People rally around woman who refused to drop her ex-husband's last name due to the hassles involved

Sometimes, life does not take the trajectory that one expects and presents a completely different scenario. It is what happened with u/TAlastname. She did everything a woman is supposed to do in this society. She got married, was a wonderful wife and had kids. Still, life took an unexpected turn for her. Her husband came out as gay after over 2 decades of marriage. She still took it on the chin and parted ways amicably. As was the custom, she had taken her husband's surname. After the separation, everything was overwhelming and seeing that the process was so complicated, she delayed changing back to her maiden name. Unfortunately, after 2 years of divorce, her ex has expressed discomfort about this and asked her to get the change done immediately. 

She protested, citing the time and money involved in the process. The ex-wife shared the entire story on Reddit. The woman began the post by giving background about the situation. She wrote, "My ex-husband (who I'll call him by his fake name Tony) and I broke up 2 years ago after 26 years of marriage. We have four children together." After that, she shared how there was no bitterness in the situation as his husband had come to terms with his sexual orientation and his ex-wife understood it.

The issue started two years later at their son's party when her ex came to know that she had not changed her surname. She explains, "Honestly, it would suck to have to change everything, go to government agencies, pay for everything new, go to the bank to change everything, so I didn't want to take out his last name, but I introduce myself by my maiden name, only in the documents is it this name."

Her son had taken all her documents to make reservations for a holiday. It was after seeing these documents he realized his mother had still not changed her surname. The son joked about it at the party, which reached the father's ears. The father is engaged to a man and did not like this at all and straightaway went to his ex-wife to enquire about this. After learning this was indeed true, he asked her to get the name change done immediately. She replied, "Unless you can go in my place, spend hours and hours in lines and pay hundreds for it, I won't do it in the near future."

It bothered him and even though he said nothing at the party, the next day, he called her and said she was rude to react this way. They have now stopped talking. The mother asked for her son's opinion and said he understood both sides. He understood her reasons behind not getting it changed and at the same time, he also did not find anything wrong with his father's reservations. He refused to take a side, so the mother came on Reddit for a third opinion.

The comment section was on her side and did not find anything wrong with what she did. u/simAlity does not believe there was anything wrong with what she did and provided a solution by saying, "NTA. If having his ex share a last name with him bothers him that much, then maybe he should take his fiancé's name after they marry."

u/StoreyTimePerson disliked the attitude adopted by the ex-husband and wrote, "NTA. In part, this speaks to male privilege. We're expected to go through the rigmarole of changing our name and then expected to change it back, but it's actually a massive pain in the arse. Also, what if you have built a career under that name? Your hesitancy is completely understandable."