Partner and I can't agree on a surname after marriage and now I'm wondering if marrying him is even worth it.

[Anonymous]

After being married for 25 years, my response to all these posts is invariably "Just breakup."
The couples I know who have been really happy for decades had almost no strife while dating. Everything was easy peasy for them, and they were the sort that could work everything out and get along. (The ones exception was a couple that their sole area of disagreement was when to get married...)
If you have small disagreements when dating, you will have large disagreements when married. Everything in marriage is way more stressful. As you get older, you get MORE set in your ways and generally more easily aggravated. You aren't trying to win anyone over, so you just aren't willing to compromise on all the stuff you did when you were dating. The person who was okay going to experimental theater when dating, because they were trying to impress a potential partner, is not going to do that once they've been married a few years. Now string that out to every other compromise that you make while dating. Add onto that kids and it's even worse, because people have a lot of baked in assumptions about how kids should be raised, some of which they don't even realize until they HAVE those kids--OP has sort of tripped over one of those, which is that her BF thinks kids should have the same last names as both their parents, and not a complicated/hyphenated name. That's one thing. There are probably 100 other things about kids that he also has strong views/assumptions about, that he's never thought to express (schooling, sports, holidays, food, family dinner, allowance, vacations, chores, discipline, toy clutter, involvement of his parents in raising the kids...etc etc.)

If you are stumbling over something as simple and stupid as a name, that doesn't bode well for million other decisions you will have to make as a married couple.

When we did pre-cana for a catholic wedding, they made you each complete a survey and then share it. A lot of couples were VERY surprised by the answers, and they were pretty basic questions like how many kids you wanted and who should make decisions about family finances. In retrospect, I think that survey was WAY too short. It should have had a lot more questions, and more specific detail. You negotiate the deal before you sign the paperwork, not after -- couples should get ALL THIS STUFF out on the table while they are dating, as it's easier to resolve it then, or realize where you each aren't willing to compromise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Tell him you’re keeping your own name and the kids that come out of your body will also have your name. (This is very normal these days.) He’s welcome to join if he wants consistency.

I already told him that and he didn't like it. He found the proposal offensive.

Red flag. Not someone I would marry.

I kept my name and don't see this a red flag on his part, unless you also consider it a red flag on OP's.

It's one thing for each partner to keep their birth names, it's another for one partner to demand that they use their ln for hypothetical kids or make up a new name. That's an ultimatum, not really a discussion. What would you say if the roles were reversed?

Actually, it’s the husband who is doing the demanding and giving an ultimatum. The default in the hospital when the spouses have different last names is that the new baby is called by mom’s name “Baby Smith”. If they want something different on the birth certificate then they need to specify that.

This is such a reach. There was no angst at either hospital when naming my two children, who have different last names from me.

I hate these flimsy arguments. OP just needs to have an actual conversation to express her feelings on the matter. Her ultimatum was: kids shall not have your name and I'm not discussing it. That may very well be her opinion, but don't expect anyone to react well to that -- no matter the topic.

This explains why posters here are having a hard time with any situation that isn't the traditional woman-takes-husband's name. Many of them barely know how to read.

DH was a bit taken aback when I told him that I wanted to keep my name. I was gentle, yet firm, about it because I loved him. I gave him a moment to come around and didn't browbeat him as a way to solve for my own discomfort in disappointing him.

These things happen in a marriage. If you want to make a go of it, conversation and empathy go a long way. A couple of weeks later it was a non-issue and now nearly 30 years later...

OP's boyfriend wasn't "a bit taken aback".

She said he "assumed." Which is exactly how my DH was in the moment, he assumed.

I can guarantee OP and I went about it differently. I didn't think my DH was an @sshole or anti-women, which is what OP just suddenly assumes.

They both made assumptions and now they're both offended. I agree that based on their communication style, their marriage will likely fail.

And then she offered to hyphenate the child. He said no. He wanted her to have his name fir the sake of a family unit, so she offered him to take his name and he got offended. Do you know how to read?

[Anonymous]

His response is pretty "typical male" in a wrong, annoying way, but if THIS is the reason you've considering not marrying him, I'd suggest there are underlying other reasons.

[Anonymous]

Huh, I opened this thread and took a timewarp to the early 1990s. I got married 25 years and knew many women who didn’t change their names. None of this handwringing. I did change and people were surprised.

I hear over and over that we are going backward culturally. This thread is proof.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:His response is pretty "typical male" in a wrong, annoying way, but if THIS is the reason you've considering not marrying him, I'd suggest there are underlying other reasons.

These types of conversations are interesting because they are where the rubber meets the road and you see people’s true views on gender roles and family.

[Anonymous]

hyphen names are ass for email and logins sad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you're being just as dramatic as he is

Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huh, I opened this thread and took a timewarp to the early 1990s. I got married 25 years and knew many women who didn’t change their names. None of this handwringing. I did change and people were surprised.

I hear over and over that we are going backward culturally. This thread is proof.

many is not majority its alwasy been less than 20% congrats you are the weird one

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is overly liberal on this topic compared with how people actually think day to day. Even a lot of left-leaning people may say out loud that it is no big deal, but internally they still notice and make assumptions.

Fair or not, when a married woman has a different last name from her husband or kids, people may quietly wonder: is she divorced, is this a blended family, is there a professional reason, is she making a political point, is she difficult, or is there some narcissistic reason she could not just take the shared family name? They may never say that out loud, but people absolutely make those judgments internally.

That is why I think the Pew data matters more than hand-picked examples. Even among liberal Democratic married women, only 25% kept their last name. So even in liberal circles, keeping your birth name is still the minority choice.

And if we are talking about liberal women who fully took their husband’s name, not hyphenated or combined, there are still examples: Abigail Davis became Abigail Spanberger, Nicolle Devenish became Nicolle Wallace, Joy-Ann Lomena became Joy Reid, and Mary Sattler became Mary Peltola. It is still very normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hyphen names are ass for email and logins sad

You struggle with special characters in email addresses? How to you manage the @ and .?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hyphen names are ass for email and logins sad

Never had that problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just call the whole thing off. I'm serious. If you can't even do this to reach a mutual goal, how will you handle all life will throw at you?

Not OP, but how exactly would you handle this? He's the own that refuses to compromise. She offered to hyphenate and he didn't want to. She offered him to change his name, he didn't want to, but he expects her to change hers. there's not much to agree on.

Do not marry this man. Do not have children with him. Pretty simple

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh, I opened this thread and took a timewarp to the early 1990s. I got married 25 years and knew many women who didn’t change their names. None of this handwringing. I did change and people were surprised.

I hear over and over that we are going backward culturally. This thread is proof.

many is not majority its alwasy been less than 20% congrats you are the weird one

You seem really invested in other people’s choices. Why is that?

p.s. I don’t give a hoot about what some person in a state I will never visit does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh, I opened this thread and took a timewarp to the early 1990s. I got married 25 years and knew many women who didn’t change their names. None of this handwringing. I did change and people were surprised.

I hear over and over that we are going backward culturally. This thread is proof.

many is not majority its alwasy been less than 20% congrats you are the weird one

You seem really invested in other people’s choices. Why is that?

p.s. I don’t give a hoot about what some person in a state I will never visit does.

PP you responded to is a troll. His lack of vocabulary and punctuation is a dead giveaway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:His response is pretty "typical male" in a wrong, annoying way, but if THIS is the reason you've considering not marrying him, I'd suggest there are underlying other reasons.

This is actually a pretty good reason not to marry him. His reaction the reflection of his views on gender roles. He didn't simply say he wished she took his name. He demanded it and got offended by the reverse.