The Cleansing Effect of a Name Change
Change Your Monogram, Change Your Life
“Do you want to keep his last name?”
I had combed through endless and overwhelming lists of what was mine and what was his, but because I had been using his last name for the past 20 years, I had almost forgotten that it wasn’t actually mine.
The question came from a female judge on the day we signed our divorce papers, or I never would have thought of it myself. She tossed the idea out following a particularly childish round of antics on my ex’s side of the table, and mentioned that I didn’t have to ever actually file any of the associated paperwork to change it officially. But if I thought I even might want to legalize a name change at some point, NOW was the time to get that approved. I didn’t have time to hem and haw over it that day, but weakly nodded my head and she added a few sentences to the end of our divorce decree “restoring” my maiden name, as a just-in-case.
In a small oversight, she didn’t list my middle name in that document, so what was approved was just my given first name and my maiden last name (which later caused me great concern over how to properly monogram with only two letters). A year later with this paperwork in hand, I went through the process of officially reclaiming two-thirds of the name I’d left at the altar as a doe-eyed bride more than two decades earlier. I was ready to be wholly myself again, and this felt life-giving.
For me, eventually choosing to complete the name change ended up coming down to a matter of identity and origin, mostly. My thoughts were this: After divorcing, it made no sense to me to keep “wearing” the last name of my former husband. I quit wearing the ring he gave me, too, of course, although that was admittedly easier to remove. I felt that if he and I were no longer a couple, then neither his ring, nor his name were going to remain on me as I moved forward without him.
“ I guess I wanted to pick up where I’d left off before I’d walked down the aisle and merged my identity with his. To retrace my steps to the place where I began sacrificing big pieces of myself in an attempt to please someone else, or to at least try to keep the peace. ”
At this new and independent place in life, I also felt like I could honor my own supportive father and family of origin by reinstating the last name I’d been born with, no longer referencing my ex-husband with every introduction. I guess I wanted to pick up where I’d left off before I’d walked down the aisle and merged my identity with his. To retrace my steps to the place where I began sacrificing big pieces of myself in an attempt to please someone else, or to at least try to keep the peace. I had misplaced the enthusiastic, ambitious, and open-hearted person I used to be and needed to rediscover my optimistic vision and self-worth. In short, I chose to drop his last name to reflect the re-growth of my own identity and independence.
Before I made the name change, I did consult with my kids, who were at that time in their late teens. I shared a less complex version of the above ideas with them, emphasizing my intention to honor my family of origin (which will never change), and affirming that just because I no longer wore their father’s wedding ring or his last name, this did not devalue the 20 years we had together nor the beautiful family that came from that union. The kids gave me their blessing and never batted an eye. At school functions, I wrote my own new (but old) restored name on name tags followed by “So-and-so’s Mom” just to clear up any confusion. Again, nobody batted an eye.
Nearly a decade later, I met a man I’m just crazy about and got married again. Not long into our relationship, he made a point of saying he appreciated that I no longer carried my former husband’s name (side note: therefore, my ex’s last name doesn’t appear on our marriage certificate), and that he respected the work I’d done to grow and establish an independent life for myself, post-divorce. Together, we agreed that I would continue to use my maiden name socially after we married. He introduces me to people using the first and last name I had the day he met me, but when referring to us collectively as a couple, we use his last name. I like being individual players on the same team. It feels right for me, even with the occasional confusion over whose last name the reservation is under, how something was filed, or, as referenced above, the proper way to monogram.
For THAT important matter, I take some creative license and monogram with a 3 letter combination from the names my husband and I go by: my first initial, his middle initial (he goes by his middle name), and my husband’s last initial. I think it looks nice, and fortunately, you don’t have to get your dinner napkins or guest towels approved by a judge.
If you decide you’d like to drop his last name from yours, it’s not as difficult as you may think. Check your divorce decree to see if there is anything in it that “restores” your name to what it was before marriage or your maiden name. Even if there is no mention of this, it’s easy and inexpensive to file a petition with the courts and, once approved, submit the official documentation to the Social Security Administration and get a new driver’s license. Google your state and “legal name change after divorce” for specifics, or check out USLegal.com’s helpful guide, broken down by state. Create a file with originals of those court orders, your new social security card, new driver's license and a birth certificate. You’ll need these to update your banking and financial information, airline and travel profiles, voter registration, etc. It’s actually quite a laundry list of things you’re going to want to update, so I suggest you keep that folder handy for a while.
Most importantly, enjoy this return to YOU. I highly recommend using a bank card with your new/old name on it to buy yourself an airline ticket in that same new/old name to someplace you’ve always wanted to visit, or at least to buy yourself some new towels and monogram them just to remind yourself that it’s never too late to wash up and make a clean start.