Woman Wants Fiance To Change His Last Name, But He Refuses And Says “That’s Not How It Works.” So She Turns The Tables And Won’t Change Hers.

Even though it is “traditional” in America for the woman to take her husband’s last name (in heterosexual marriages), it’s not always the done thing.

OP and her fiancee are very practical and rarely argue.

My (24F) fiancé (29M) are planning to get married in the next couple years. We’re realistic people and understand that arguments are normal in relationships but recently we’ve started applying for our marriage license and the topic of last names came up.

I said that I wanted both of us to hyphenate so we have matching last names. The reason why is because my last name is important to me as I’m the last one in my family with the name.

An exception has arisen around the discussion of who changes their last name.

My partner wasn’t comfortable taking my last (Which I understood), but doesn’t want to hyphenate his name.

I asked him to clarify, thinking he didn’t want our names to change, but he told me the woman hyphenate her name, not the man.

I was confused and clarified that we should both hyphenate and he refused saying “That’s not how it works”.

I asked him to think about it as it was slightly important to me that we have matching last names.

Real talk… a lot of people who are married don’t have matching last names anymore.

Anyway…

Here’s where I think I turned into the jerk.

This morning fiance asked to talk and said he was not changing his name as it made zero sense for him to and my name “wasn’t really going to change” when I did hyphenate.

I was pretty upset but left it alone. Later in the day I spoke with him and said that I understand his point of view but since we couldn’t come to an agreement as to matching names, I would just keep my last name as it is now.

OP thinks she’s being reasonable, but her future husband accuses her of making a “threat.”

He got upset with me and said I was being obtuse, that I know that’s not how it works and we wouldn’t be considered married if I didn’t hyphenate.

I argued that this was the best case scenario as we couldn’t come to a solution that we were both conformable with. We’re trying to be civil but it’s becoming a sore subject and we don’t want to fill out paperwork while this is hanging above us.

So reddit, am I the jerk for “threatening” to keep my last name as is?

Reddit is here to clear things up!

The top comment says more questions are in order.

Compromise is soooo important.

This guy gets it!

Sacrifice is a big part of marriage.

People are seeing red flags here.

The argument certainly devolved.

It’s telling that he went straight to insulting her.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.