Relationships/Self

The Mail Wouldn’t Let Me Forget My First Marriage —

Return to sender?

It’s been a long time since I divorced my first husband. I’ve moved on. I’ve remarried. I’ve done the inner work of letting that relationship exist in my past without the painful memories haunting me constantly.

That said, there has been a seemingly insignificant way that my first marriage has continued to haunt me from time to time.

The mail.

I still get mail delivered to me through our mailbox in my old married name. Even though it’s been over two decades since that marriage ended. Even though I’ve been married to someone else now for many years and have changed my last name.

It’s aggravating to see that previous last name attached to me on paper coming out of the mailbox after a long day. However, it’s almost always junk mail and, on most days, it doesn’t phase me.

Until one day it did.

We had to change our home insurance company quite suddenly and my current husband was on the phone with a new insurance company trying to get everything worked out. But there was a problem. The title paperwork for the house was still in my old married name because that name had been attached to me when I bought the house and before I married my second husband.

Not a huge deal, right?

I suppose not. But on this day, I was completely triggered by it.

“Babe, the guy says the title on the house is still in your old married name so he can’t process the policy.” My husband told me, holding the phone in the crook of his neck.

My blood pressure immediately went up.

“I don’t know how many times I tried to get that changed, and each time, they never do it!” I retorted, exasperated.

That wasn’t a helpful response at all and it certainly wasn’t the insurance guy’s fault that my ex-husband was still inconveniencing me from afar even though we’d been long done.

And maybe that’s what did it.

The whole relationship and marriage to my ex had been a complete disaster — one inconvenient mess after another. Now we needed to change our home insurance at the eleventh hour and my past relationship was in the way.

My husband took one look at my expression and immediately recalibrated. He got back on the phone.

“You know what, dude, why don’t you just go ahead and hyphenate her new married name to the old one and we’ll go with that for now.”

There was a pause.

“Okay, great, thank you so much!” My husband hung up the phone triumphantly. “Well, they’re going to process the policy with your new last name hyphenated on to the old one.” He said.

“Oh, okay, good,” I said, relieved yet still feeling irked and inconvenienced.

All the (possibly) hundreds of pieces of mail in my old married name had been infiltrating my physical mailbox for years. But now, it was bothering me dramatically.

What was new? Was it the fact that I had my life together now and that old name represented a time when I didn’t have everything in order? Was it the fact that the old married name was on the title of the house I now resided in with my current husband and kids? Was I just having a bad day? I don’t know. Maybe it was a little bit of everything.

Names can trigger us because they are associated with our identities in such an intimate way. Names follow us wherever we go. Names are capable of placing particular memories in one mental file cabinet or another.

Last names are especially significant because if you change your last name, as many women do when they marry, you essentially take on a whole new identity. Except that, you don’t have a new identity. You’re still the same person on the inside.

I was more than ready to get rid of my old identity of being married to my first husband over two decades ago, but that identity wasn’t ready to let go of me. That old me still exists and she’s a part of who I am today.

I’m still that 20-something woman who married the wrong guy the first time around. Sure, she’s evolved and changed immensely — but she’s still in there.

Do I wish I had just never changed my name when I got married the first time? Sure! The second time around, I was enthusiastic to take on my new husband’s last name when we got married so that I would never have to deal with that old last name again.

I wanted to mentally erase the past with a name. Unfortunately, not so easy in the real world.

Alas, no matter what name I have for myself on paper, on my driver’s license, or anywhere else, I am still me. I can’t get rid of my past mistakes and I can’t pretend I’m not who I am.

All the blunders, choices, and failed relationships have made me who I am, including the last names I have collected along the way.

‘What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ — William Shakespeare/Romeo and Juliet

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