“My In-Laws Won’t Call Us By Our New Married Name!”
Before my husband and I married two years ago, we informed our friends and family of our decision to legally change both of our last names after marriage, by hyphenating our birth names. It was a way for us to honor both of our families while symbolizing the new one we were forming.
Our families and friends were supportive, with one exception. My husband’s mother, upon being told, only snorted and remarked “doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.” Our birth names are both one-syllable, meaning the new last name is two-syllables. I should add that it’s common knowledge that we don’t want children, so we won’t be passing this, or any other name, to any grandchildren.
At our wedding, my in-laws presented us with a card addressed to Mr. and Mrs. John Smith. We assumed they’d forgotten, but figured our thank you card, printed on stationary featuring our new name, and signed from Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Doe, would serve as a gentle reminder.
Instead, a Christmas card just arrived, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. John Smith. My husband reached out to his mom and asked her if she could please use our new name in the future. She told him our name was silly and brushed off his request as nonsense.
I should be able to shrug it off as behavior I can’t control, but every time I get a card or an invitation from them addressed to “Mrs. John Smith” I feel such rage over the deliberate, repeated insult. I feel like my value as an equal partner in my marriage is being attacked.
If I can’t find a way to stop dwelling on this, I’m going to respond to her in a way that is not helpful. I want to mail everything back to them, marked “nobody by that name lives here,” but I can’t bring myself to sabotage my husband’s relationship with his family. What would you do? — Not Mrs. John Smith
Very honestly, what I would do in your shoes is privately rage to close friends, my own family, and periodically my husband any time I felt distracted by the refusal to address me (and my husband) by our new name. I’d continue to sign all correspondences with my new name, send holiday cards from “The Smith-Doe’s,” and hang a sign on my front door if I have to saying “Welcome to the Smith-Doe’s” that the in-laws would see every time they came over.
But beyond that, I wouldn’t do much else. What would the point be? Your in-laws are not in charge of establishing your value as a partner in your marriage. No one is except you and your spouse. What they think of you, and what name they call you, is so inconsequential to your worth in your marriage — it’s like arguing that a weed that grows in one garden devalues the worth of a flower that grows in another garden several miles away.
Keep tending to your own garden and don’t let weeds that grow miles away affect you. If you have any concern that your own garden isn’t growing as lovely as it could and should, look within it for a way to make it better. Is it getting enough sunlight? Enough water? Do the flowers and plants have room to grow? Is it time to do some pruning? And if your garden is already thriving, then great — all the more reason to not let some damn weed somewhere else concern you.
Sure, you can be sad for the people who have let their garden be overcome by weeds and who aren’t committed to their garden the same way you are, but don’t be sad or mad for yourself. Your garden is still lovely! Celebrate that. Congratulate yourself and your partner for putting in the effort to maintain this expression of joy, this beautiful garden. And then remind yourself: a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
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If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
LW1, I would be very tempted to start sending all their letters back return to sender as in “there’s nobody here by that name.” But alas Wendy is right about taking the high road.
You should celebrate, at least, that your husband is onboard and he did talk to his mother. You got a good one, apparently despite his mother.
LW1, I don’t think that this is a battle worth fighting. Read some of the archives here about actual difficult sh*t people have to put up with from the in-laws. BOF* never changed her name and after nine years we still get letters addressed to Mr. and Mrs. FLN**
*Bride of Fyodor
**Fyodor’s Last Name
I didn’t change my name when I got married either and eight years later, I still get mail from both of our families addressed to Mrs. Drew’s Last Name. The pediatrician, my dentist, and a host of other people call me Mrs. Drew’s Last Name. I just shrug it off. The only way it could possibly invalidate or devalue my marriage is if I let it. Drew and I know we’re equals and treat each other as such. The patriarchy needs to be smashed, but any affect it has on my own marriage needs to be dealt with between my husband and me. If it’s an issue that exists outside of us, then it’s an issue that exists outside of us.
I *did* change my last name when I got married (I wanted a much rarer name than my maiden name was), and I still get letters from my family addressed to my maiden name – 11 years into the marriage. My family is all about smashing the patriarchy (or they’re just forgetful…).
Same here. We’ve been married 42 years and it wasn’t until I moved to a +55 community that anyone used my real name instead of my husband’s. I found out one day when I mentioned that our wedding anniversary was on July 4 and everyone looked at me while one person piped up with, “but you’re just shacking up, right?” I said, “no, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we’ve been married for 35 years and I want credit for that!” Lol. I never cared when my mom or anyone else sent cards to me using my husband’s last name. Just didn’t matter to me. I know who I am.
LW #1 Wendy’s right – take the high road. My mom returned to her maiden name after she divorced my dad. When she remarried she kept her maiden name. Some people gave her grief, she ignored and went on. She has a spine of steel so eventually they either succumbed or just died. Personally, I would be more upset at someone addressing the card to Mr & Mrs John Smith in which my name doesn’t appear at all. At least give me the passive aggressive courtesy of John and Leslie Smith.
LW#2 – Also agree with Wendy here. If you had identical salaries, does that mean you split everything 50/50? Because let’s face it, most women still have the burden of the household, and the social calendar, and child care… If he gets a raise, do you have to get a raise? A new job? The fact that your happiness is not a factor is HUGE. We all understand financial insecurity… but a combined income of $90K isn’t a bad place to live.
She has a spine of steel so eventually they either succumbed or just died.
Haha, your Mom is a boss!
She really is. On top of it, her first name and my step dad’s last name rhyme. It would have been akin to “Harriet Chariot”.
LW1, I agree with Wendy’s take. I actually have a friend who did the “return-the-mail” routine, but it didn’t win hearts or change minds.
I never changed my name, and ironically it’s been one of my sisters that has been the most persistent in sending things addressed to Mrs HisLastName, though there are some of his relatives who don’t seem to get it. But the way I look at it is that it’s not a battle: my name is what it is, no matter what anybody chooses to call me. So I just smile and carry on. Remember that it’ll probably bother the old lady a whole lot more if you DON’T get combative, so you can take pleasure in that. She’s not the one in control; you and your husband are. That means everything.
Its absolutely a battle worth fighting, the fact alone thats its addressed to your husbands name alone is disrespectful.
You have a first name aswell and it sure aint John.
Not sure why others think being disrespected by purposely using the wrong name is insgnificant, but I stengly disagree.
Talk to your husband and ask him how he feels about sending the post back.
If he agrees that you are not coming between his and her moms relationship, she is!!!
Names are very important, heck to me its no different than calling a trans person by their preferred name and gender assignment.
I changed my first name cuz i loathed the name my abusive mother gave me and I would cut anyone out of my life that would refuse to use the correct name (initial mistakes are not counted off course they need time to adjust) thankfully everybody respected my decision.
This is no different and calling it the high road is hogwash.
This is completely different. There’s no history of abusiveness here associated with the joint name change, and there are more tools in the basket here than cutting someone off. HE is being disrespected too, because he changed his last name as well – that’s part of what’s gravelling his mother. Taking the long view makes sense.
This is not the same as misgendering a trans person. I don’t think that comparison is cool at all. Last time I checked, people who change their names after marriage aren’t experiencing high rates of murder and hate crimes, and aren’t having laws passed that allow discrimination against them.
I don’t think this is anything worth worrying about. This says a tremendous amount about your MIL and nothing about you. Your MIL doesn’t approve. To her it is some strange, incomprehensible and probably radical thing that the two of you did. She is probably embarrassed that her son changed his name. (My God, what will this generation do next!) So she refuses to acknowledge that the two of you have made your own decision and come up with your own name. That is all about her. It says nothing about your worth or value. If you are worried about your value that is all coming from within you. I say this as someone who kept my name and has been married for 30 years and still gets birthday cards from my MIL addressed to me formally, because she is formal, in my husband’s last name. The card also always has a very nice check in it made out to Mrs. MyFirstName Husband’sLastName. I take the nice, large check to the bank and endorse it with my name and underneath that I put AKA (Also known as) MyFirstName Husband’sLastName. In all other ways my MIL is a very nice, kind, thoughtful woman but she has trouble believing that a woman’s name doesn’t automatically change when she gets married.
I don’t try to force her to think my way. That would be a waste of my time and just cause confrontation. She has one way of seeing the world and I have a different way. The only thing that matters is that my husband and I are on the same page, which we are.
I find it humorous that people who insist on using Mrs because it is traditional often misuse it. Formally, Mrs. Your First Name Husband’s Last Name is incorrect. Mrs. should always accompany the husband’s full name if one is following traditional rules.
My MIL is English and using it as she was taught. She puts the title Mrs. on checks. Something I’ve never seen done here.
Mrs HisFirstName HisLastName is the formal way of addressing a married woman. Mrs. HerFirstName HisLastName would be the way to address a divorced woman. Shockeroo; don’t want to be sending the message that you’re divorced; might have to roll in the fainting couch. Lol
My in laws were very much the same way. They came from farm families not too far removed from the “old country.” We did the same thing the LW did, except we did pass the name down to our children. I’m not sure that my in-laws ever fully comprehended that hyphenating both are names was something that people could actually do and not some silly affectation we put on our mail. But they were otherwise very nice people. It wasn’t done out of some sense of meanness. So I just rolled my eyes a bit and ignored it. As to the kids, when people ask us but our kids are going to do if and when they get married, especially if a Smith-Doe marries a Rose-Rook, I say anything they want. Keep their own names, pick the one of the four that is easiest to spell or that they find the coolest and go with that, take one name from each side and combine them, whatever seems right to them.
My friends both had long, ethnic last names and wasn’t going to damn their kids with either as they knew the lifetime of sniggering and misspellings so they changed both of their names to Carlsen. LOL. Mrs and Mrs Long Last name and Mr and Mrs Name-that-sounded-like-it-contained-a-curse-word didn’t like that but I think they finally got used to it.
He’s not “doing more”, though. They both have full-time jobs and his just happens to pay better. My husband makes 3x what I make but we both work full-time. He’s had good luck/more time in the work force. He would never suggest that I “owed” more in terms of child care or housework because my job is less lucrative, because we are a team. There’s nothing wrong with wanting financial security, but you get there through prudent planning and saving vs. spending, no matter how much money you make.
I dislike the notion that because one person’s full-time job pays more than another person’s full time job, they are somehow “doing more”. I totally agree that she shouldn’t sign on to that concept by agreeing to be treated as the hired help in her own home. This guy sounds like a total dick and she should dump him now.
Yeah, but someone who’s your “financial equal” now could be your “laid-off spouse in a bear market” or “stay at home parent to a disabled child” or “caretaker to elderly parents” or “layabout drug addict” later on. Making a marriage decision based on current income rather than shared financial values and life goals seems pretty short-sighted.
I get why you’re annoyed. But I agree with Wendy. I think one of the issues affecting your anger at the situation is that you’re seeing each incident as it’s own slight. But surely after the first couple of times, you knew that their decision was to call you by the wrong name and it’s probably not going to change. Acting/feeling as though they have newly made that decision every time is not going to help. (Also, I’m shocked that your in-laws refer to you so formally. I can’t imagine my parents calling my spouse and me by anything other than our first names.)
If this issue really bothers you I think you need to have your husband take the lead and tell his mom one more time about the name and how it is important to the both of you that you be called by your correct name. Every time she does not do so going forward you reiterate that your husband had this conversation wit her and start saying things like “Geez MIL we’ve talked to you about this several times and you still cannot remember. I think you should talk to your doctor about early onset dementia. Forgetting things like this is an early warning sign.” The next time, “Mom we’ve already had this conversation and your inability to remember is really starting to alarm me. I think I am going to talk to dad (or other family relative) about keeping an eye on this for you and see if it is happening in other areas of your life too. You really need to speak to your doctor.” Continue to do this every time each time she does escalating the concern and important need to see a doctor or get tested so she can plan early enough for what life with memory loss will be like, as in special assisted living facility. Make her sweat a bit. At least that’s what the petty in me would do.
From the LW:
You can’t force her to use your name but at the same time she can’t force you to use the traditional family name. In the end you get the name you want and she can do nothing about it except pretend that it doesn’t exist. You live in the real world and she lives in the pretend world.