I Refused to Take My Husband’s Last Name

I never changed my last name when I married my husband. He wanted me to but I refused. I didn't want to lose my identity. I believed the tradition of a woman taking her husband’s last name was sexist anyway.

A woman shouldn’t have to change her last name to her husband’s just because he’s a man. Doing so strips her of a piece of herself.

Her name.

I refused to give up that piece of myself.

I was afraid of losing myself in my husband’s world.

When my husband asked me to marry him, I was an adult. Why should I have to give up the name I’d been using my entire life just because I'd accepted a man's hand in marriage? I’d been given my last name at birth and wanted to keep it. Everyone knew me by that name anyway.

There was another issue that was influencing my decision to hold onto my last name. The family of my husband-to-be had become very controlling since we decided to get married. I felt like they were trying to get me to change my whole identity. Changing my last name to theirs would finalize that transformation.

My husband’s family is Jewish. I'm not Jewish and didn’t want to convert. Not wanting to take my husband’s last name had nothing to do with being anti-Semitic. I didn’t want to change my last name to his because I felt like doing so would be giving up too much of my identity.

I was already being asked to give up so much. As soon as my husband proposed marriage, the arguments with his family began. Which religion would we choose for our future children? My in-laws were adamant that our children grow up only Jewish.

That meant I could no longer celebrate any Christian holidays. I argued that our children could still experience both of our traditions. I wanted to still celebrate Christmas and Easter—not in a religious way, just a secular expression of these holidays. This was a marriage between two people, after all. Marriage is not an erasure of one partner's identity in favor of the other’s. It is a melding of both.

But my husband's family wanted me to give up my identity. They wanted me to give up my traditions. No—I couldn’t do that. I wanted to pass down my traditions to our future children as well!

I refused to stop celebrating my traditions once we had children. I also refused to give up my last name.

Now that we're divorced, I've started using my ex's last name.

I left my marriage a few years ago. Did my refusal to change my last name to my husband’s foreshadow our divorce?

No.

Did the fact I never got along with his parents cause our split? Well, it contributed to it.

But the real issue was that we had far bigger problems in our marriage and were incompatible in the end. The most ironic thing since I left my husband, though, has been I’ve begun to use his last name.

Huh?

Here’s why:

When my ex and I had kids, we gave them his last name. Maybe I was never as liberated as I thought. We ended up giving our sons their father’s last name as tradition dictates. But the strangest thing of all is that I’ve now started using that last name, too.

I’ve found this creates more clarity at our sons’ school. Their teachers always assume that my last name is the same anyway. I get tired of correcting them.

Using the same last name as my sons also makes me feel like I’m closer to them. I don't feel like I've changed my last name to ex-husband's. Rather, I feel like I’ve taken my sons’ last name.

I feel more connected to my boys this way. We all share one last name. And yet, I also fully acknowledge the irony of this—that only after I divorced my husband did I change my last name to his.

Maybe it’s that, now that I’m divorced, I no longer fear losing my identity. I can take my ex’s last name and still feel like I’m maintaining my independence.

The fact is, I’ve never felt more like me.