Hi. I’ve been having intense ruminations about a topic in my relationship with my fiancé. We both have strong values tied to changing my last name once we’re married. He values that I change mine to his for the commitment and union it shows. I value that I keep mine for the tie to my lost heritage, my deceased father, and the equality it shows. I originally wanted us both to keep our original last names and hyphenate our future kids last names, or hyphenate all of our last’s names. But now we’re at the point where he’s keeping his last name the same, the future kids will have his only, and I’m taking both last names, but using only his socially. So, I still have my last name to some extent, but essentially very few or no people would know. This is still bothersome to him, and I feel like I’ve already sacrificed so much. I don’t know what to do about this. He mentioned that he doesn’t feel right getting married with me not taking his last name (and dropping mine). We’ve been together for 9 years. Very rarely fight, and when we do we never yell or call eachother names. The rest of our relationship is very satisfying (chores, money, affection, sex, respect). I’ve been crying every day for the past week. We’ve had so many talks over the last three years about this. Our recent talk really felt as though I wasn’t worth being married, and when I asked him what he wanted to do (I said I was scared he wanted to break up, and asked him what he wanted), he said he didn’t know what he wanted. Through tears later on he eventually said that “[he’ll] be fine”. This time it’s the hardest because I feel like he will either want to leave me, or resent me for my choice when we’re married. I don’t know what else I can do to work through this, and I have been thinking about this all day every day for a week. Is this OCD? Or is this something to actually be worried about? Couples therapy isn’t an option. He won’t go because of the chance of us finding a crappy therapist and making things worse, and he says he’s not willing to go everywhere to hunt around for one that fits.

Hi Katie, Thanks very much for your reply. We’ve tried couples counselling once, but it didn’t end well. My fiancé is very sensitive to criticism (past trauma where his mom was emotionally absent and critical, and dad was physically absent). He’s not able to reason in therapy, because he feels so hurt. He doesn’t want to try it again because he had such a bad experience. Do you have any other suggestions?

@avlasic If it were me, I'd be seriously reflecting on the pros and cons of marriage to someone who cannot compromise, accept any criticism, and who isn't working to change that.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie He can and does accept criticism, and he can and does compromise on so many facets of our relationship. This is purely within the realm of feeling accepted and scared of being abandoned, and our only back and forth topic has been on this in 9 years. I’m a bit shocked that someone who knows very little about someone’s relationship, and is here to offer support for someone who has relationship OCD of all things would even suggest that as the first step after his feeling scared during therapy. Not cool

@avlasic You're right, I dont know every part of your relationship. Based on the little information you shared, I said what I would do. Obviously, you have much more information at your fingertips. That's why I said evaluate the PROS and cons.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I’ve evaluated the pros and cons quite a few times.... the pros definitely outweigh the cons, but some of the few cons happen to be very important

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I’ve also noticed since reading your comment, and telling me the action I need to take by making a list of pros and cons, instead of feeling the discomfort with inaction and not performing the compulsion, my anxiety spiked again.

@avlasic I apologise. I did not realize making pros and cons lists was a compulsion for you. You may have said it and I read too quickly. My bad. The tricky part here is that OCD isn't the only big issue. There's a legitimate relationship conflict that needs to be sorted out. Making a healthy, values based decision about how to proceed wont happen if you do compulsions. AND, it won't happen if you focus on the OCD and ignore the relationship and communication problems. Its clear that the last name decision is incredibly important to you and to your fiance. It's imperative that you work together to come to a resolution that is acceptable to both of you, in part because other disagreements on important issues are inevitable in life as a couple.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I didn’t mention that it was a compulsion, but I appreciate the apology. So far the only big things we’ve disagreed on are my last name, and difference of opinion on having pets (he has allergies and isn’t fond of having cat hair everywhere). We can communicate fine, but sometimes he gets tense. He is hypersensitive to criticism, and I believe it’s because his mom had nothing but criticisms to throw his way when he was a small child, and his previous relationship (10 years ago) his girlfriend made a habit of breaking up with him, cheating on him, putting him down, etc. His uncomfortable in a lot of social settings as well. So I believe due to his critical past with his mom and ex girlfriend, he develop a social anxiety disorder, which led to his hypersensitive response to conflict. He will still talk about it, we’ll still get through the conversation in a meaningful way, he’s just tense while it’s happening. This time he really feels rejected about me not taking his name, and I feel unequal about taking his name. He won’t go to therapy because of his hypersensitivity, so that’s why I was asking if there are any other options. He’s really convinced that a therapist is going to tell him that he’s nuts, or to grow up, or any other harsh speech.

@avlasic Would he be more willing to go to therapy on his own first? It sounds like there's a few things he's struggling with that probably are making life painful and difficult for him.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie You can role model getting help by going to therapy yourself and talking about the experience you have with it

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I’ve been going for 8 years, I’ve had food and bad experiences and shared those with him, so I think he’s scared of having the bad experiences

@avlasic ⭐⭐you're already role modeling. That's wonderful.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie We broke up

@avlasic Oh my goodness. Are you ok?

@NOCD Advocate - Katie We realized we couldn’t give each other what we needed. I’ll be okay.

@avlasic This is a big adjustment that you didn't see coming. Who can you rely on for empathy and support as you adapt?

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I’m staying at a friend’s house. I’ve also been getting a lot of support from family and other friends. I’m devastated...... we were with eachother for almost 10 years. I’ve never felt this low. We weren’t mad at eachother, we never called eachother names, ever. He was terrified of conflict because he felt awful while it was happening. Ultimately he decided he couldn’t go to couples therapy to work through things together, and we were at a stalemate. We wanted completely different things for our last names. It sounds trivial, but it bothered the both of us a lot. We tried for years. The compromise we came up with I ended up being okay with. But he wasn’t. And I can’t change that.

Thanks so much for your reply. For a short while I thought we had agreed that I would keep my last name only once we were married, and I was so much happier when that seemed to be the assumption. I don’t think I’ll be able to shake this feeling once we’re married. I think I need to prioritize myself here. We already had a good compromise when the kids would get his name and I keep mine.

I’m feeling surprisingly much better than yesterday. Still bad, but I’m not a heap of tears today. I don’t imagine this will last forever though.

@avlasic The emotions will likely come and go. How can you take advantage of feeling good today?