Wednesday, August 27, 2008

We're husband and husband now

As Luis and I were legally married on July 2, we are officially husband and husband. At least now there should be no confusion as to what we should call each other, and the term others should use.
But we were speaking to an immigration official. I said my husband needed to speak to him as well. So he asked me to put my "partner" on the line.
Well, Luis and I are not in business together.
OK, I may have used that awkward expression before. But I don't need to anymore.
If I call him my husband, he is my husband. It has happened a couple of times now.
I had e-mailed my former colleague and friend Carrie Mason-Draffen about this and felt a little better after reading her response.
She said when she got married in the early 1980s, she hyphenated her name, a source of constant confusion. One time when she said her name to an airline reservation agent, the agent asked her how many people she was referring to.
"Society does change," she wrote. "So take heart."
That's true.

1 comment:

squirrelmama said...

Actually, you and Luis don't need to have a hyphen between your names (or between yourselves). A hyphen looks like a minus sign. What you share between you now is a nice big PLUS SIGN!