I've been married for 4 1/2 years now, but the issue of my name still persists.
For me there were a few options:
a) do nothing
b) take my husband's name (of a different ethnicity)
c) hyphenate or use some combination
So for the past few years I've done a combination of a & c. Legally I did nothing, I used both names socially. This has led to a whole mess in which nobody really knows what my name actually is. In all honesty, I would have hyphenated pretty immediately if my husband had been ok with it, but he didn't like that option. I didn't want to just take my husband's name, I feel like my name is a part of me, and as the only successful and/or functional grandchild on that side I felt that I owed it to my paternal side to keep the name going academically. There's also the issue of ethnicity - I obviously don't belong to the ethnic group of my husband and he is sensitive to the assumptions that people make based on the name (he doesn't much look like his ethnic group either). So I decided not to decide. Aside from the confusion that nobody really knows my name, it's worked. I answer to any combination of the 2.
So why bring it up now? Last night my husband asked me if I was ever going to change my name. I don't know why he brought it up, but apparently it's more important to him that he's acknowledged before. Huh. I was totally honest with him and said that the only option I really was comfortable with was hyphenation. The whole maiden as middle, use all 3 names thing doesn't really work - the middle name gets dropped. He agreed to it. I don't know what's changed, if it's suddenly that as long as I take it somehow it works, or what but I guess now, after 4 1/2 years it's time.
I know this is something a lot of people stuggle with, and there are many stories and options out there. My advice is - make the decision you both are comfortable with, it's your name and you have to live with it, but so does he. Our children won't be hyphenated, they'll be his last name only, and that's ok with me.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
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3 comments:
Husband and I went through a big argument (debate? argument makes it sound like a screaming match, which it wasn't) over the name change thing, too.
I never intended to change my name, because none of the women with whom I work changed their name. It just never dawned on me that I would be "expected" to do so. And then one day, Husband brought up the whole "Mrs. Hislastname" and I laughed it off since I wasn't going to change my name... and there was this awkward silence since we weren't on the same page. Neither of us wanted to budge. I was annoyed because it's my name and shouldn't I have a say, and he was annoyed because he thought that a family unit should be a family with the same name (I, of course, pointed out that if he wanted a family to have the same name he was welcome to change HIS name, at which point he turned 14 shades of purple and said it was the stupidest suggestion he had ever heard).
Eventually, I wound up hyphenated. Neither of us are thrilled, but we both agreed to compromise -- I rarely use the hyphenated version except on legal documents, but this way I can legally go by either, and when we do have children, I will still have the same name as them, but I can still retain my own name for the publications that I have under my maiden name. It was kind of the best of both worlds and minimizing the evil of each (from the perspective of the other).
But, everyone continues to mispronounce Husband's last name in a slightly derogatory fashion, which is SO HARD for me to get used to, since my last name is so, so, so easy (it is an occupation), and has never, ever, in my entire life, been mispronounced. And, the full hyphenated name is too long to fit on credit cards, the first time around they sent me a card which was Julie Maiden-Mar, where "Mar" spelled the derogatory mispronounced part of his last name. I had to immediately call and convince them to reissue me a card as J. Maiden-Married instead.
It's nice to know that others have this same issue. It's strange, I've used his name socially for a while, but now that I'm actually changing mine it's a little strange. Thanks for the comment!
I wrote about this on my blog a while back. It's interesting how different couples deal with the situation.
I flat out told my husband when we were dating that I wouldn't change my name upon marriage. It didn't bother him. When we got married, I offered to hyphenate, but he vetoed that saying that it would be too long (he was right, it would have been 20 characters altogether).
I also feel like my name is part of me and it didn't make any sense to change it.
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