There’s no doubt that changing one’s name upon marriage is an antiquated ritual. Like so many of them, though, our society is set up to make doing so easier, especially when it comes to shared assets, debts, and children.

This woman did change her name when getting married, but sadly, things didn’t work out.

She decided she didn’t want to change her name back due to the hassle (among other things), though she goes by her maiden name on a daily basis.

My ex-husband (who I’ll call him by his fake name Tony) and I broke up 2 years ago after 26 years of marriage. We have four children together.

Due to the stupidity of the time and social pressure, I added my husband’s last name to my name. So all my documents like identification, driver’s license, passport, all credit cards, voter registration card have his last name at the end.

We ended amicably even more due to the circumstances (he is gay) and we divorced.

Honestly, it would suck to have to change everything, go to government agencies, pay for everything new, go to the bank to change everything, so I didn’t want to take out his last name, but I introduce myself by my maiden name, only in the documents is it this name.

Now her ex is getting re-married and when he found out his ex hadn’t changed her name on legal documents, he insisted it was “weird.”

Tony is currently engaged to a guy and they are going to get married in the next year.

The situation that happened was:

Our son and his family decided to travel and invited me. He asked for my ID to make the reservations.

A few days later, me, Tony and fiance were at my grandson’s party. Our son said jokingly in the conversation circle that he couldn’t believe that until today I hadn’t changed my last name. I laughed, saying that I was too lazy to rush to change everything that has this name on it.

Tony started to ask if I really hadn’t changed my name, if I didn’t think that being engaged to someone else isn’t the best time to change it, and he insisted that it was weird of me.

She replied that he was more than welcome to spend the time and the money to go through all of the red tape, but it soon became clear that it actually upset him.

Also, at least one of their children thinks it’s odd, too.

I just replied: “Unless you can go in my place, spend hours and hours in lines, pay hundreds for it, I won’t do it in the near future”.

We stopped talking and the party flowed smoothly.

Later, he called me and said I was acting weird and a jerk by refusing to change the name, which he said was uncomfortable.

I asked our son and he said he understands my side of not wanting to do this, but he understands Tony’s side of being uncomfortable with his ex using his last name after the divorce.

I don’t intend to ever change, I just don’t want to go through it right now.

So I ask for an outside opinion.

AITA?

What does Reddit have to say on the matter? Let’s find out!

The top comment suggests this is definitely a him problem.

Plenty of other women confirmed that the entire process is, in fact, a pain.

More and more women are deciding the rigamarole isn’t worth it.

This person (and others) said that after all of the time and shared lives, that’s her name too if she wants to keep it.

So maybe how he feels about it really doesn’t matter.

I can definitely see both sides here.

As with many relationship issues, though, it’s really only one person’s call to make at this point.