It has been exactly 90 days we have been married. 🙂
The day I announce my wedding at work, one of my colleague asked me “So you will change your surname, what’s it gonna be?” The question caught me off guard as I haven’t thought about it at all. Taking your husband’s name is the traditional option (especially in Nepal) but we never discuss it. I am sure both our family expect me to take it but I was in no rush. I have seen my friends change their surname in Facebook the day they got married (I am not sure if they have done legally too) or have used both surnames but I have always thought it can wait few years. Many women will say that their husbands/in-laws wanted them to change their surname. So they did.
I am not against changing surname if you want to as I also want to do it before we have kids. I am planning to be MJS, mine surname followed by his. My friend AS is the reason, I will defiantly do it before we have baby as I don’t want to go through the same path as hers.
AS decided not to change her surname when she married CJ (Nepali guy). When they have a baby girl, her mother in law came to visit her in hospital. While she was holding her new grand-daughter, she was shocked to see the tag called her, Baby S instead of Baby J. She made sure AS knows, she didn’t approve of that. But in the birth certificate, hospital wrote baby S as per mother’s surname as well. Because it was in birth certificate, they thought it will be easy to use the same surname in other official documents as well .Now the baby and mum have same surname and dad has different. It created lots of confusion in all the legal documents and I don’t want to go through that.
Back to my situation, I am planning to keep my surname until I can as I want to avoid the hassle of alerting everyone and going through all the paper work right now. Its not easy to change the name on everything from your driver’s licence to your library card. I know I have to do it one day but mentally I am not ready right now. The most annoying change will be for my passport. I love my passport as it has so many stamps and visas I collected travelling over the years. It is like a story to me and has high sentimental value. Once I change my passport, I will lose all my memory.
All this question is coming right now because my in-laws made official document in Nepal(Relationship certificate) and they send us a copy in case we need it. In that document, they have my name as MS not MJ. My in-laws have never asked me to change it but I think they didn’t as by default in their mind, I am MS not MJ but I want to be MJS in future not MS.
When I talk to AS about it, he thinks it is normal of his parents to think I am MS now as that in what happens in Nepal. I haven’t changed my Facebook name either (I know it is easy but …) I want to do it in my own pace and I hate it if anyone forces me to do it. He knows what I am planning and he is ok with that but of course he can’t control what his parents think.
Just want to put it out there” Am I allowed to wait until I am ready to change the surname or it is expected to change straight after marriage, especially in Nepali culture?”
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