Feminist/preparing for Divorce Vs. Normal/optimistic

View Quoted Comment You're welcome!

Names are a big part of identity - I don't think he'd be pushing for you to use his name so much if he didn't recognize this; a lot of guys seem to like the idea of someone taking their last name and creating a cohesive family unit. I get it, but he needs to see it from your perspective too.

How would he feel if someone asked him to change his last name? Many people are happy to change their last names, others are not. It has nothing to do with preparing for divorce.

I personally have really struggled with this. I LOVE my last name, and for a while there it seemed pretty important to FH for me to change it. But after several discussions, he understood why this decision was a big deal and where I was coming from, and said whatever made me happy, he would support.

Eventually, I decided to take his last name, but I probably won't be actually changing it until next year. It does have some perks - I like the monogram, and I'll have the same last name as our future kids.

As far as finances go, we plan on keeping the accounts that we currently have separate, but setting up a joint account for certain things in the future.

My husband and I both wanted to have the same last name. It was important to us and signified is being a family. We both changed our names. People are always surprised when they find out.
We have join accounts and joined our money together when we got engaged. Having separate accounts was a pain to pay all the bills, which I did. So it made my life easier.

View Quoted Comment Thanks for sharing Eri! I like the idea of having one joint account.

View Quoted Comment Oh wow. Very interestimg. I wonder if kids who's parents never married feel they are not a family with the parent who's last name is different? Or if women who take their spouse's last name feel they are no longer family with parents?

View Quoted Comment As you should in a relationship! Everyone should compromise something at some point. Maybe he will compromise the name situation? I hope you two figure the name situation out!

View Quoted Comment Idk, I thought about going your route with the child's middle name being my last name and their last name being the dads but the more I think about it, the more I dislike it for me.



Ex: if my last name is Jones and FH'S is smith, children would be Jones-Smith. They still have my last name within their last name. I've seen so many issues working in international HR, where women are denied international travel with their child who has a conpletely different last name and they failed to provide a notarized letter from the father. But the letter was never asked for until they saw their completely different last names. I also worked at a retail store many years ago and our policy was that a person could not use a store charge card if the last name on the ID and the card had no relation. Therefore there were countless teen or adults I had to turn down who were buying simply socks, a simple piece of clothing bc their mom's charge card had a completely different last name. It just seems to cause many hassles going that route.

I think your FH has some issues to work through.

MIL never changed her name. DH didn't blink an eye when I said I wanted to keep my name. My stepmother didn't change her name. Honestly, DH expected it, MIL expected it, everyone's been cool with it. It's a *choice*.

We currently have separate finances. We've been meaning to at least open a joint account, but it's a little hard to get into a bank branch these days. We won't pool everything, probably just have one joint account for bill paying.

My parents are divorced. DH and I have done counseling jointly and individually, so that we can communicate well and support each other better, some of which has dealt with the trauma of my parents' divorce. But we are not my parents. We are us, with our own foibles and strengths.

DH's name is not hyphenated, we will likely not hyphenate our kids' names. (Again, that's a choice you can make on the birth certificate.)

Your FH really sounds like he's freaking out about *something* - and he's using these ridiculous arguments as a cover. He might benefit from a long talk or some counseling.

FYI, both DH and I are staunchly feminist. So are my ILs (married 30+ years), and my dad and stepmom (married 19 years).

View Quoted Comment You didn't answer my question but thanks for your contribution to the thread.

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I'll respond to this and another of your comments about kids not feeling like a family if their last names are different. My mother and I have different last names and I have two half siblings with different last names, and we always felt like one family. I think it's silly to think what makes a group a family is simply sharing a last name. My husband and I have different last names and that does not make us any less married. Some cultures have never had a history of changing last names and again, that doesn't mean those folks are any less married or not a family.

In response to your point about kids, I see this argument all the time. Personally, I don't think it's a legitimate reason to perpetuate a symbol which oppressed women for hundreds of years. Logistically, I think it also gets blown way out of proportion. Most of the time I'll be shopping with my kids, or my teens will use cash, or their father's credit card which has his last name. (Assuming they get asked to show ID at all and they have an ID to show) There are lots of ways to solve that problem. In terms of international travel, I don't expect to do much international travel with my kids and without my husband. (We live in the US and plan to spend the next 30 years in the US so the vast majority of the time, we will travel internationally as a family.) So this may be an issue once in my life. And since so many people bring it up as a reason to change a last name, I'm now well aware of it and will bring a letter. These simple conveniences don't override my historical/ feminist/political reasons to keep my last name.

View Quoted Comment Okay thanks for sharing. I travel internationally often and sometimes do so without my FH. I'M confident that if we were to have kids, there will be some trips without him. So it would be more convienent if they had not necessarily the same last nane as me but a last name with some relation to mine. Such as a hyphenared last name with both parent's last names. My mom had a different last name than her mom and said she never wanted that for me and it was such a pain for her growing up.
It's safe to say that when one becomes a parent, we do make some decisions based off our personal experiences in our childhood.
I still plan on not changing my last name.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.

View Quoted Comment If you're happy with your choice to hyphenate your kids' last names, you should do that (to me, it makes sense to do this if you're both keeping your original last names) but international travel shouldn't really be a problem if you give them your last name as their middle name, because passports generally have the full middle name spelled out.
I know you're happy with keeping your name as is, so you should do that, but in case you're interested in hearing about other options, I'm adding my husband's last name to mine, after a space, no hyphen. (This would be another option for your kids.) Doing it that way makes me feel like I'm not actually changing my last name (I know this isn't technically true) the same way I would if I hyphenated, because each name stays separate instead of being combined into one new name. For kids, we'll probably give them my last name as their second middle name and his as their last. So legally they'll have his last name but practically, their names will match mine.

View Quoted Comment Thanks for your contribution to my thread!