theattack

Not married yet, but we’ve obviously had this discussion.

When my fiance and I dated the first time, he told me that he would be really embarrassed if his wife didn’t take his last name.  It would feel like rejection, and he figured that his family would make fun of him for it.  The thought had just never even occurred to him that his future wife might not do that, and he was kind of defensive about it.

Fast forward a few years, and the second time we dated he was much more reasonable.  His eyes had already been opened to the fact that a name change wasn’t automatic, and he was willing to accept that we might have different names.  It took some time to adjust, but he came around.  Incidentally, so did I.  I realized that I didn’t care about keeping my own name very much (as long as we were married before I got my Master’s),  and his feelings were more important to me than my last name.  So I’m planning on changing it for him (and I’m pretty excited about it!), but he’s okay with it if I don’t.

I think if you give your boyfriend some time, he’ll probably soften up about it some.  He’ll probably still have the disappointment if you don’t change it, but that’s okay as long as he’s not actually upset about it.