I broke up with my ex of 5 years about a year ago and I've hit a lot of amazing career milestones since then. From things I just couldn't do because I was constantly taking care of his sloppy ass to just the pure dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time. It's been a period of just incredible growth for me, which makes me happy on the one hand but also a little jaded that I couldn't do it sooner because of how stifling my ex was.

But today I remembered one of the last fights we got in before we broke up, where I said that I didn't want to take his last name if we got married and he lost his shit on me. We'd had the same fight before a few times, and it was always, "it's no big deal! Everyone does it! You HAVE to! I need to reclaim my family name!"

Okay, if it's no big deal then why don't YOU do it? was always my thought, as well as, Why do I have to reclaim your family name FOR you?! What does that even have to do with me?! Why are you talking like a fucking Disney character?!

He was never physically abusive, but looking back, I think he was emotionally abusive because he wouldn't let the conversation go (including not letting me leave the room or even sleep when I had work in the morning) until I was completely, 100% on his side.

The thought of changing my name to his physically revolted me, because it felt like I'd be erasing a huge part of my identity. I know some women don't feel this way but that was really my #1 reason and I felt it strongly. Secondary reasons were the legal aspect (I have a business tied to my name) and the fact that his last name was ugly and in a foreign language that I didn't speak and didn't match me at all. (The ugliness doesn't have to do with the language, just to clarify. The language itself is beautiful. But imagine like "Butts" in Chinese or something, when I'm a blonde haired blue eyed gal.)

Well this time we got in this big fight at his mom's house, and after maybe 20 minutes of arguing, he blurted out, "You just want to keep your last name because your brother's a lawyer."

And that's when it fully dawned on me.

I saw myself as a hard-working, smart, independent woman who's made a name for HERSELF and has her own, deeply personal reasons for wanting to keep her name. He saw me as an extension of a man and nothing more. If I wasn't willing to be a complement to HIS life and "legacy" then it must be because I was latched on to ANOTHER man's legacy, and we couldn't have that! Not when I'd be of such better use in lifting his shitty family out of it's trashiness!

Also, the cognitive dissonance is not lost on me: somehow I wasn't accomplished enough to actually want to keep my name for my own reasons (just mooching off of dad and brother), yet by taking his name I'd be adding so much to his "family legacy". Give me a fucking break.

So, my ex can see all the good things that are happening to me now, and I can tell it's hitting him hard.

But you know what?

I've ALWAYS been accomplished in my own right.

I did insanely well before him and I'm doing insanely well without him, and there's just this weird gap in between where he held me underwater. But he still knew. He's just mad that I'm hardworking and successful and it WON'T reflect on him.