Dopers, give me your opinions on a moral dilemma

In My Humble Opinion
1

Way back in the distant, blurry past – 1987, to be exact :smiley: – I changed my last name. I did it for what at the time felt to be a good reason, but I now know was not.

You see, when my parents were divorced, my mother did what too many divorced custodial parents do: She attempted to poison the relationship between my father and his children. And she was quite successful. She had my sister and I both convinced that my father was a no-account SOB who didn’t care about us.

So, I resolved to disassociate myself from him in the strongest way possible: I ditched his name. I filed the papers the day after I turned 18. (“I’ll show him!”) And, to add insult to injury, I changed it to my mother’s maiden name, which she had returned to after the divorce.

Lo, these many years later, I now have good relationships with both of my parents. I know the truth of everything that went on after the divorce. I know that my name-changing decision was misinformed, petulant, and childish. And, I am consumed by guilt and doubt over it.

Part of the reason that I have so much doubt and guilt is that it had its intended effect – it hurt my father, badly. By mutual agreement, we don’t talk about it anymore, but I know it still hurts him, a lot. The other reason is that it also had collateral damage: It hurt my grandmother, his mother, a lot as well.

A few factors to consider:

  1. My grandmother died in January, 2000. I attended her funeral, but I had not seen or spoken with her in several years, in part because of the name change. I don’t know that she ever forgave me for it, and I never had a chance to make amends for it. This eats me up inside all the time.

  2. My father’s last name was not the name he was born with, either. His father’s last name, and so his and his mother’s married last name, was originally “Klonsky,” but like many Jews of the 40s, he changed it in order to “mainstream” himself. So, when my father was a child (age 5 or 6, maybe), his father changed the family name to “Kaye.”

  3. There is no question about “carrying on the family name” involved. My wife and I are not having children, so that isn’t an issue.

  4. There is the matter of my wife. She knows this whole story, but she took my name at marriage, so if I decided ever to change back, she would have to change her name again, keep the last name she has now, or revert to her own maiden name. Both of the latter choices would result in us having different last names.

  5. Changing my name now, from my mother’s to my father’s last name, might hurt her, and would leave me in no better a position than I was.

I’m really torn up about this. Does it even matter, at this point in my life, what my last name is? It doesn’t get in the way of my relationship with my dad (AFAIK), we don’t talk about it, etc. But I do have that guilt, and I hate it.

Anyone ever been in a remotely similar position? Anyone have any advice?

2

I have never been in a similar position.

However, I would recommend speaking to your mother to judge her feelings on this. Explain why you feel it would help your relationship with your father and also address some of your own feelings towards the relationship with your late grandmother. Make it clear that you are not doing this to spite her or to hurt her.

If she does not object, ask your father. Check that it is something that he supports – it may be that he does not want to resurrect old feelings on the subject. Finally, try to check your wife’s feelings on the matter: will it cause major disruption to her life.

If there are no real objections then I would sit down and re-examine your own feelings on the subject, just to make sure it’s what you want to do.

3

I would suggest not adding and further parties to the already difficult situation. Is it possible to keep it between you and your father’s side of the family by legally adding your father’s name back as a middle name?

Then you can sign your correspondance, etc. to them as Paul X instead of Paul Y, which might be helpful to the relationship. If you decide to have kids or have inheritance concerns (ya didn’t disown him, did ya?) consult a family attorney – that was the advice given to me under similar circumstances.

Best of luck,
Ace

4

I had the same idea as AceOSpades. Give yourself a middle name, and not just the kind that only ever appears as an initial, make a point of using it in full.

5

  1. You could change your middle name to your Father’s last name.

  2. You could hyphenate your last name (Mother’s name)-(Father’s name).

  3. You could just let go of all this guilt you’re feeling and show your parents in the time you have left that you love them both. There is nothing you can do about your Grandmother’s feelings at this point, so don’t beat yourself up about it.

We have all done some things when we were young that we wish we could take back. Don’t let it bother you so much.

6

I don’t know that I have any advice, but I can tell you that my situation was VERY similar to yours. My biological father was and is an SOB, so I have no real regrets about dropping his last name, BUT… I took my stepfather’s last name, and when I married and had a child of my own, I put his name as my maiden name on all my legal papers. The stepfather is out of the picture now entirely, and I have no contact with him nor loyalty to his name – when I changed mine, it was simply not to have my father’s. So… when people ask me my maiden name now, I give them my mother’s maiden name, but I’ve long wanted to get my ersatz “maiden name” off my marriage certificate and my daughter’s birth certificate, and have no idea how.

In YOUR case, since you now have a good relationship with both parents, I would talk to them both, explain that you regret your decision (without placing blame on Mom - maybe just say “I thought I was making a good decision as an adult, and now I see it was merely a teenager’s spiteful one”) and that you would change it if you could go back in time. Other than that, I’d let it drop, unless you want to use your dad’s surname as a middle name, as others have suggested.

7

I think LifeOnWry’s second paragraph has some good advice.

What’s real important in this situation is everyone’s feelings. If you’re upfront about how you feel now about your decision back then, there should be no hard feelings remaining.

Changing names is a lot of paperwork and hassle when you get into it. There are so many places to change names. If you can resolve the family issues by communication, the legal paperwork may not be necessary.

Of course, after having the discussion, you may still elect to change your name. But I’m not sure it would be 100% necessary.

By the way, I’m glad you’re repairing your relationships. I’ve had troubles with my dad in the past, and they are slowly getting better. It makes life much easier when you don’t have hate and resentment around all the time, don’t you think?

8

The worst thing about deliberately putting more suffering into the world is that there’s no way of taking it back. I doubt that changing names again will have much of a positive effect, and if anything, might just add some new hurts to the whole mess.

So, I can only affirm LifeOnWry’s take–the best solution is still unsatisfactory, but that’s just the nature of the beast: let it go.

9

If I were in your situation, I’d leave the name, just for simplicity’s sake, and forgive myself. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Have you told your dad you’re sorry? It seems that that’s the real point here.

10

I’d go with adding dad’s last name and hyphenating it. Wife wouldn’t have to change it, you’d have less hassle with job references etc. and it’d make you feel better about the whole deal (I suspect, since you’re bringing it up in the first place).

11

I would agree with Leifsmama. (In fact, I actually submitted a post to that effect earlier, but upon revising the thread, I see that it has mysteriously disappeared - no doubt removed by the Evil Moderators).

Besides for the hassle of changing the name all over again, you’d be reopening old wounds - and possibly creating new ones - by highlighting the issue all over again.

I’d say apologize to your father, if you’ve not done that already, explain how you now understand your original decision, and let it be.

JMO, FWIW. Best of luck.

12

Bygones are bygones. You can’t undo things. Regret is appropriate, guilt is not - it seemed like a good idea at the time. To change your name now would solve nothing, but it might stir up old emnities. All I would advise you to do is to wait for an appropiate opportunity to tell your father that you recognise the pain of what happened and that you think about it often and regret it. If it’s a struggle to broach this in conversation, perhaps you could send him an edited version of your OP (assuming you decide to take what seems to be the weight of advice here).

Of course it doesn’t matter what your name is. What matters is what you do, starting from here.

13

IMHO, there is a point to feeling guilty (as opposed to acknowledging guilt), when there’s still the possibility of doing something about the matter.

Which is pld’s situation here: there’s the possibility of doing something about this; the difficulty is figuring out what’s right, what’s best for everyone.

There’s one possible solution that I haven’t seen mentioned here, Phil: you could both take Peta’s maiden name as your last name. It would distance you from the bad decision you made at 18, and it wouldn’t be the slap in the face to your mom that re-adopting your dad’s last name would be.

I expect that from your father’s perspective, it wouldn’t be as good as taking his name once again, but it would be better than your continuing to have his ex-wife’s name.

I don’t know if that’s the ideal solution for you or not, since only you can know that. But it’s one more option to consider. And I’d say that if you and Peta should decide you want to go down that road, discuss it with your parents first. It never hurts to make sure, before you make the change.

14

Since you and your dad have resolved, theyre’s really no other reason to change back. That would throw off everyone who’s known you since, friends, creditors, etc., not to mention the disruption to your wife as well.

Don’t feel guilt. You were misled and when presented with the facts made up with your pop. Good man.

Just learn from the past, don’t try and change it. (Jeez, that sounded campy!)

15

IF you decide to pursue changing it, you should also discuss the possibility with your wife, who may prefer to have the same last name as you.

But I think it would be best if you just express your regret to everyone (father and mother), and tell them you love them both.

16

I would say let sleeping dogs get up with fleas. Oh, no, wait a minute. That is, let by-gones sleep with dogs. Oh, forget about it!

Just keep things as they are and avoid anymore mess/hurt/confusion. As long as you have a good relationship with everyone, just forget about the name game and enjoy life.

My wife kept her maiden name when we got married. I had no problem with it. We named our son with her maiden hame as a first name, so if he ever finds out what a bastard I really am and decides to drop my name and take hers, he will have a silly name indeed!

The phone company has both our names last names listed, so if you look us up, you actually see our sons full name! Kinda cool for him!

“Being drunk is the best feeling in my poor world!”-- Drinky Crow

17

I’d let sleeping dogs lie.

18

Put me in with the “leave your name how it is now” group.

I did the exact same thing when I was 18 - I dropped my father’s last and took my mother’s maiden name, as did she when divorcing my father. (All my siblings have done the same)

The difference is I’ve never reconciled with my natural father, but I’m no longer angry. I’ve made my peace with the situation, and his family (just not my father). His family was very hurt when I changed my name, and there was years of estrangment after. I considered for a while going back to his name, or taking it as a middle name, or a hyphen, then decided that it was just going to be more of a hassle for me, when in reality all changing it back would have been a band-aid to put over an old wound. I was used to my new name, people knew me by it, etc. Changing it was an ‘event’ that happened years before, changing it back would not erase the past. What’s done is done, and just moving on seemed the best choice.