mmmmmm i say NO!

my partner already has been married, bought a house with her, had a boy and girl with her!

did everything.. and you have to always have to be second. Thankfully the only thing i get is the last name as she never formally took it. IF she did i would not..

i think you should keep your own if it bothers you, if i knew i had the same last name was her i would cringe every time i got the mail!

I don't think you should just get over it if this is important to you. I did not change my last name when I married DH, and the world kept spinning.

When DH and I married I hyphenated my last name and our kids will also have hyphenated names. If you FDH feels that he doesnt want you to hyphenate your last name tell him to change his because you dont want to have to share that name with his ex. DH and I had many fights but eventually he understood i dont want some people to think im the crazy BM.

Is it not in his divorce decree that she has to change it? It was in my DHs decree. She complained and did nothing until our son was almost born. He told her, you change it and prove it or I will take you to court...no matter what a court says, if it's in a decree, it must be followed...she changed it.

Why would your future children have to have a hyphenated last name...they just take the one last name. Take it from me it doesn't matter they will call you Mrs.His last name anyway....people jsut assume we all take it.LOL

I did not change my name when I got married no way I would same name as BM. Besides I like my name.

Oh good god...the dreaded name shit again...I'm just going to repost what I did in another thread-BOTTOM line-you do what YOU want with your name....and let BM do what she wants w/her name. Here's what I said...I hope you don't get defensive and listen to what I'm saying here...we need to stop judging other women w/this name shit once and for all...even if it is a bm. The problem is so much bigger then jsut "bm".

"It's NONE of your business what other women do with their name. For whatever reasons. It's one of the reasons we women are saddled with indecision, guilt, confusion as to what to do with our own names!!! Because people are judging you, men, society, WOMEN...we are the ONLY gender that has to endure this scrutiny of what is/isn't morally acceptable...all because in some day past we became "property" of and then we were screwed when it came to names. We are judged no matter what we do. I wish eveyr woman on this board was with me on this and took a stand to defend every womans right to do whatever the hell they want with their name.

Put aside she's "the ex", put aside your feelings-it's not YOUR f'in name or life for crying out loud.

THIS is what you will have to endure during your life because of your name:

If you marry....if you hyphenate w/your maiden/married name you aren't committed enough...if you take his name, you're a doormat that lets the man rule...if you don't take his name you're a hard core rabid feminist....then come the kids-...will they take his name, or both...and if it's both you will get judged for that...if it's just his you may again be questioned why YOUR name isn't theirs also (hyphenated). YOU CAN'T WIN!

THEN the divorce...keep it or not-for the kids, for society, for the ex, for the ex's new gf or spouse, what about the parents, friends, easiness of communication, schools.what about paperwork to do, what about professionally??? Whom to please, whom to please??? Someone will be mad and have an opinion with what you do with your name if you keep it or change it back. YOU CAN"T WIN!

Then comes remarriage...your new guy has an opinion about it, as does your ex and new wife, and society, and the kids...and what to do? Change it back, not take his name, take it, hyphenate, how can I please everyone with how I choose to change my name..because somebody will be pissed or think badly in some way or feel they have a right to opine on what you do.
YOU CAN'T WIN AGAIN!

WE CAN'T WIN NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!, you can never win this battle..it saddens me SO much to see us struggle with this and then turn around on this board and bash other womens choices as to what they did w/their name...we question their motives, decisions, thought process, choices, we wonder "why"...that's not the issue at all-who care if bm has the same name? Or if she doesn't? Or being "associated with"....

Where do we get off judging what another woman does with her name-when she has been CURSED with this name dilemma to begin with (that NO MAN faces mind you). Can you just do what you want, and resolve to let other women choose what they want to do, for whatever their reasons may be-can our MEN let us decide what to do with our names w/out judgement (probably not).

Whether we keep the name as kids, to please somebody in family, to make it easy, for not wanting the paperwork ordeal, for keeping a name that they are known professionally for, out of habit of identifying with a name, wanting to dissasociate with it...whatver HER motives and choices are for changing, keeping..please stop judging it. If at least we WOMEN could help eachother out with this bullshit-we could perhaps take a burden off our kind ya know?

Adding-as to YOUR name-do what YOU want-and screw society, what other women think, what his ex has done w/her name, what your dh thinks...time to take a stand and do what you want w/out tryign to please everyone else. You were cursed to be put in this position to begin with. GOD this topic makes my blood boil.

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I don't think you're being petty at all - it would drive me INSANE if I had the same last name as the BM. Luckily,(I guess) the BM was just a fling so they never dated/married/did anything serious...

My SS has my husbands last name (which part of me thinks is weird since they were never together/married).

I will say this though, my husband and I got married a few months ago, and name change is a pain! I took his name because I wanted to be joined like that, but I did consider keeping my own.

In the end you just have to weight which is more important : / You could just hyphenate and have the kids take his last name - you'd still share part of your name with them, but not be tied as much to the BM? Good luck!

I am getting married next Friday and I am taking my FDHs last name, but I definitely understand where you are coming from. His ex-wife hasn't changed her name (they've been divorced over 5 years) and when he asked her about it, she said she won't change it unless she gets married again. Which will probably be...um NEVER. It pisses me off and I wish I didn't have to share the last name with her, but I am not going to deny myself taking my husbands last name for only that reason. She WISHES she was still part of this family!!!!!!

Look at it the other way....you think his ex is going to be happy sharing the last name with you? I guarantee it drives my DH's ex crazy to see things with my first name and hubby's (and hers) last name. We sign it at school events, it's DH and ME Last Name. I don't always enjoy that she kept the "family" name but he's my husband now.

BM uses DH's last name in some places (still her legal name, I think), and her new husband's last name in others (email, FB, whatever). I don't like sharing the same last name with her. Makes school awkward, too, since our kids attend the same school of course, with us having custody of all 8. However, I'm not going to let HER choices affect my choices. I wasn't going to change my name at first, but I eventually did. Because I am his wife, I'm traditional, and I want my husband's last name.

I hyphenated mine and wish I never did that much!

His ex has the same first initial so that made it even worse. I feel that as long as there's another woman out there with his last name BECAUSE of him, I will never officially change it.

I wasn't going to change it except we got married out of the country and I wanted to see if the marriage certificate would be valid here. Turns out it is, and the easiest way to check was to see how easy it was to change names with Social Security and on my passport. So I hyphenated, and it's so long that it gets cut off most times. If it wasn't that long, I would have wanted my son to have that when he was born.

Before I gave birth, DH reminded me that I said I'd change my name to his for the baby. What I really said was that I'd think about it when we had children. I now say that I'll reconsider when our son is ready to go to school, but I know deep inside that I won't do it. Our son will be just fine with me having a different last name. As it is I'll have to explain who that horribly negative person (SD) is to him, so the different name can go along with the territory. Not my fault DH has done it all before. If there wasn't his ex, I would have changed my name to just his without complaint.