This is probably going to sound weird to most of you, but, today my husband showed me that he had put that we were married on FB. (We haven’t actually announced our marriage publicly, but we don’t deny it if asked. It’s just kind of a thing with us, or was.) Anyway, he didn’t change it where it gave a notification, it’s just subtly on the relationship section. Then, however, he said that he wanted me to change my name (to show I took his last name), but that I could do it without making a notification as well. I told him there’s no way that I could do that and people not notice. He argued that sure I could, how would they notice? BECAUSE IT’S A DIFFERENT FREAKING LAST NAME. DUH.
……and here’s the deal: I’m not ashamed of my new last name, obviously, I chose to take it…..but….but I like seeing my real original name up there. It’s important to me for reasons I can’t even truly express in words. I don’t want to “give up” my name. I mean, if when I change it, publicly, on social media, I’ll still leave my real original name up there as well, I’ll just add his my (new) last name to the end of it. I’m stalling though. I’m not ready to come out of the marriage closet. I don’t want all the attention that’s going to happen. I want to stay in here where 98% of the world doesn’t know I’m married (yet). I don’t know why. I don’t feel as though I’ve lost myself in my marriage, I feel like I’ve gained a lot of new joys in life through this process, but…..but there’s still a reticence in me in regards to providing society with the fodder of thinking I belong to someone.
I don’t know, but, there you have it.
- S.L.
Misery in Company 