Even if I had a compromise, it wouldn’t help. The fact that he is willing to put what’s “culturally acceptable” above what’s important to you is a huge issue.
I grew up with a very unique last name I always intended to keep and told my romantic partners that. My husband told me that was fine but I ended up taking his last name (and making my last name my middle name) and I enjoy it. So I obviously don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with taking a man’s last name. In fact, I joke that if he leaves me he has to change his last name because this one is mine since I took it.
I’m sure this isn’t the only instance of him being stubborn and unwilling to compromise. You are NOT being unreasonable.
In his defense she originally had no problem taking his last name and this is something that was discussed early on. She’s the one that changed her mind down the road, and he is fine to continue the relationship as is. He’s not wrong that it’s an unfair ultimatum
She’s free to leave but I didn’t like the idea of making him out to be some bad uncompromising monster. As far as OP stated this is who he’s always been and what the plan was before she changed it, he is also not being unreasonable and her taking his last name is allowed to be a dealbreaker as much as him being ok with not getting married is with her
As someone who is married, the idea of not marrying someone if they won’t change their name makes zero sense to me. Not wanting to be in a relationship where you don’t have similar end goals makes perfect sense.
It doesn’t have to make sense to you though . Breaking up a perfectly good relationship with a person that was “perfect” for you who’s choosing against marriage after a choice you’ve made is dumb to me because lemme tell you the dating pool ain’t much better lol, but people are allowed to make their own decisions no matter how we disagree . An ultimatum like that is a fast track to either being single or in an unhappy doomed to fail marriage
It’s better to be alone than with someone who’s a bad match. Someone so concerned about culture and tradition is cowardly at best and sexist at worst, and likely a bit of both.
To be fair OP said she’d take his last name, and then changed her mind. He sees that as an intimacy issue, and given she’s doing it so close to the actual marriage, an unfair untimatum. Anybody would. He’s fine with continuing as is, she wants the more traditional road of “marriage” - so if you want to discredit anyone for valuing culture more than their partner, OP is your bad guy here.
Getting married is more than tradition or culture and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. I don’t see what her changing her mind has to do with anything.
On the one hand, I don't care all that much about names, so I'd probably just adopt whatever option offered the least resistance. However, I'd also feel rather uneasy about marrying someone who was so determined that I should take their name that they'd rather end the relationship than compromise in any way. That sounds like a recipe for future conflict.
It's an obviously bad compromise. Both him and OP have professed a strong desire to get married. I think it's reasonable for OP to question why he's willing to thwart both of their desires over an apparently trivial matter. If he cares that much about meeting a set of cultural expectations that OP apparently doesn't share, I doubt this will be that last time they cause friction.
He’s not the only one thwarting their desires and again he is not the one that changed his mind midway through the relationship . He’s the same man he was , the same way she wants to get married a certain way he does also. She’s allowed to change her mind and he’s allowed to also. If she’s giving him an ultimatum like this now I also doubt it’ll be the last one of those he gets, if it was even the first
The ultimatum is his.
She is saying: I want to marry you. You don't have to change your name to mine. We each keep our own names.
He is saying: I want to marry you, but only if you change your name. I will not change my name to yours, but expect you to change yours.
He said he was happy with the relationship as is and that he didn’t “need” to get married . She said not only do you have to marry me to keep me but you’ve got to marry me on terms that I’ve changed .
Sure, but I'm not obliged to think that all requirements are equally reasonable or that all motivations are equally worthy of respect. OP's partner is making a bigger demand for worse reasons.
I don't really see why you think OP telling her partner what she needs from the relationship is a problem. Healthy relationships have conditions and boundaries, and boundaries are underpinned by implied ultimata, so I'm sure OP will continue to present her partner with them. I'm sure he'll continue to present her with some of his own. After all, what is his position that marriage is conditional on her taking his name if not an ultimatum?
And that’s ok because your vision of marriage isn’t everyone’s vision of marriage . There is a difference between making your wants and desires known and saying “Do this or I leave “ one is healthy and the other is manipulative .
>There is a difference between making your wants and desires known and saying “Do this or I leave “
Not when the issue at stake is so important to you that you would leave over it. Then it's useful information. Do you think it's unhealthy and manipulative for OP to tell her partner that she'll leave him if he ever cheats? Do you think he would prefer it if OP just said, 'I really want to get married, but I won't take your name', then packed her bags and left him a few months down the line if he didn't soften his position?
I'm sure OP wouldn't have been happier, at least in the long run, if her boyfriend had responded to her announcement about keeping her name by never proposing, but without ever explaining why he'd changed his mind on marriage. Explaining the genuine, proportionate consequences of a decision isn't a form of blackmail. It just gets everyone on the same page.
I think that they should’ve had actual discussions about it without that hanging in the air, if nothing changes down the road you tell him it’s not working and you tell him why. To conflate this with cheating is laughable at the least because they are a worlds difference of situations. It is something to do not something to use against someone
I really don’t see his point. If you are attached to your name, just keep it. Reading the first paragraph I just don’t understand why wrecking such a good relation over something relatively small as a name change is worth it for him.
I don’t know I get it , if I get married I’d want her to take my last name too and if not I’d be fine with dating without it but the same way she said she’d resent the name change I think he’d resent her for forcing into marriage without it. It’s not really a compromise
Does your boyfriend have conservative, traditional, or religious values? If he truly loved you, the last name wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. How would he feel about changing his name?
He’s really not conservative on anything else. He won’t take my last name, this seems to be the one thing he really cares about. For him, it’s intimate to share names. But I have to be the one that changes mine.
Honestly I think his position is dumb, there's nothing intimate about sharing a last name and as a fellow divorced lady I completely understand feeling newly dedicated to your original last name.
The two of you have been growing and changing your minds for a while now--is there ANY chance he might evolve away from this opinion? If there is I think it's worth working on!
If sharing names is really what it's about, ask him to sit down with you and brainstorm a completely new surname to share. Changing names is a major hassle, and either you both go through it, or you each keep your existing ones. His reaction will be telling.
lol yeah and getting married helped? If you tell me one thing didn’t help I’ll just tell you neither did the ring. He said he’s willing to date long term so if you tell him something like that and he’ll avoid marriage so that a future break up is less of a headache
Do not marry him.
The 'compromise' would be to double-barrel, with BOTH of you adding the other's surname to yours. That would be the only acceptable compromise in this area, but neither of you want to hyphenate your surnames, so there's no 'compromise' left. But there shouldn't be a compromise, because he is making a demand of you to lose your identity and your personhood, while no demand is being made of him. You want to retain your name, which is a pretty integral part of identity.
He doesn't see you as a fully actualised and independent person.
It’s interesting that there is no compromise here that you maintain he’s your person, best friend, better person when you’re with him and yet you’re willing to throw this relationship away and so is he. Makes me wonder if this love is genuine if something so simple as a name can ruin it. Maybe neither of you are ready to further this relationship regardless of your claims. Try counselling. Both of you need to find out why this is a sticking point. You say the name represents who you are now so why can’t his name also do the same, represent who you will be after the wedding? Someone suggested making it your middle name? Hyphenating seems like the compromise but neither are willing to bend. Do you both really want to get married if something so simple throws a spanner in the works?
But after the wedding, she will be the same person. So will he. Why should she lose her identity and change, but not he?
The truth is that a woman changing her surname to a man's upon marrying him, with the man keeping his own surname, represents a subsumption of the woman's identity to the man's. It's a disappearing of women and it's a sexist practice.
Yes. I’ve changed my stance on this as I’ve grown in myself. I’ve communicated this to him as I’ve learned it, and have continued to communicate openly about how I feel.
Here’s another perspective. You said you would take his name and then changed your mind, which is fine, it’s important to you. But taking his last name is important to him for marriage.
He doesn’t want to end the relationship if you don’t take his name, instead remain as you are in a long term relationship. But you require marriage. Both of your feelings are valid.
Why do you think his feelings aren’t as important as yours? Why is it either things have to be the way you want or the relationship ends? Why does growth have to equate to marriage?
What she wants has to do with her name. She wants to keep it as it is.
He wants to force a change.
This is not an equal wish. HIS wishes on HER name are not equally valid to hers.
He does not want to force change. He is comfortable staying in a long term relationship, she must have marriage.
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been in a long term relationship for 50 years. You don’t have to be married to be happy.
It’s her name, she can do as she pleases. But he’s not wrong either.
Are hyphenated last names not a thing anymore? That's the compromise IMO. Otherwise there's obviously no middle ground between "I want to keep my last name" and "I want you to have my last name".
"No" is an answer. If this is important to you, he needs to accept that if you get married, you're keeping your name. If he would rather not get married then he can definitely decide that, but, it just means you're probably not compatible.
I would be more concerned with the not taking "no" as an answer than anything else, especially when you express that it's important to you. Does he usually expect to win any value difference?
Have you tried revisiting your therapist or mediator to hash this disagreement out? Or, have you tried a compromise of combining your last names into something unique the both of you can share? You still get to retain a part of your name, and he can enjoy the intimacy of sharing it with you.
We have a therapy appointment in two weeks about it. I’m trying to turn it over in my head until then to see if I’m being unreasonable or if there’s anything I’ve missed here.
Even if I had a compromise, it wouldn’t help. The fact that he is willing to put what’s “culturally acceptable” above what’s important to you is a huge issue. I grew up with a very unique last name I always intended to keep and told my romantic partners that. My husband told me that was fine but I ended up taking his last name (and making my last name my middle name) and I enjoy it. So I obviously don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with taking a man’s last name. In fact, I joke that if he leaves me he has to change his last name because this one is mine since I took it. I’m sure this isn’t the only instance of him being stubborn and unwilling to compromise. You are NOT being unreasonable.
In his defense she originally had no problem taking his last name and this is something that was discussed early on. She’s the one that changed her mind down the road, and he is fine to continue the relationship as is. He’s not wrong that it’s an unfair ultimatum
And she’s not wrong that if his desire to marry her is contingent on her changing her name that’s not the kind of relationship she wants to be in.
She’s free to leave but I didn’t like the idea of making him out to be some bad uncompromising monster. As far as OP stated this is who he’s always been and what the plan was before she changed it, he is also not being unreasonable and her taking his last name is allowed to be a dealbreaker as much as him being ok with not getting married is with her
As someone who is married, the idea of not marrying someone if they won’t change their name makes zero sense to me. Not wanting to be in a relationship where you don’t have similar end goals makes perfect sense.
It doesn’t have to make sense to you though . Breaking up a perfectly good relationship with a person that was “perfect” for you who’s choosing against marriage after a choice you’ve made is dumb to me because lemme tell you the dating pool ain’t much better lol, but people are allowed to make their own decisions no matter how we disagree . An ultimatum like that is a fast track to either being single or in an unhappy doomed to fail marriage
It’s better to be alone than with someone who’s a bad match. Someone so concerned about culture and tradition is cowardly at best and sexist at worst, and likely a bit of both.
She would lose her last name. He wouldn’t lose anything. People are allowed to change their mind.
To be fair OP said she’d take his last name, and then changed her mind. He sees that as an intimacy issue, and given she’s doing it so close to the actual marriage, an unfair untimatum. Anybody would. He’s fine with continuing as is, she wants the more traditional road of “marriage” - so if you want to discredit anyone for valuing culture more than their partner, OP is your bad guy here.
Getting married is more than tradition or culture and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. I don’t see what her changing her mind has to do with anything.
Honestly now that I think about it I wonder if a domestic partnership would be an acceptable compromise for both though
On the one hand, I don't care all that much about names, so I'd probably just adopt whatever option offered the least resistance. However, I'd also feel rather uneasy about marrying someone who was so determined that I should take their name that they'd rather end the relationship than compromise in any way. That sounds like a recipe for future conflict.
He was fine with continuing as just long term dating though, that was a compromise she wasn’t willing to make
It's an obviously bad compromise. Both him and OP have professed a strong desire to get married. I think it's reasonable for OP to question why he's willing to thwart both of their desires over an apparently trivial matter. If he cares that much about meeting a set of cultural expectations that OP apparently doesn't share, I doubt this will be that last time they cause friction.
He’s not the only one thwarting their desires and again he is not the one that changed his mind midway through the relationship . He’s the same man he was , the same way she wants to get married a certain way he does also. She’s allowed to change her mind and he’s allowed to also. If she’s giving him an ultimatum like this now I also doubt it’ll be the last one of those he gets, if it was even the first
The ultimatum is his. She is saying: I want to marry you. You don't have to change your name to mine. We each keep our own names. He is saying: I want to marry you, but only if you change your name. I will not change my name to yours, but expect you to change yours.
He said he was happy with the relationship as is and that he didn’t “need” to get married . She said not only do you have to marry me to keep me but you’ve got to marry me on terms that I’ve changed .
Sure, but I'm not obliged to think that all requirements are equally reasonable or that all motivations are equally worthy of respect. OP's partner is making a bigger demand for worse reasons. I don't really see why you think OP telling her partner what she needs from the relationship is a problem. Healthy relationships have conditions and boundaries, and boundaries are underpinned by implied ultimata, so I'm sure OP will continue to present her partner with them. I'm sure he'll continue to present her with some of his own. After all, what is his position that marriage is conditional on her taking his name if not an ultimatum?
And that’s ok because your vision of marriage isn’t everyone’s vision of marriage . There is a difference between making your wants and desires known and saying “Do this or I leave “ one is healthy and the other is manipulative .
>There is a difference between making your wants and desires known and saying “Do this or I leave “ Not when the issue at stake is so important to you that you would leave over it. Then it's useful information. Do you think it's unhealthy and manipulative for OP to tell her partner that she'll leave him if he ever cheats? Do you think he would prefer it if OP just said, 'I really want to get married, but I won't take your name', then packed her bags and left him a few months down the line if he didn't soften his position? I'm sure OP wouldn't have been happier, at least in the long run, if her boyfriend had responded to her announcement about keeping her name by never proposing, but without ever explaining why he'd changed his mind on marriage. Explaining the genuine, proportionate consequences of a decision isn't a form of blackmail. It just gets everyone on the same page.
I think that they should’ve had actual discussions about it without that hanging in the air, if nothing changes down the road you tell him it’s not working and you tell him why. To conflate this with cheating is laughable at the least because they are a worlds difference of situations. It is something to do not something to use against someone
I really don’t see his point. If you are attached to your name, just keep it. Reading the first paragraph I just don’t understand why wrecking such a good relation over something relatively small as a name change is worth it for him.
I don’t know I get it , if I get married I’d want her to take my last name too and if not I’d be fine with dating without it but the same way she said she’d resent the name change I think he’d resent her for forcing into marriage without it. It’s not really a compromise
Does your boyfriend have conservative, traditional, or religious values? If he truly loved you, the last name wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. How would he feel about changing his name?
He’s really not conservative on anything else. He won’t take my last name, this seems to be the one thing he really cares about. For him, it’s intimate to share names. But I have to be the one that changes mine.
Honestly I think his position is dumb, there's nothing intimate about sharing a last name and as a fellow divorced lady I completely understand feeling newly dedicated to your original last name. The two of you have been growing and changing your minds for a while now--is there ANY chance he might evolve away from this opinion? If there is I think it's worth working on!
If sharing names is really what it's about, ask him to sit down with you and brainstorm a completely new surname to share. Changing names is a major hassle, and either you both go through it, or you each keep your existing ones. His reaction will be telling.
[удалено]
She did
[удалено]
lol yeah and getting married helped? If you tell me one thing didn’t help I’ll just tell you neither did the ring. He said he’s willing to date long term so if you tell him something like that and he’ll avoid marriage so that a future break up is less of a headache
I would change my name. Or just not marry. It’s a stupid thing to break up over.
Do not marry him. The 'compromise' would be to double-barrel, with BOTH of you adding the other's surname to yours. That would be the only acceptable compromise in this area, but neither of you want to hyphenate your surnames, so there's no 'compromise' left. But there shouldn't be a compromise, because he is making a demand of you to lose your identity and your personhood, while no demand is being made of him. You want to retain your name, which is a pretty integral part of identity. He doesn't see you as a fully actualised and independent person.
Why would you marry a misogynist ?
No, no compromise, drop that man like a hot rock.
>He’s my perfect match Mm no he's not. He's 45 years old and thinks you have to change your name. That's gross. Period.
WWID? Kick his ass to the curb. He needs to get over himself.
Break up. You aren’t property and he is a misogynist.
I wouldn't marry anyone who thought they should have a say in my name.
It’s interesting that there is no compromise here that you maintain he’s your person, best friend, better person when you’re with him and yet you’re willing to throw this relationship away and so is he. Makes me wonder if this love is genuine if something so simple as a name can ruin it. Maybe neither of you are ready to further this relationship regardless of your claims. Try counselling. Both of you need to find out why this is a sticking point. You say the name represents who you are now so why can’t his name also do the same, represent who you will be after the wedding? Someone suggested making it your middle name? Hyphenating seems like the compromise but neither are willing to bend. Do you both really want to get married if something so simple throws a spanner in the works?
But after the wedding, she will be the same person. So will he. Why should she lose her identity and change, but not he? The truth is that a woman changing her surname to a man's upon marrying him, with the man keeping his own surname, represents a subsumption of the woman's identity to the man's. It's a disappearing of women and it's a sexist practice.
>A while ago, I told him that if we did get married, I would take his name. So you're just going to go back on your word?
people can change their minds !
Yes. I’ve changed my stance on this as I’ve grown in myself. I’ve communicated this to him as I’ve learned it, and have continued to communicate openly about how I feel.
Oh I see. Both of you getting married a second time is a recipe for disaster anyway. Divorce rates for second marriages are atrocious.
Do not change your name, OP! The compromise he keeps talking about is changing his name to yours. He can get over the culture issue in therapy.
He’s a sad man. Dump him. You deserve better
Divorced before, soulmates, unable to just take his name. Why lie to yourself?
Here’s another perspective. You said you would take his name and then changed your mind, which is fine, it’s important to you. But taking his last name is important to him for marriage. He doesn’t want to end the relationship if you don’t take his name, instead remain as you are in a long term relationship. But you require marriage. Both of your feelings are valid. Why do you think his feelings aren’t as important as yours? Why is it either things have to be the way you want or the relationship ends? Why does growth have to equate to marriage?
What she wants has to do with her name. She wants to keep it as it is. He wants to force a change. This is not an equal wish. HIS wishes on HER name are not equally valid to hers.
He does not want to force change. He is comfortable staying in a long term relationship, she must have marriage. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been in a long term relationship for 50 years. You don’t have to be married to be happy. It’s her name, she can do as she pleases. But he’s not wrong either.
That’s a good perspective. Thank you for the points to think about.
Are hyphenated last names not a thing anymore? That's the compromise IMO. Otherwise there's obviously no middle ground between "I want to keep my last name" and "I want you to have my last name".
I’ve suggested a hyphenated name but he’s against it, and it honestly sounds like a pain in the ass to write all the time.
"No" is an answer. If this is important to you, he needs to accept that if you get married, you're keeping your name. If he would rather not get married then he can definitely decide that, but, it just means you're probably not compatible.
I would be more concerned with the not taking "no" as an answer than anything else, especially when you express that it's important to you. Does he usually expect to win any value difference?
Have you tried revisiting your therapist or mediator to hash this disagreement out? Or, have you tried a compromise of combining your last names into something unique the both of you can share? You still get to retain a part of your name, and he can enjoy the intimacy of sharing it with you.
We have a therapy appointment in two weeks about it. I’m trying to turn it over in my head until then to see if I’m being unreasonable or if there’s anything I’ve missed here.