Quote Originally Posted by Iris616 View Post
I didn't put much thought into this before I got married. I wish I had. It turns out that I miss my "Real" name. People often called me that as a nickname, and it was part of my identity.
To me, now that I've been married 7 years, it seems like perhaps it was the first step in losing some of my identity. I'm sure there are others who will disagree.
Iris, I agree with you. I've been married almost 20 years. I took my first husband's name, partially, and I was so happy to get my name back completely when we divorced. But when I remarried, it just seemed better not to have 3 last names in the house (I had kids from my first marriage), and I was in a different religious mindset at the time, so I took his name. I wish I had thought outside the box a little on that. We have a son together, and it is nice to be one of three with the same name--"The Tuckers" as some people in some circles refer to us. And my son does have my birth name as his first name (but we call him by his middle).

Sometimes, though, it just irks me that I can't be who I was from birth. It is a nice, well-thought out name altogether. There's only one grandchild with that last name now, and he just had a son, so I guess it is carrying on. I've often thought of taking back my name, but my husband and son, I think, would always consider it odd at the very least, and insulting at the worst. Which makes me think of how my older sons might feel that I didn't share their last name in the traditional way, and changed it so readily when I remarried. They probably don't think a thing of it, now, but maybe then they did. (My son's wife took his last name without a blink.)

It's complicated.

Karen