You can't force her to do it. If I divorced DH, I wouldn't change my last name. Too much of a pain to get all the paperwork corrected. Although, I was glad when DH's ex got married.. for the fourth time, because she no longer has our last name. So I could see how it annoys you.

Nope, nothing you can do. My DH even brought it up during his divorce with his ex. Judge said no, I can't order her to change her name.

It bothers me sometimes if I think about it too long, and I can't wait for her to be married and change it (if that ever happens) but for now I will continue to be MRS. NAME and she will continue to be MS. NAME.

Unfortunately, no one can MAKE her change her last name. Your thought is right though - if they get divorced, why would they WANT that last name? We've dealt with this with both XW's - XW#1 changed her name when she got remarried to now XH#3 (DH was XH#2), and as soon as they got divorced, she changed it back to DH's last name since she only has one kid and that is SD15. She claims that's why she changed it back. XW#2, even after getting married, held DH's last name until he finally told her that she was stupid for being married to someone else, having another kid to that man, and her last name was the same as DH's. So she changed it.

As far as being embarrased about explaining, what is there to explain? Like WV2.0 said, you are MRS. DH and she is MS. DH. Period.

It is aggravating but at the same time, she's the one who gets to do the explaining, not you. Hang in there.

My DH ex was married and divorced again AFTER DH and her were divorced. She still kept DH last name. I have no clue as to why that is.....maybe she trying to hold onto something.
I don't care really....I am the one and only MRS.!!! haha

Nothing you can do! I too, think it's strange when women don't go back to their maiden name. A few cases in point in my own life that have completely different reasoning behind it:

1) My mom didn't go back to her maiden name after my parents divorced because she had been the married name longer than she was her maiden name (married my dad when she was 18, they were together for 23 years).

2) My fiance's mother didn't go back to her maiden name because she wanted to have the same name as her kids -- she had 3 boys ranging from 7-12 when they divorced.

3) A friend of mine was only married for 3 years. Her reasoning was that she didn't want to go back to her maiden name as it was the last name of her mom's ex husband, whom she had no relationship with anymore. She hadn't been her TRUE maiden name since she was 4. IMO, I would think since you HATE your ex you wouldn't want to hold on to his last name...but whatever.

To each their own.

When I divorced my ex I took my maiden name back. I can kind of understand why a mother would want to keep the same name as her kids, but at the same time, when the mother remarries she usually takes her new husband's name...so it still ends up being different from her kids. Our BM hasn't legally changed her name, but I did notice that on her FB & MS pages, she uses her maiden name. It doesn't bother me that she & I both have DH's name. Of course, that may be because I know how much it bothers her. LOL!

I changed my last name when I divorced my x-h. However, in hindsight I wish I didn't. I left my x-h so I definitely didn't want to hold on to anything, but my kids didn't understand why my last name was different from theres. They had a very hard time with it. So, I was Mrs. "kids's last name" to all of their friends. It was much easier than correcting them and much easier on my kids.

I've never understood this either. I was always in the mindset that if you get married you take the guy's last name. If you get divorced, you go back to your maiden name. Seems simple. If that's not the name you had all your life up until you got married and you took your husband's last name because he was in fact your husband, then I don't get why you wouldn't go back to your original name when he is no longer your spouse?!

I don't buy the people do it for the kids thing, they are confused enough i'm sure due to a divorce, i don't think the last name thing will send them over the edge. Come to think of it, I think it would confuse them MORE for their mother and father to have the same last name and NOT be married? Then the mother, father, and perhaps new wife all have the same last name? Now THAT'S confusing.

But no, you can't force them to change it. I can see how that would irritate you. I don't have to deal with that though fortunately because DH and BM didn't even make it past the dating stage let alone get married.

I myself kept exhusbands name after the divorce for the sake of our son. Actually, even though I am remarried, I still have the last name of my exhusband. My Social Security Card reads first name, Middle name hypen exhusband last name, married last name.

You can't force her to. Judges are even usually hesitant to grant a name change to the BM upon divorce because they prefer that the mother and child(ren) have the same last name. If the BM remarries she can usually change her name without difficulty.

When my XW and I divorced she made a snarky comment when the judge granted her petition to change her name back to her maden name. She said "Thank God!" The judge climbed her ass and told her that her smart ass comment would get her straight to the hospital for an amnio to determine absolutely that she was not pregant and if she was pregnant she would never get her name changed back to her maiden name. She was a nurse and the judge mentioned amnio rather than pregnancy test to let her know how seriouse he was. She did not want a giant needle stuck in her belly. Who would want that? I have dealt with needles every day for nearly 30 yrs and I would not want that.

She went very pale at that statement and appologized to the Judge. He said "Don't appologize to me, appologize to the man who has been married to you".

She went pale because she was pregnant ..... by her Geriatric Fortune 500 Executive Sugar Daddy who was 2yrs younger than her mother.

That judge I liked.

The family law morons we have dealt with during our court festivities with the SpermClan .... not so much.

I married at 19 and divorced at 32. I kept my married name because it was easier for the kids, professional standing--name recognition (besides the I.T. dept were infamous for screwing up email conversion and I potentially would lose years of emails, like others had.), my credit history, driver's license, car titling, bank accounts and passport... I was lazy and cheap!

After I married DH.. I did the hyphenated name-- divorced name+new married name for kids and work. My DH doesn't care... After 5.5 yrs of marriage, I am almost finished converting over to my DH's name. I still keep my oldest pre-marital credit card in my old name.