Hi everyone ! I'm (26F) recently engaged to my partner (27M) of the past 5 years. He's a wonderful, supportive partner and we're both very excited to take this next step together. We've had some issues in our relationship due to some boundary-setting problems that needed to be addressed, and also the fact that his family dynamics have not been very easy for me to handle.
I come from a relatively traditional family and always assumed I would take on my husband's last name. The notion that this practice was archaic or patriarchial was really not one which resonated with me strongly, but I fully respect the alternative perspective. I wholeheartedly believe that the question of taking someone's last name, or keeping one's maiden name, is a personal decision.
I have a rather uncommon (European) first name, and a more common last name. I actually think the combination works quite well and is professional. This is also the name I held while I completed my undegraduate and advanced degrees. My father's family is quite small, but with a rich family heritage (my great grandfather was decorated for his role in the resistance movement in WWII). My father has also been one of my biggest and strongest supporters and put my through my schooling, so I am very proud to carry his last name. I am not sure if my brother intends to marry, so I may very well be the last individual of my family in this generation to pass on my name.
I have had some hesitations about taking my fiance's last name for a number of reasons, the first being, very simply, that it is itself, not a easy-sounding last name, and the combination of my very uncommon first name and his last name sounds quite too peculiar for my liking. His family last name is actually an abbreviation of a more traditional family name.
The real crux of this issue is; however, one that I am a bit more ashamed of. Ever since I started dating my now partner, his family has made it very clear that they are a "clan"/"tribe." They are not particularly open to new ideas, new things or people, unless they assimilate. While my fiance is very proud of me and wants to make me shine, I always feel dimmed when I'm around my future in-laws and extended family (I have years of examples of things, from being taunted about being excluded from family group chats until marriage, to being mocked for my mother tongue, to not respecting my fiance and I's religious boundaries to a whole lot else)
Since our engagement, his family vocalized how I'd soon be a "insert their last name," and have just presumed I'd take their family name. Their air of presumptuousness has really really irked me. My fiancé has made it very clear that my taking his last name/keeping my maiden name is fully my own decision and he respects whatever I chose to do with my own name.
I suppose the reason I may feel so guilty is that while on the surface level my hesitations about my future surname are based on how it may sound phonetically, it really has morphed into a "these people have excluded me and asked me to bend to their collective identity for so long that I trully want to reject it at this point" situation. I feel like this is some major spiteful energy coming out and I am not proud of it. I also don't want to unecessarily cause tension in my fiance's family because he is innocent in this. I'm also mourning the fact that I may very well not take his last name, and a part of me is grieving the family name and identity I thought I'd be marrying into.
My fiancé regularly apologizes for his family's intrusive/disrespectful/exclusionary air, but it doesn't change the fact that I genuinely think it would be a big deal if his family finds out I am keeping my last name.