluded that it is only fair that I afford Mr Skies and the second Mrs Skies the same consideration of their marriage and the latter's name in respect of that union as they afforded to me (as the first Mrs Skies) when they embarked on an affair.

As such, I have every intention on retaining my current name that mirrors that of my children indefinitely.

I do however commend them for supporting the legal profession in this difficult economic climate in engaging you, albeit with overly entitled and legally unenforceable demands.

Kind regards,

Mrs Skies (the first)

Oh I LOVE this suggested response (and I'd send a copy direct to the the twats too)

I think people are being a bit mean to the new Mrs. It’s not her fault he was married before, and it’s the ex-h who is the problem! It’s not relevant that she’s 20 years younger unless you’re insecure about your age.

If you’re ready to have your own separate identity, then agree. If not, say no. They can’t make you either way.

IceCream, I got married before I had a lot of those things. 20 years later a lot has changed.
Besides, there's a difference between being inconvenienced because you want to do something and being inconvenienced because some daft bugger has chucked their toys out of the pram and is demanding you bend to her will.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Gilderoy people believe that solicitors are representing the law, that when they write letters it is to inform the recipient as to what is legal. They are indicating that the recipient is legally obliged to comply. Otherwise what are they being paid to write a letter for?

To act on their client's instructions: it's simply a fact that solicitors don't have any legal authority. This particular solicitor's letter won't have contained any law in relation to the name change because in the UK there is none, and if it did then OP would be justified in complaining to the SRA.

This notion that names are on loan to women from their male relatives is so

I kept my ex's name because I didn't like my maiden name and it's my kids' name. None of my living family have my maiden name.

Why on earth would I change it?

None of my ex's business or his next wife's.

If you’re ready to have your own separate identity, then agree. If not, say no. They can’t make you either way.

What? She has her own separate identity already. Going back to her father's name isn't a separate identity.

Before a woman married and changed her name she would have also had to change all of these! However this is NEVER a problem then.

I guess that when you get married, you may feel you have a good reason for choosing to change your name so it's worth going to that effort.

When you get divorced, you may not feel it's worth going to all that effort to change it back and, if that's the case, it's nobody's business but your own.

After my second divorce I changed my surname back to that of my first husband & my children . I hated my maiden name & had been First married name for 30 years . It had become who I was . I rarely used my second husbands surname as it felt 'wrong '

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Gilderoy people believe that solicitors are representing the law, that when they write letters it is to inform the recipient as to what is legal. They are indicating that the recipient is legally obliged to comply. Otherwise what are they being paid to write a letter for?

People get solicitors to "write a letter" for lots of reasons like creating a paper trail, making a complaint that doesn't warrant police involvement or to scare people with the letterhead. There are legal letters that you can't ignore like cease and desist but a client can ask solicitors to write a letter about whatever they want. I could probably find a solicitor who would write to you and demand that you hand your username to me but it wouldn't mean anything legally and is not the opinion of the person writing the letter.

Oh, not the woman's name is father's but man gets own even though he got his from his dad too shtick again. The OP can and should call herself whatever she likes, and it goes without saying that she has zero obligation to arrange her personal affairs in the way her ex and his new wife want. But we can be clear on that without double standards.

Or like me, you kept your maiden name for work and a whole bunch of other stuff and go by your married name for driving license and a couple of random bills because there’s no law that says everything has to be in one name. Except driving license. That you have to change if you’re changing your name on marriage.

I know that and you do, but a lot of people don't and are intimidated by it. The point of it is to intimidate the OP into complying. Personally, I believe it's an abuse of their position and that solicitors letters should be confined to dealing with actual breaking of the law.
To write something just because a person is paying you to, even though there's no legal authority is whoring out their profession imo.
I also feel this way about plastic surgeons who continue to perform surgery on people, even when they are at the point where it's causing damage.
Money shouldn't be able to buy certain services.

Your ex could always change his surname to hers??

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

I know that and you do, but a lot of people don't and are intimidated by it. The point of it is to intimidate the OP into complying. Personally, I believe it's an abuse of their position and that solicitors letters should be confined to dealing with actual breaking of the law. To write something just because a person is paying you to, even though there's no legal authority is whoring out their profession imo. I also feel this way about plastic surgeons who continue to perform surgery on people, even when they are at the point where it's causing damage. Money shouldn't be able to buy certain services.

This argument shows no awareness of how many issues are able to be resolved at the negotiation stage. Doing things your way, we'd end up with infinitely more cases being brought to court because people felt that was their only recourse. There is absolutely no way that would be to anyone's advantage. Courts, unlike solicitors, do actually have legal authority and they all cost government money to run.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Gilderoy people believe that solicitors are representing the law, that when they write letters it is to inform the recipient as to what is legal. They are indicating that the recipient is legally obliged to comply. Otherwise what are they being paid to write a letter for?

They are paid by the client to give legal advice to the client.

They will go through the legalities with the client.

If the client still wishes to send a letter then the solicitor will do it on behalf of the client. All they can do is a formal request on behalf of the client.

Even if you get the law quoted at you in a letter, it may not be relevant to you and you can go and get your own advice. The solicitor will be acting for the client and you need advice from someone acting for you.

They would have hated me, my XH’s 2nd wife also had the same first name as me and I kept my married name so we had the exact same name!

Perhaps you should ask them if they’ve written to ‘affair partner’ to ask her to change her name too!

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

IceCream, I got married before I had a lot of those things. 20 years later a lot has changed. Besides, there's a difference between being inconvenienced because you want to do something and being inconvenienced because some daft bugger has chucked their toys out of the pram and is demanding you bend to her will.

You can keep both names, one on official documents if you want, and call yourself at work or other places by your original name.

There is a lot of emotional venom projected at the new Mrs. None towards the man. I think it’s understandable that the new wife would want to be the only Mrs X. Doesn’t mean OP has to change it, but understandable none the less.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

This notion that names are on loan to women from their male relatives is so

The notion that women automatically take their husbands name upon marriage is so

You can keep both names, one on official documents if you want, and call yourself at work or other places by your original name.

Or you could just not inconvenience yourself at all because you're quite happy with your name and nothing else matters in that respect.

Ha ha! She's bonkers. I certainly wouldn't waste money sending my own solicitors letter.

Surely people can only bring a case to court if there's actually a proper legal dispute? And better I think, to go to court, than to have people doing what they are not legally obliged to do because they've been frightened into it by a solicitor's letter. This 'request' isn't something the OP needs to negotiate.
This situation would have been better if the ex's solicitor had told him that there is no legal authority to make the OP change her name and to restrict the letter to the facts/financial information.

I'd have to respond and say surely as their child is named after his affair she can't be that insecure to want your name. Maybe she has trouble finding her own names?