Thursday, October 14, 2010

There's only one of us now..

Mrs. H's that is.  I took the step today and went into the MTO office (or Service Canada as it's called now) and officially had my Licence and Health Card changed back to my maiden name.  In honesty I should have done this years ago.   For a few different reasons I didn't:
  • I wanted to have the same last name as my children.  I got over that.
  • I thought you had to be officially divorced to revert to your maiden name. You don't.
  • It seemed like a lot of hassle to change two letters.  That's right, there are TWO letters difference between my maiden name and my married name.  Yeah, I got over that too.
Did you know that assuming your spouses name isn't the same as a legal name change?  I honestly didn't know this.  As a result it's a hell of a lot easier to change back if you have your birth certificate kicking around.  I think the main issue is remembering all the stuff that your name goes on, and making sure you don't run into issues (I.E. if the lady at the MTO hadn't mentioned it I would have TOTALLY forgot to get my ownership changed - now I have to call my insurance company to change THAT etc etc)

The reasons I finally decided to change back were based on a few factors:
  • The ex-hubster got re-married.  With he and I, and the girls stepmom actively involved in their schooling, two Mrs. (or Ms.) H's is just confusing.
  • Since getting married and subsequently divorced, and learning quite a bit about the practice of spouse-name-assumption and how it ties in with past ideas about wives as the property of their husbands, I'm not particularly in agreement with it.  Should I marry again (which is not out of the realm of possibility.. I'm not sour to the idea) I might not want to assume their name.  Which would be a lot easier to argue if I'm not still using the former boy's name.
  • That person, that's just not me anymore.  
I still worry about how the girls feel about it, but I've explained my feelings to them about it.  I'm not trying to distance myself from THEM, at all.  Mainly I used the "there can't be two of us" explanation, though.  It seems to be the one that seems most logical to them.

And Now, another Musical Interlude

3 comments:

  1. everyone gave me a super hard time because i waited 3 years to change my last name after i got married. it wasn't like, a statement i was making or anything, it's just a pain in the ass. sounds like it's a lot harder here in the states than it is in the great white north.
    so, good for you, dude!

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  2. Aaaah, the sweet sound of freedom! Good for you! I had my name changed back to my maiden name before I even had the ex out of the house (I'm Canadian too). In my case though, my ex is so stupid that i bamboozled him into letting me change the kids' names to a hyphenated one...except the kids have now gotten into the habit of dropping his name...oh darn!
    I agree that taking your husband's name is so antiquated. I have remarried but have kept my maiden name and it feels so much better. I might just keep this guy around. Good for you!

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  3. Hey you! I just did a readback and found this post now, after making my post about my fear of divorce!!

    Good for you for resuming the "you".

    And props to Sandra for bamboozling ex into hyphenation - good call = WIN!

    And thanks for stopping by me ole blog.

    ReplyDelete

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