Today is an exciting day for me - my legal name change has gone through!
I know that there will be questions so I'm going to do my best to explain.
This has been in the works since 2016 - before Shaun and I were even engaged. Of course it is traditionally expected for the wife in the relationship to give up their last name and take their husband's name upon marriage, but I truly loathe everything about the tradition of marriage. That is a rant that I'm not interested in going into today, but suffice it to say that we signed up to be legal spouses rather than husband and wife - so why would we do anything else the traditional way?
I mean no ill will or hard feelings towards Shaun's relatives, but the Sexton name was not meant for me. Everyone who knew Shaun's father knew that he was a deeply religious man. Anyone who knows me and Shaun well knows that we are atheists. Unfortunately, that caused a fair bit of friction and Shaun's father expressed to us in no uncertain terms that Shaun (and eventually me, as well) not being in the church was bringing shame on the family name. He would make comments or have us read passages or quotes along the same vein.
Us changing our names was not done in retaliation or to be petty - though we are not religious we are also not assholes. We'd never want to shame his legacy and this separates us from it. As skeptics, we require proof of a claim in order to change our beliefs and none was ever presented. A person can't be forced to believe something they don't believe so we had an irreconcilable difference. This doesn't mean that we don't believe we were loved or that we didn't love him in return - we did. But this was undeniably a very sore spot for him.
Also, neither of us believe that a child should exist to fulfill a parent's expectation. That is a heavy burden to bear. We believe that our offspring are whole new people with different ideas and experiences and beliefs. We encourage Shadow and Kira to be fully who they are and not only have they have been a pleasure to get to know, but our relationship with them is not strained. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaking of the kids - I call them kids but they are 22 years old. They are legal adults. They are welcome to take our last name if they want it; however, both of them have expressed that they are happy with their names and that is 100% ok.
There are other practical reasons for this change, too. Our names on the bills and the house and the cars and all of that are a mess. Sometimes there is only space for one last name. Sometimes one of us is put in the "notes" section. This will clean that up entirely. Not to mention that this is just another piece of our slow and beautiful combining to be a united front. I love that even after almost 14 years together we are still happy and "all in" enough to want to do this.
So why Xenethos? Shaun took the letters from Sexton and Stephens and mashed them up. This was our favorite outcome. It means "strange character" which does, indeed, fit us.
Why now? I'd planned to change my name after college, but unfortunately Shaun's father passed away not long before I graduated. Then we had estate stuff to handle and changing a name during that seemed like a bad idea. Then we moved and needed to get settled and live here for 6 months before we could do it, so there was that. Finally, the timing was right.
How do you say it? Zen-e-thos (I'll do this better, maybe.)
Funny Story: We went to file our paperwork together and I turned mine in first and received my court date. Shaun did his right after me and received an earlier court date by about 6 weeks. So TECHNICALLY the universe did a little shit on my head and made me take his name after all, but it's all good. I'm just happy it's done. I've been Blu Xenethos in my head for 5+ years now.
If I missed anything with my explanation feel free to ask questions - I'm happy to answer!
