See, I have this friend who absolutely refuses to send things addressed to my proper name. Last year, she sent our Christmas card to “Dr. and Mrs. DrJ” even though we weren’t yet married. She knew I wasn’t changing my name, but she said it gave her a thrill to get to address something besides business correspondence to Dr. anybody. I just laughed and told her I’d let her have that one cheap thrill, but just that one.
It wasn’t an issue for several months, since she didn’t have occasion to send us any mail (when else do you address your friends by their last names?) Then during the course of a conversation last summer, we were talking about people addressing me by his last name. She made the comment that she knew I didn’t use that name, but she’s a traditionalist. I pointed out that it wasn’t a matter of me not using the name, but rather that I didn’t have that name. I also pointed out that while I didn’t mind repair people and such calling me by his name, I bothered me very much when people who knew better did so.
Yesterday, we got a Christmas card from her. Or, rather, Dr. and Mrs. Dr.J got a Christmas card from them. She knows that I didn’t change my name; she readily admits as much. She knows very well how much it annoys me when people who know I didn’t change my name refer to me by Dr.J’s last name, because I’ve told her roughly ten million times. And yet she persists in addressing stuff in this manner. I just can’t interpret it as anything besides a passive-aggressive display of her disapproval of me keeping my name.
So now I’m about to send out a package to her and her husband and kids. Part of me wants to just ignore her jackassery, but part of me wants to address the package to Mr. CousinHusband and wife. (Another part of me wants to just include their stuff in the box I’m sending to my parents’ house, and save on the postage, but that’s a whole other issue.) Or maybe to Mr. and Mrs. Cousin Maidenname and family.
I know that addressing it to “and wife” or to her maiden name would be petty and childish and equally passive aggressive. But does anyone think I’d be justified in fighting petty passive aggression with petty passive aggression? After all, I think she’d finally start addressing me by my name, not what she thinks my name ought to be.
Yes you should, and you’d be justified. If she thinks it shouldn’t bug you, then it shouldn’t bug her. And if she gripes, just remind her of it. I"m all for repaying people with passive aggressiveness. Sure it’s a little petty, but you’re trying to make a point, and the direct approach isn’t working.
I don’t think I would.
I’d say sign everything with your actual proper full name, and that should (yeah, should) be enough for her to get the hint. If it isn’t, she’s the one with the bizarre bug up her backside about names. It’s her petty problem.
Addressing the package “Mr herhusbandsname and Wife” seems too much like escalation to me. If she percieves your passive-aggressive snipe as bigger than her passive-aggressive snipe, then she could feel justified in setting off a yet bigger passive-aggressive bomb. In her mind (I suppose), you did worse to her than she did to you, so now she can do worse to you than you did to her… ad infinitum. Of course, it’s not for sure that she’d react this way, but you run the risk.
Why bother getting all hot and bothered about what this woman calls you? She has her way and you have yours, I think the same as Tansu, it aint worth the hassle.
If she bothers you that much, why are you even buying her and her family presents?
What REALLY cheeses me off is how my mom, for decades, insisted on addressing items to my husband and I as "To Mr and Mrs. [his first name] [his last name], TOTALLY obliterating the identity of her own daughter, even though I TOLD HER REPEATEDLY that I found this EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE.
She kept nattering on about it being “formal” and “traditional”. I kept telling her it wasn’t 1890 anymore. She said SHE had accepted it for 40 years of marriage. I told I wasn’t going to accept it for even ONE.
She finally stopped doing it when I ceased replying to anything addressed that way. Something she wanted an urgent reply to sat on the kitchen counter for two weeks while my husband was visiting his family. She got very huffy and I pointed out to her (again) that that’s not my name and my husband and I do not open each other’s mail.
She relapsed a couple years later, only to have my husband call her and ask why he was invited to Thanksgiving dinner but I was not.
Anyhow… I don’t get uptight when folks who don’t know me well address me by his last name or even “and wife” because, well, they don’t know and I’d rather be acknowledged indirectly than not. However, if you know a person well you should address them as they prefer to be addressed, whether or not you agree with their reasons. It’s about respect.
I do remember the first time someone who knew me and not him addressed him as Mr. [my last name]. My goodness. the colors he turned! And I said, see, that’s how I feel everytime someone addresses me as Mrs [his last name]. Guess it’s not the minor thing you keep telling me it is!
Egads. I have a friend who insists that my “proper” name is Mrs. Scarlett Myname. “After all, you’re married,” she says. Well, yes, but I didn’t change my name, and I NEVER use “Mrs.” Moreover, “Mrs.” is properly used with the husband’s surname when the wife has taken it, which I haven’t. I am so sick and tired of people trying to tell me what MY NAME is. What the hell is so hard about
Mr. Him Hisname
Ms. Me Myname
Just like when we were living in sin? Our names are the same. The only difference is a little piece of paper that’s filed away around here somewhere.
I don’t mind the people who mistakenly call me “Mrs. Hisname.” I just quietly correct them and hope they’re paying attention. But once they’ve been told, all bets are off. And I reserve the biggest stick for those members of my family who can’t seem to remember my name, even though it’s the one I’ve had my entire life. (But then again, the ones who screw it up are idiots anyway.)
So I’m with you, CCL. Let her have it. Perhaps tit-for-tat will get the message through her thick skull.
This just irks the bejeezus out of me. I have a couple ideas on why people do this…mainly, they’re lazy. Just fucking lazy. They don’t want to take the time to put both names on the envelope. I’m convinced it’s more that than anything. It’s still fucking rude, but…
I made the mistake of using my husband’s name on my credit card, because it made him happy. I haven’t gotten around to changing it, but I’m going to have to do it soon…it’s the principle.
At the friend’s wedding I was at back in August (there’s a photo around here of me looking like a hypnotized penguin), I danced at various points with my friend’s bride, his married sister, and his mother. I was talking with my friend a few weeks ago how I had made a point of dancing “with all three Mrs. Friends.”
My friend’s sister hadn’t taken her husband’s last name. So my friend politely noted that the proper form of address, IHisHO, was “Ms. Friend” or “Mrs. MarriedName.”
Anyway, the best thing to do, IMHO, is to address the package to Mr. & Mrs. Cousin, enclose a letter, and sign the letter as from Dr. DrJ HisName and Mrs. CCL HerName. Don’t make a big show of correcting your friend; if she was going to listen, she would’ve done so by now.
I know you won’t buy this, but it is possible she can’t remember. I can NEVER remember what my friends and relations have done with their names. It seems like every time I go to address something, I find myself trying to remember. Sometimes I cheat and just address things to “Gail and Peter” or whatever.
And you would think I would be able to remember since I didn’t change my name when I got married. That is until my brother married someone with the same first and middle name as me. And she did change her name when she got married. And moved to my city. And joined my church. And went to my dentist, etc.
So now I am using my married name, except it’s not my legal name yet, cause I haven’t got around to it. I have confused everybody and am lucky people are still willing to send me mail.
Life’s too short to spend a lot of grief on envelopes.
If you want this problem to go away, ignore what she does. Don’t do anything in retaliation. That guarantees the situation will continue to live on. Just act like it isn’t happening, and don’t mention your preference to her again, ever.
When I got married 15 years ago, I didn’t take my husband’s name either, and there were a few people that had a problem with that. I just ignored whatever they wrote on their envelopes, etc. and within a year or two no one was doing it anymore. It’s no fun for them if you don’t buy into their little drama.
I do find it interesting to observe what takes place when someone who doesn’t know us refers to my husband by my last name. When he corrects them, they are all embarrassed and apologetic. I do not get the same reaction if I bother to correct someone about my last name, that’s for sure.
Just because she may be behaving in an ill-mannered fashion does not give you license to do the same. I find it highly inappropriate to use a Christmas present as an opportunity to attempt to score a point. Address it “Mr and Mrs CousinHusband Lastname” and list yourself and your husband on separate lines in the return address. And if she still insists on addressing you by a name other than your own, either speak with her directly about it or grit your teeth and ignore it.
Don’t address it to “MrWhatever and wife”, though, she might like that just fine. Address it to “HerName Maidenname and Husband” or “Ms. and Mr. HerName Maidenname” which I’m pretty sure will irritate the starch out of her and make your point (she’ll know damn good and well why you’re doing it).
It’s not because she’s lazy, or because she can’t remember, it’s because she thinks I ought to have taken his name. Evidently, what she thinks I ought to do is a lot more important to her than respecting my wishes, enough so that she’s willing to deliberately do things that she knows good and well piss me off. There’s really not much other way to interpret a comment like, “I know you don’t use that name, but I’m a traditionalist.” I gotta tell you, folks, there’s nothing that will make me froth at the mouth faster than someone deliberately doing stuff they know full well will piss me off.
I toyed with the idea of sending her card back, labelled “addressee unknown” but decided that would be a bit over the top. (I’m assuming that it’s a Christmas card; I haven’t opened it yet, as it’s not addressed to me.) I know Christmas isn’t the time to berate people about the name they call you. It’s not the time to make your point about your opinion of someone else’s name, either, but here we are.
I’m heavily leaning toward addressing it to Ms. Cousin Maidenname and family.
After my grandmother died Grandpa remarried a woman who happened to have the same first name as a woman my cousin was dating. So to distinguish them my family and I always call them by their full names.
And once married, Grandpa and wife moved into her farm house, and their mailbox has both of their names, presumably because it’s always had her name on it and they didn’t want to cause undue confusion for the postal workers.
So when I sent them a Christmas card I addressed it to Grandpa Ourname and Firstname Lastname (no pronouns, please!).
Dear me, the stink it caused. She had indeed taken Grandpa’s name (also my name) and was quite upset that I had not addressed the card appropriately because she already felt left out of the family, blah blah blah …
Eventually the furor died down, it was established that it was a generational thing (ie in my generation it’s not uncommon for women to keep their names after marrying, as I have). But then I recieved a card from her, addressed to Mr and Mrs Husbandfirstname Husbandlastname.
I give up.
On another note, I have no idea what to call her. Step-grandmother just sounds weird.
Otto’s right. The excruciatingly correct response is to address the letter to her properly (i.e. however she wishes.) Lowering yourself to her level won’t serve your cause. Also, your little “Maidenname and family” riposte is awfully disrespectful to her family, who are (one assumes) innocent bystanders.
Do you really think that she’ll see “and wife” in the address and say, "Oh, my, now I understand how pooooorCrazyCatLady feels!"and change her ways? Fat chance. Odds are she won’t even notice it, or take umbrage at your rude behaviour without being motivated to change her own, or, if she’s oblivious to how truly offended you are by this, squeal with delight that you have risen to her bait.
Given that you really seem upset about this, you need to sit her down and explain, without trying to soften the blow with humor, that the way she fails to address you by the name you have chosen is hurting your feelings and making you angry. Don’t go into her motives (whatever you suppose them to be), and don’t listen to excuses or justifications, just tell her point blank that her behavior is upsetting you, and she needs to change it.
I know, it’s easier to launch petty little passive-agressive pot-shots through the postal service, but which method is really more likely to resolve the situation?
If she’s actually your friend, she won’t carry on with this ridiculous crusade after having its offensiveness explained to her very bluntly. If she persists, you need to shop around for a better class of friend.
Just to lighten up the high moral tone: A friend of mine kept her name when she married, and her grandmother addresses all the mail to “Mr. Friendshusband and Ms. Friend (married),” so as not to scandalize the postal carrier, I imagine.
If that’s what she’s up to, then you’re playing right into her hands by 1) getting angry, and 2) retaliating.
Her opinion about what name you use didn’t matter when you were making that decision. It doesn’t mean anything to you now. So don’t give her any reason to think that you care what she says. If you let her know that her opinion matters to you in any way, shape, or form, this issue will not die. She will continue to try to push her agenda.
I vote for Mr. CousinHusband LastName and What’s-her-face.
Seriously, I doubt she’d notice either “and wife” or “and family.” She might notice Mr. CousinHusband LastName and Ms. HerName MaidenName. If she wants you to use the naming convention she uses, it’s only fair for you to use the naming convention for her that you prefer.
After I got married, I told my mom I’d legally change my first name to my husband’s if she sent any more mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HisName LastName.
I just want to say I would not have read this thread by anyone else, but it’s time to confess, I love you, CrazyCatLady. I feel more warm’n’fuzzy appreciation for what you write than I do for anyone else on this board.
When Mr. Sultana and I got married in NYC, the civil form had one line if I was taking his name, one line if I was keeping my name, and one line if he was taking my name.
One of my coworkers did that. Changed his name to hers when he married. She liked her name and he didn’t care much one way or the other, and they thought their kids would have fewer problems with school administrations if both parents had the same name.
