How To Choose a Last Name, Part Two

What's in a name?

Well, a whole lot.

One thing we have learned in the process of trying to choose a last name is that it is a very personal decision. People feel very strongly about it. So before I begin let me say that we respect everyone's last name decisions. It's a conscientious and deeply personal thing, we get that.

So we thought we had it figured out... my FH would take my last name as his second middle name and I would move my last name to my second middle name, and use it whenever convenient. Subconsciously I wasn't comfortable with that, as I started to say we were both taking two last names. My FH questioned me about it, and said he was glad, because making my original surname our middle name didn't seem "egalitarian enough". (Could he be cooler?)

We've narrowed it down to two options, with plenty of pros and cons and feelings for both, so tell us what you think:

1) We both have two last names... My last name [space] his last name. The order is simply because it sounds better.

2) We both have a hyphenated last name... My last name-his last name.

We think they will both probably confuse people, so we're just trying to decide what's best for us.

And another short rant about the name change process... it's really sexist. Some friends of ours couldn't change his name when they got married b/c it was free for the bride but cost like $500 for the groom. Thankfully, it's now free in Texas for both partners to change their name. However, exactly no wedding websites assume the groom will change his name, as all information is directed to the bride. It's ridiculous!

How to Plan a Wedding and Not Go Crazy

(by FW)

I'm a planner... I love to plan. I love to choose things and get organized and make things happen. And I've planned a lot of weddings, but never my own. Some how it' really different when it's yours.

Perhaps I'm a little over the top on this, but I seem to think that every single thing about our wedding is symbolic. I mean down to the flower in the hostess' corsage.

When we first got engaged (and even a little before), we did a lot of planning all at once, for like a month. Everyone was so impressed at how much we got done and it was terribly fun. Then we had an engagement party, and the holiday break, and promptly forgot we were planning a wedding (which was also awesome). So when we got to the six month mark we decided we should start planning again, and it's so fun. But it's a little more stressful now... it's more like a puzzle then an abstract painting.

In reality, a wedding is a celebration that lasts a few hours on one day. The marriage, or course, lasts forever. The relationship is what should be cultivated in the time leading up to the wedding, above all.

Fortunately, we both have Fridays off this semester so we can reserve one day a week to discuss wedding planning. That way the rest of our week is not consumed with questions like buttercream v. vanilla icing and we can focus on each other. My job is also conducive to getting some things done while at work.

So if no one seems to notice that really great idea I had for the guest book or why we have four kids in the ceremony, etc., it won't really matter. What matters is me and him and all that we're learning about each other through the planning process.

But we have some excellent ideas, so please point them out in detail after you have attending our wedding celebration. :)

How to Get the Best Counseling

So my FW and I are firm believers in the value of counseling (of all varieties). We had our first appointment with one of our two pre-marital counselors last week (yes you heard that right - we have two). We have already been meeting with the other one since before we were engaged.

You may be wondering why we might want to have two counselors. That is a good question, but rather than answer it directly I would like to go off on a tangent. Our counselors are an interesting mix. The one we met with this last week is a licensed Christian counselor. She is somewhat by the book but not so much that it bothers us. She is very big on books, research, and handouts. Our other counselor is very much out of the box. He is big on emotions and spirituality. We think it is awesome that they reverse the stereotype. It is actually really helpful for us. I told my FW if the female counselor was more about emotions and the male was more by the book, I would probably react more skeptically to both of them (yes I am aware of how sexist that sounds).

Anyway, I have a sort of amusing story from our session last week. Our counselor was explaining how men are "simple" and women are "complex" when it comes to relationships. Both my FW and I bristled at this statement. She went on to further clarify that men more often compartmentalize their emotions and relationships while women are usually more holistic in their approach to these things. I suppose that is a mostly fair assessment (is that qualified enough for you?). It somewhat applies to my B2B and I. My FW says she can be stuffing envelopes at work and be thinking about how it applies to our relationship. I can't say that my mind works exactly that way although I think about her incessantly. It is different. I think about her but not in connection to the trivial activities of my day unless there is an obvious connection.

All this is to say that it should be interesting for us to explore the differences between the sexes. We often see male and female as opposites, but the reality is that while there are some differences, men and women have much more in common (more than they do with anything else in the universe). We hold firmly to this while we explore what makes us different. Contrary to popular belief, men are NOT from Mars, and women are NOT from Venus and such thinking is ludicrous and often hurtful.

How to Get Lots of Junk Mail

(by FW)

Junk mail started in the U.S. thanks to the new advertising used to feed the consumer boom of the 1920's. The Roaring '20s can also be thanked for billboards and skywriting. That is just a needless historical fact.

If you're looking for a new way to fill up your recycling bin, just give your address to one magazine/vendor/website that has anything to do with weddings. I have received hotel ads, jewelry catalogs, "free" offers with absolutely no strings attached (they promise), bridal extravaganza announcements, etc. Each piece of junk mail is sure that their service is the only thing that can provide you with any sort of happiness on your wedding day.

And then there's the unsolicited phone calls. We want to give you a free gift. How about some free crystal or a weekend getaway? Totally free. You just have to come to a 6 hour demonstration of our china line. And buy $400 worth of silverware. Totally free gifts.

To discuss the consumerist nonsense that surrounds the wedding industry will require a separate blog post. But seriously, give my poor postal carrier a break. My mail box is really small and all those silly ads don't fit. Save a tree and just let me contact you if I get the sudden impulse to purchase a piece of jewelry that costs more than my car.

Rant complete.

How to Make Your Wedding Weight (Part 2)

So I thought I would give you guys a brief update on my progress towards my wedding weight. I haven't almost passed out since the first bike ride, so that looks like a good sign. In fact, I can now keep up with my FW (unless she is secretly taking it easy on me).

I am not a great dieter mostly because I never cook. However, I have been trying to avoid sugar and especially soft drinks. It is going pretty well. I am not completely cutting them out because I have tried before and failed, but the in moderation approach seems to be working fairly well. I also have actually been trying to eat out less, and so far so good, but school started today, so that might go out the window (I did bring my lunch today though).

The biking is going really well. I think it will stick because it is actually fun. I hate running and lifting weights and pretty much every exercise I have ever tried, but biking is fun because there is usually a destination. I know I could do the same with running or walking, but I hate running and walking is too slow. Plus, I do a lot of riding with my B2B, so that makes it even better.

Tonight I am starting Wholy Fit. It is a fitness class that my FW teaches that is kind of like a Christian alternative to yoga. I always thought yoga looked cool, so I am looking forward to this. Basically, this stuff better work, or I will be pretty hopeless. I don't think I have ever kept a resolution past January.

How to Integrate your Spiritual Lives

So figuring out how to integrate our spiritual lives has definitely been one of the hardest parts of our relationship. It just isn't something that I had given much thought before because I just assumed it would be a sort of natural process. The other problem is that spirituality is such a unique, intimate part of us. It is scary to share sometimes. Other times it is just difficult to articulate. Many of us tend to try and accommodate for this by making up a bunch of rules and formulas to follow, but this often imposes limits on God and leads us to frustration and despair.

Having grown up in conservative Christian backgrounds, I have been told and shown some strange things regarding spirituality in a relationship. I have been told repeatedly that the husband is the spiritual head of the family, but I honestly have no idea what this really means. I have seen it illustrated mostly as the man having some sort of ultimate authority over major family decisions while wives typically handle the minor stuff. This seems like a really poor model to me. It doesn't respect the spiritual lives of the wife and children, and it puts a ridiculous burden on the husband. I have even seen this extend into dating relationships where the boyfriend has some sort of authority over the girlfriend, which I find even more disturbing.

I don't really have any clear cut answers about how to integrate spiritual lives. I suppose it helps if you share most of the same core values, but I have seen some interdenominational and interfaith marriages that work better than many same-same (I credit my sister for the expression) marriages. I know that for my FW and me, the formulaic stuff has failed miserably. We tried scheduling time together for prayer, but I would forget and then feel guilty about it. We also tried reading through a chapter of the Bible every day and e-mailing our thoughts on it, but I didn't like this much either. What has been good is to just talk about our spiritual lives even (maybe especially) when things aren't going so well. It has made the times when we do pray together much more meaningful.

I wonder what other couples do about spiritual matters. Most people don't really talk about it, at least not beyond the formulaic stuff. I think it is such an important part of who we are, but it is often the part of us that we keep so hidden from others.

How to Build Two Careers

(by FW)

I'm at a big academic conference in D.C., and every time I tell someone about our plans for helping each other with career, they are very impressed. Of course I didn't tell them that our plans change a lot, but they don't need to know that.

I've always been career-oriented. I always wanted to be a teacher and formulated that into a pretty distinct plan to be a professor/researcher/activist by the time I was 15. My FH, on the other hand, has a science degree and is now pursuing a masters in liberal arts. He's still not exactly sure what he wants to do (which I think is kind of exciting).

Our current plan is for him to finish his masters degree, get a job, and pursue writing while I finish my dissertation. Then, I'll get a job (you know, the one of my dreams) in some killer location with lots of sun and in/near a cool city. Then he'll get his Ph.D. And somewhere in there we'll live abroad. And I'll dance in a music video for Justin Timberlake (half kidding). And he'll go to culinary school (or at least that's my plan, as neither one of us currently does any cooking, and I don't favor starvation).

In all seriousness, we're committed to doing what we can to help the other's dreams come to life. It so happens that many of our dreams are in our careers, as our chosen vocations are the best way we can affect change while using all our gifts and talents. Many of our dreams are collective, which is not only convenient, but really amazing. And we're both sure of the fact that we don't want to make work our whole life, that we are devoted to God and each other above all else.

Right now this means that we are going to tag-team on working and going to school, and we're going to live on one meager salary for a while. That is of course until my first book becomes a best seller, I win the Pulitzer, and choose to teach simply for the joy of it. And his master's essay on Jekyll and Hyde will reshape the whole field of literature, thereby guaranteeing our fortune, and we give all our money away and live in Hemingway's apartment in Paris.

Like I said, our plans change a lot.