When a married couple gets a divorce, there can be a question about last names. If one person changed their last name at marriage, they might feel like changing it back after the divorce … or they might not.
One woman recently shared on Reddit that she is contemplating this exact scenario now.
They were married for 26 years.
"My ex-husband (who I'll call him by his fake name Tony) and I broke up 2 years ago after 26 years of marriage. We have four children together," the original poster (OP) begins.
"Due to the stupidity of the time and social pressure, I added my husband's last name to my name. So all my documents like identification, driver's license, passport, all credit cards, voter registration card have his last name at the end."
She doesn't want to go through the process and cost of changing everything.
"We ended amicably even more due to the circumstances (he is gay) and we divorced," OP continues.
"Honestly, it would suck to have to change everything, go to government agencies, pay for everything new, go to the bank to change everything, so I didn't want to take out his last name, but I introduce myself by my maiden name, only in the documents is it this name."
The issue came up before her ex's wedding.
"Tony is currently engaged to a guy and they are going to get married in the next year," OP explains.
"The situation that happened was:
"Our son and his family decided to travel and invited me. He asked for my ID to make the reservations.
"A few days later, me, Tony and fiance were at my grandson's party. Our son said jokingly in the conversation circle that he couldn't believe that until today I hadn't changed my last name. I laughed, saying that I was too lazy to rush to change everything that has this name on it."
She explained herself and thought it was OK.
"Tony started to ask if I really hadn't changed my name, if I didn't think that being engaged to someone else isn't the best time to change it, and he insisted that it was weird of me.
"I just replied: 'Unless you can go in my place, spend hours and hours in lines, pay hundreds for it, I won't do it in the near future'.
"We stopped talking and the party flowed smoothly."
Their son is on the dad's side, too.
"Later, he called me and said I was acting weird and a jerk by refusing to change the name, which he said was uncomfortable.
"I asked our son and he said he understands my side of not wanting to do this, but he understands Tony's side of being uncomfortable with his ex using his last name after the divorce.
"So I ask for an outside opinion."
People don't agree with the ex and have suggestions for him.
As one person put it, "If having his ex share a last name with him bothers him that much, then maybe he should take his fiancé's name after they marry."
Twenty-six years is a long, long time.
"After 26 years of marriage and 4 children that’s her last name. My grandma was married for 20 years to my grandfather, had 4 children they divorced about 45 years ago, and to this day at 87 years old still has my grandfathers last name. My grandfather is remarried and has a very grown 43 year old child with his current wife and none of them give a single [expletive]. Like who cares, OPs ex is lucky she’s so kind after spending her life with somebody lying to her and himself and their children."
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