You got it 100% correct - different strokes for different folks. You've chosen what is best for you two. That's the right thing to do.

My ex step-father paid my ex $1000 to return to her maiden name. (Which was fine to me btw, I could give a shit what she calls herself)

Before she got married, she wanted to lose the name because she didn't like her abusive family. But money talks, even stupid money.

Thus far my mom took her husband's name - got divorced - took her maiden name - married my dad - took his name - got divorced - kept his name - got married - took her husband's name

too...much....paperworkkkk

After my mom divorced her second husband (my dad,) she decided that rather than go back to her maiden name for the second time, she'd choose a new name entirely: her own mother's maiden name. On the one hand, I thought this was a little weird, but on the other, it meant she didn't have to deal with yet another name change when she eventually left my stepfather.

You just described my mom, Fob. 'cept she took an (alleged) old family name from generations back. Then hyphenated it with her next husband.... No idea what she's using now.....

In UK, it's not the norm to go back to the maiden name after divorce so much. Costs money for a start....

Yeah, a friend of mine's mom never went back after her divorce because, as she put it, by that point she'd spent more years of her life as the husband's name than the original name anyway.

I kept my married name. Easier to spell and pronounce, and my first, middle, and last names are symmetrical in number. :blush:

I reckon going with the Spanish way of things is the solution.

When a woman gets married, she keeps her name and adds her husbands name. e.g. Jane Smith of [husband's name], meaning that she continues to be there are kids, then the kids have both surnames e.g. first name + father's surname + mother's surname. All names are put on all documents. Confusing to get one's head around at first, but I reckon it works.

The Spaniards still have the same problem, they just don't use hyphens.

Jane Jones Smith (Jones being her mother's name, Smith being her father's) marries John Doe, and becomes Jane Jones Smith de Doe. They have a daughter, who is named Sally Jones Smith Doe (because remember, Jones isn't a middle name, her mother's last name is, in fact, considered to be Jones Smith, and Sally's last name is Jones Smith Doe in its entirety.)

Sally marries Pedro, and becomes Sally Jones Smith Doe de Santiago...

Ad infinitum or ad nauseam, whichever comes first. Most rational people start dropping names from the middle at some point, but I have seen documents (researching Spain for a thing in college) that prove not everyone is rational in this regard.

It's a shame that meme was around at the time, we could have wrapped it, or chopped the bacon and stuffed it inside, would have worked pretty well.

Marcie Dahlgren-Frost: Dahlgren is my maiden name, Frost is my married name. I'm single again, but I never bothered to remove the Frost. And I get compliments on the hyphen.

I know a woman who had to have surgery to have her hyphen removed!

Was she still able to have a period? :D

A period of mourning. :)

Would that be the mourning after?

I dunno, I was considered very odd by almost everyone for not reverting to my maiden name...

I also had a friend who chose to change her name by deed poll after her divorce. She was Indian, but had no contact with her birth family, instead she was brought up in England by an elderly and fairly distant relative. So she felt no connection to her maiden name. He husband cheated on her and left her within a year of marriage, so she certainly didn't want to keep her married name.

So she chose something quite unusual and distrinctive which still fit her heritage. I won't type it here in case she still has the same name! I quite admired her for that.

Then perhaps it's regional. Mybad for generalizing. Still, it's moot at Razz is getting married, not divorced, thank goodness!

Congratulations, and sorry it took me so long to respond. I couldn't figure out what you were ENRAGED about.

Not here :cool:

Congrats Razz! (very sorry for the delay)

Whens the wedding and are we invited?

:D

This comes from a book which I've only just started. I have no idea if it has a happy ending, but the sentiment is not one I've come across before ever, so thought I'd include it to steer away from the thread drift.


"The point of marriage is not to create a commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both of their fullest freedom and development. But once that realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side by side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which give them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky."