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“It didn’t occur to me until much, much later: I would never ask him to change his name – I would feel too awful. And yet why was I considering someone else’s asking that of me to be perfectly normal? How was I so ready to accept the inevitability of doing what I couldn’t bring myself to ask of another person? No! That wasn’t okay!”
@painted_lady: Yes! This exactly! Some people think because you’re a woman, because it’s socially acceptable and normal, that’s it’s somehow okay to expect (even demand!) that you change your name when you get married. Um, no, sorry, it’s still not okay. My name is mine, whether I’m married or not, and I get to decide whether I want to change it. I don’t owe it to anyone to change my name – not even my husband.
@Bethany, I miss my old name too. I kept my maiden as my middle name, so now I’m Firstname Mylastname Hislastname. I get kind of sad when people leave off my middle name and call me just Firstname Hislastname. Sometimes when I order stuff online, I have it sent to me by maiden name, just because it’s nice to see my maiden name in print.I started a thread about changing my last name a while ago. I don’t know how much it will apply to your situation, but maybe it will help: http://dearwendy.com/forums/topic/the-name-change-debate/
As for me, I did end up changing my name but it took me a REALLY long time to make the decision. I was deeply upset that everyone just assumed I was changing name. Our friends and family members gave us many very generous checks, but I was not happy to see that all except one were made out to either “John and Jane Hislastname” or “Mr. and Mrs. Hislastname.” It didn’t occur them how inconsiderate this would be if I didn’t change my name.
But I was really most upset by the fact that my then-fiance assumed I would take his name. And when I tried to explain to him why I had reservations about it, he had a reaction very similar to your boyfriend. For some reason, he took my reservations about my name as an extension of my commitment to him and my desire to marry him. Which, obviously, is bullshit. I had to have a very straightforward discussion with him, which ended up with me saying something along the lines of “Am I questioning your commitment just because you’re not taking my name? No, I am not. You owe me the same respect and understanding. And if you can’t offer that to me, frankly, it’s because you’re looking at this from a sexist point of view.” I think it’s perfectly fine for a man to want his wife to take his name. But it is NOT fine for a man to measure her love and commitment by her choice to take (or not take) his name.
Anyway, it took a while to get him to understand that whatever choice I made, I just wanted to make the decision based on my own feelings, not to make him feel better or to do please our families or to go along with societal conventions. He had a hard time seeing it from my point of view but he eventually came around. Most men never encounter a situation where they feel pressure to change (or not change) their name, so it’s a really foreign thing to them.
