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I had always planned on changing my name to my fiance’s last name. Recently, I’ve explored the option of moving my last name into a second middle name, as many have discussed on weddingbee before. For example, my new name would be myfirstname mymiddlename mymaidenname hislastname. My maiden name would literally no longer be my last name, but legally added as a second middle name.
I brought this up to my fiance, and he didn’t respond very well. Now, after he realizes I was serious about possibly doing this, he got extremely upset at me. He literally told me that HE WON’T MARRY ME if the marriage license says “Firstname Middlename Maidenname Hislastname”. He was yelling at me when he said this. He is normally pretty laid back about a lot of things, and is not abusive to me or anything like that. But, he was so incredibly serious about this that it scared me. No matter what I said, even when I reiterated the fact that my current last name would not even be my legal last name at all, and that everything I signed, etc. would be Firstname Hislastname. He basically said that I literally had no choice in this and that it is just what you do when you get married.
I guess my question is, whose decision is it really? Isn’t it mine? Does he have the right to force me to do this? Is this his “right” as my new husband? I really don’t have anything against taking his last name at all, I just felt a little sense of loss at the thought of changing my name altogether. I know some might say that if he literally won’t marry me because of something like that, we must have other problems, etc. but that isn’t the case. I have never felt the need to be submissive, etc. at all to him in this relationship. We’ve always been equal, but like I said, it’s so surprising to me how incredibly mad he got.
Any thoughts on this?
Andria
First of all, that’s a pretty scary response. Second…they are taking his last name. I’m not sure why he can’t see that. You’re making your maiden last name a middle name….
It is, above all, your choice whether you want to keep or change your last name.
It is your decision because it’s your name but a good friend of mine gave me some great advice–if you would consider his feelings when deciding where to go for dinner, you should consider his feelings when deciding something this important.
It sounds like you need to talk to him and find out where his strong feelings on this point come from. It may be a cultural thing, a belief that was instilled in him at a very young age, or it may be fear that you are not committing 100% by not changing your name 100%. Discussing the underlying issue should help you reach a resolution.
It is very important that you deal with this situation directly. If this is the first time he has blown up at you then (a) he is probably really emotional about the issue, which requires a real discussion and (b) you need to make sure that you don’t establish a pattern where he yells and gets his way. That’s no way to start a marriage–for either of you.
This is YOUR name, and it is your choice. I got married last year, and my name now is the same format as the one you want: Firstname Middlename MaidenName HisLastName. I wanted to completely replace my middle name, but in the state where I live that’s strangely difficult.
Check out the Lucy Stone League at http://www.lucystoneleague.org . They are dedicated to women having the name they want, and have guidance about how to do that.
I really can’t figure out where your fiance is coming from on this, and I don’t want to disparage him, but this sounds like a warning sign to me. Your name is YOUR NAME, and it is emotional to change it, no matter what you’re changing it to. This is such a tiny thing to explode about - and you’re still changing it to his name - that I worry for you. He needs to back down.
Good luck on this.
Maybe this is a silly question, but are you doing any kind of premarital counseling? That sounds like something you may want to bring up…
In my opinion, this is not his decision. I mean, obviously, he should play a part in the decision, but I think ultimately, it’s yours to make. This is your identity you’re talking about, and changing it so completely can be sad.
That would scare me, too… I hope you guys can figure this out!
It’s absolutely your right to chose what you want to be called after the wedding. I’d be a little scared if my future husband wanted to control my name!
I agree with the suggestion of bringing this up in premarital counseling, if you are doing that. This needs to be resolved.
Uh, I am really really concerned.
First off, lets just establish that it is common and traditional for a woman to take her maiden last name as a married middle name (Laura Ingalls Wilder traditional, or Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler traditional). It is slightly less common to keep one’s maiden middle name when doing this, but it probably means your former maiden last name will be used even less as a second middle name.
Second, why anger? Why does he think he gets to order you do to something? Why isn’t this a discussion or communication between you? My husband was somewhat sad that I didn’t want to take his name, and we had multiple discussions on the topic, and I strongly considered doing it *as a favor or gift to him* but ultimately he respected my decision to keep my name. He even got it enough to entertain the though of hyphenating his name or our future kids names or taking mine.
Third, threatening not to marry you over this is a dealbreaker, in my mind. I would head straight to a counselor. This kind of threatening to get your way is not a good precedent, and even if he is serious (he doesn’t want to marry you if you woln’t change your name) it is not the kind of thing to be said in anger, as a tool during a fight.
If you allow the precedent to stand (that’s it is OK to threaten drastic things in the middle of a fight) just imagine the future: If we don’t name Johnny after my grandfather, I’m divorcing you. If you don’t agree to move to Idaho where I got this great job, I’m going to go anyway and sue you for the kids.
It is not an acceptable threat, even if he is very hurt (and strangely hurt) by your name-change plan.
This is a sensitive topic - one that takes a lot of patience, sensitivity and understanding on the groom’s part, and a full embrace of what marriage means on the bride’s. Your fiance needs to hear - from a third-party perspective - that abandoning one’s name and taking on another’s is not something that’s done lightly. It’s an honor for any man to have his future wife take his name, and a decision that I think a lot of future brides come to after painstaking consideration.
It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t willing to hear you out or even try to see it from your perspective. I’m sure under other circumstances, your FI is very sweet and nurturing towards you; however, given how his reaction “scared” you, I think you need to get to the root of his reaction, and subsequently, his temper. And then hopefully, you’ll be able to reach some level of compromise and understanding.
I think he might need to realize that keeping your maiden name as a second middle name is not a sign of disrespect to him — it is a symbol of keeping your own identity in addition to becoming one with him. If he expects you to not be “you” anymore when you’re married, and rather be an extension of him, I’d be very, very worried.
I plan to change my last name to my FI’s when we’re married, and replace my middle name (which I have no emotional attachment to) entirely with my maiden name. If FI had a problem with that, I’d have to seriously wonder if his ideas of what a wife’s role is matches the person I have worked to become over the last 27 years. Honestly, we’re in 2007 — he’s lucky you’re taking his name at all!
Just want to send my support to you… if my fiance had a reaction like this I would feel disturbed and scared. What else could turn out to be a ‘no-discussion’ issue with him? To me, it’s not as much the specific name-change issue as the reaction which makes me hope that you two will meet with a premarital counselor. Speaking for myself, the counseling sessions I attended with my FH gave us great communication tools for working through difficult issues. NO decision that you make should be overruled just because your fiance has a strong belief, but maybe counseling can help him explain his feelings to you in a more constructive way.
I am actually very concern about his reactions than anything. Threating not to marry you over a name change? I understand how this is a big deal to some guys, but why not have a civil discussion about it instead of resulting to threatening. I would definetly sit down with him quick.
Please look at your relationship carefully. Even though he never showed any abusive signs before, he’s showing a BIG one right now. Yelling, controlling, threats–these are all serious signs of abusive behavior. I think you recognize it yourself. Please do the smart thing and don’t think that he’s the only person out there who you can marry. It’s better to be single than to be in a bad marriage.
You need to sit down and talk to him about this once things have cooled off and explain where you are coming from. If he does not respect your decision, I would suggest some sort of premarital counseling because it seems his possessiveness the a bigger issue here. What you are trying to do is perfectly reasonable. I would be severely concerned about his reaction given that you are prepared to spend the rest of your lives together.
I had always planned on taking my husband’s name. But when the time came, I was a little sad and wanted to keep my old one as my middle name. So i dropped my initial middle name and switched my new last name to my middle name. No problem.
Everything Ms. Albatross so eloquently stated. You need to think about the future, your name does not even matter at this point- how is he going to react to future disagreements that concern you? It is your choice, you were trying to discuss it civilly and this is how he reacted. His reluctance to discuss things calmly is the more important issue right now.
Sounds like heavy-handed micromanagement. You say this was surprising, but think carefully about whether he does this in other areas of your life.
What’s extra alarming is that he’s making an issue over your MIDDLE name (you’re already planning on taking his last).
(P.S. For what it’s worth — You probably already realize this, but having 2 middle names in the U.S. is a PITA but it can be done. They always seem to run out of room on forms or they shift the 2nd middle name into the last name space, or drop one of the middle names, or there’s only room for 1 middle initial. It’s a minor thing but just be prepared to do a lot of explaining and correcting.)
I’m not so much concerned with your fiance’s reaction as everyone else is. First, I knew early on that my fiance would not marry me if I did not take his name. Of course, he always knew that I would take his name, without question.
perhaps your fiance doesn’t really understand that what you’re proposing is to take his last name because there’s a public perception that as long as your last name is still there, you’re hypenating it or you want people to refer to you by that name.
Case in point, I changed my name to FirstName MaidenName LastName because I had no middle name to begin with. I constantly get asked by people what my name is, what I go by, and I’ve even had people hyphenate my name, even though it’s nowhere on my driver’s license. Sometimes, I wish I had just gone to: FirstName NewLastName and skipped MaindenName altogether.
Finally, I do recommend having a long discussion with your FI and trying to understand why he got so vehemently angry. All I know is that had I sprung the same conversation on my husband after we were engaged, he would’ve flipped out and threatened not to get married if he thought I wasn’t taking his name. As for the other comments - yes, it is 2007, and my husband is not a jerk or a control freak. We have a joint account, I have my own credit cards, I work late hours, get rides home from other men, and go out with my girlfriends without calling for hours. But, we’re also married now and it’s very important to him and to me that we’re a family in one of the most outwardly apparent ways.
Yeah, yelling and getting really steamed up over a silly name change, which isn’t really one, is borderline abuse in my mind. If he reacts like that to something this trivial, who knows what he’ll do if you make a decision without him? I’d double-think marrying this guy if I were you.
Did you two discuss name change at all before that took place? If so, I think that kind of reaction is fairly bizarre on his part and is not a good indicator of things to come.
I think that the decision is between the two of you, in other words some sort of compromise should be met. Your idea sounds like a good one being that you are adding your maiden name to your middle one but still taking on just his name, so I don’t see what the problem is.
Now my fiance told me long before we got engage that he would never marry a woman that didn’t take on his name. I was OK with that because (1) he told me a head of time, therefore giving me the option to stay or go, (2) it’s his opinion and he’s entitled to it, and (3) I’ve always planned on changing my name to begin with. He didn’t yell or force me to anything. We talked about it and discovered our feelings were the same.
Obviously you still want to marry this man and see a lot of valuable characteristics in him, but you ought not rule out his reaction. There’s probably no need to cancel or postpone or rethink or do anything drastic, as I’m sure this period of time is taxing and emotionally draining on him as well. Overall, it is definitely your decision. You are a grown woman who has obviously done serious thought on the topic, and dismissing your wishes because he irrationally believes otherwise could be very dangerous. Make sure there is a clear discussion, and don’t get bullied into making a decision that you don’t want. It’s YOUR name!
If you look on the “rules” when applying for your marriage license, it specifically spells out, you are under NO obligation to change your name!
I am more concerned about his reaction. I don’t think your decision is at all inconsiderate. You are taking his name and moving your last name to your middle name. You had the consideration to talk to him about it, he should have the same consideration to discuss why or why not he feels the way he does.
Just know the decisions is YOURS. Take a step back and maybe talk to him about it again. Or not! It’s your decision.
Your FI reaction to this suggestion is very suprising! It is definitely YOUR right to take his name if you wish, you are under NO obligation to do so.
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