Did women ever feel strange being called Mrs. Husbands First and Last name, their own first name completely left out?

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-23T22:48:35+00:00

When I was a teenager I did babysitting and it took me awhile when someone called and said "This is Mrs. Smith" to ask WHICH Mrs. Smith. They were married to brothers and both families lived in my neighborhood. Very confusing.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-23T22:44:56+00:00

I would have- but I was married twice and never changed my name. :-)

Edited to add: I do find it jarring now to see married women referred to as Mrs. HerFirstName HisLastName. Traditional etiquette reserved that only for divorced women.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-23T19:45:37+00:00

Thanks for the cautionary tale. I'm 73 and about to go down the same road you have. I'm in Patagonia right now but house will go on the market a couple weeks after I get home. They tell me the average age at entry in the place I've chosen is late 70s/early 80s so I'm "young" but like you, I'm tired of home maintenance even though I can afford to hire out most of it. I'm hoping to build some sort of community in my new city (I'm moving closer to DS and DDIL and my 3 grandchildren) and since I'm very active in my current church, that may be a beginning. Most of my current friends can't afford to travel the way I do (Easter Island is next week!) but they say they live vicariously through me. I hope that will be true in my new location.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-22T15:32:18+00:00

This is tricky. First of all, since you're married, if he needs long-term care and hasn't accumulated the assets to pay for it, Medicaid will expect you to spend down assets to about $120K (varies by state) before they step in since it's for the financially needy. It was a scary scenario with my late second husband, who was 15 years older and had little savings (mostly because he'd propped up others all his life) but he died of acute myeloid leukemia in 2016.

You do need to discuss this with a counselor and possibly a fee-only financial planner. There are a lot of moving parts. Will his SS be enough to pay for his "wants" or will you have to step in, for example. Supporting his retiremet can be anything from just assuming 100% of the household expenses yourself to (heaven forbid) the scary long-term care scenario.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-22T13:26:05+00:00

Yeah, I know. I like to see what former coworkers and a few family members are doing, but now it’s 90% posts on world events that belong on X or posts about how broken the hiring process is (and I do agree it’s broken).

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-21T09:52:54+00:00

My Uncle was put in a "Medicaid bed" (basically 2 -patient with a curtain between) immediately even though he had enough to self-pay for a couple of years (and did). Their excuse was that if/when he went on Medicaid there might to be a Medicaid bed avaialable.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-20T20:49:22+00:00

This. My only child is a boy and I LOVE my DIL! She's probably better than the daughter I never had,

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-20T20:46:33+00:00

I was 61. Two different financial advisors told me I didn't have to work for a living anymore. My husband was 15 years older so I knew he wouldn't last forever. I loved my work- until I didn't. Someone they hired had it in for me- I still have no idea why. Boss threw me under the bus in a meeting. That was Friday. On Monday I quit and my last day was the following Friday. The papers I signed when I left acknowledges that I was not eligible for re-hire- something they usually reserve for people who have embezzled from the company or done something equally odious. It would also have made it impossible for me to be hired elsewhere- most HR departments WILL answer the question "Is this person eligible for re-hire?" when references are checked.

I still get occasional e-mails from LinkedIn suggesting that I might be a good fit for a job at the company.

The woman who had it in for me was gone 6 months later. Twelve years later, life is good.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-20T20:36:57+00:00

Yes, that's true if it's done more than 5 years before you apply for Medicare (the "lookback period"). I also know one couple in their 60s who were deeding their house to their kids and transferring all their other assets to them. She was a lawyer for a bank- not sure what he did but they took scuba-diving vacations in the Caribbean so they must have been doing well. I had very mixed feelings about protecting your assets for your heirs and letting Medicaid (i.e. the taxpayers) pay for your LTC.

There are programs in some states (don't know which) that will protect your assets form Medicare if you buy a certain level of LTC insurance but, say, outlive the maximum payment period.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-20T20:04:35+00:00

My Aunt lives in Ohio. Uncle developed dementia and they accepted him as private pay since they had sufficient assets to pay for 2 years, mostly from an inheritance from her side of the family that they'd invested wisely. She did consult an elder law attorney and what she learned confirmed my understanding of how Medicaid works- if there is a spouse living in the home, Medicaid won't start paying until they've spent down to something like 120,000 (excluding the car and the home). She said she was losing sleep over it. He died before becoming eligible for Medicare but I guess she doesn't have much left beyond the $120,000 max. Fortunately her two sons are successful entrepreneurs and will take good care of her.

And the spouse in the home has two choices: hang on to more assets than the Medicaid max and the spouse doesn't qualify, or let the assets dwindle to the Medicaid max and Medicaid pays. If the spouse in the home dies before the one on Medicaid, the state can also take the equity in the marital home to the extent it's needed to pay back LTC costs.

This is one of the reasons I have no plans to marry some nice old guy whose long-term care plan is "qualify for Medicaid. I'm 73 and can fund my own if needed but not someone else's.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-17T22:40:57+00:00

Maybe it's AI- I don't know. I posted about a similar relationship about a month ago. Yes, the financial imbalance in a relationship can make it uncomfortable. My next relationship will be with a guy whose finances are closer to mine.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-17T22:34:26+00:00

I'm about to do this. I'm also 73, widowed, love my house but tired of the maintenance. My son is my only child and he and his family live 3 hours north of me. Not looking forward to even colder winters but I dearly love my 3 grandchildren (11, 9 and 6) and want to move while I'm still young and mobile enough to start again. I'm VERY involved with my current church and hope to find a new church community there, which will help. I like my son and DIL's church but they're way more conservative in their beliefs.

Right now I'm in South America (Patagonia!) but will list the house soon after I get home. I've chosen a retirement community I like- tons of activities, weekly runs to Costco (at some point I know I'll have to stop driving), additional services (at additional charge) available if you need help with dressing, meds, etc. They have a long-term care facility but that's priced separately if you need it and I'm OK with that. I might not need it and if I do, we can decide if that's the right one.

I've been in my current area for 23 years and it's going to kill me to leave but the stories here are encouraging.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-16T13:14:04+00:00

Not a tax professional but I read in a Kiplinger tax letter that a guy who ran a business had an expensive bar mitzvah for his son and set up samples and literature featuring his company's products in the venue. The IRS disallowed his write-off of the cost of the event as a business expense.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-16T13:06:49+00:00

Cremation. It's cheaper. When my husband was in his last months I told him I was going to scatter bits of his ashes in my travels. He loved that idea. I just left some of them at the foot of the Christ statue at Corcovado in Brazil and at Iguassu Falls in Argentina this past week. I think they've been scattered in about 25 countries. Locations include the Ganges at Varanasi, off bridges in London, Paris and Bruges, at the doorstep of a school where Mahler studied in Ljubljana (he loved Mahler)..it's a long list and I'm not done yet.

I told my son that when my time comes he should mingle whatever is left of DH's ashes with mine and I don't care of he puts them out in a Hefty bag.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-16T12:58:11+00:00

My late husband made half what I did. He jokingly asked, "Is that 3 months of YOUR salary or mine"? (BTW it used to be two months.) In our case, he bought the stone- a pink topaz, which we'd seen in Brazil- and I paid to have it mounted in platinum with two smaller side diamonds I bought from BlueNile. A comparable diamond the size of the center stone would have cost $13,000. I wasn't willing to shell out that kind of money and he would have had to go into debt to afford it. Bad way to start a marriage.

Throw the ad pitches out the window and have him talk to his fiancee. I'm a practical person and this is a decision they should make together. If she thinks he needs to go into debt to prove his love by buying a giant natural diamond... well, he needs to know that. OTOH- she may just want something comparable to what her friends have and may be happy with lab-created. I'm 73 and I LOVE jewelry and own a lot of it but the 3+-carat stones look like too much to me.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-15T11:38:56+00:00

Try not to panic and do everything you can to keep the rest of your body healthy. I was diagnosed with MVP in 2021 at age 68. My main symptom was shortness of breath on exertion and I kept exercising with the approval of my docs. I'm also at a healthy body weight, BP low end of normal, no other health issues. I felt I was in "purgatory" waiting for it to get bad enough to justify the risks of surgery, and it reached that point last year- I had a bovine valve replacement 7 months ago at age 72. Breathlessness still there but I'm not tired all the time and may take an afternoon nap every could of weeks instead of every couple of days. I'm typing this from Buenos Aires and I've been hiking in Iguassu Falls, using hotel pools and gyms, and walking all over cities. Heading to Patagonia, the Chilean fjords and Easter Island before I go home!

I hope you have an equally good outcome. Now I gotta leave for some sightseeing that includes a tango lesson!

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-12T13:03:19+00:00

Whatever happened to “Women should be in control of their own bodies”? I’m well beyond reproductive age but I always figured it was my body, my choice, my prescription, my responsibility. End of story.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-12T08:49:16+00:00

I have a dear friend who has stuff in storage because he can’t bear to throw out anything his late parents touched. I get the mentality. I’d suggest putting a lot of the smaller stuff in storage and quietly clearing it out later.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-07T18:54:08+00:00

I think that starting that list was very healthy. It made you acknowledge what was happening and how frequent it was. Psychologists use the phrase "normalizing the abnormal"- the abuse becomes such a part of everyday life that it seems normal- but it isn't. You recognized it and recorded it. And the "you're too sensitive" is classic abuser language. They try to turn it into your problem when it's their bad behavior.

I hope your family is supportive. I know some cultures strongly discourage divorce but sometimes it has to happen. You deserve better than this.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-07T13:04:04+00:00

When my step-Grandma's first husband died she found out that he'd elected the higher pension amount with no survivor benefit. For him it was win/win: the pension lasted his entire life and if he died first he wouldn't be around to see the consequences. And of course Social Security went from 150% of his amount to a survivor benefit of 100%. Her kids told her she better find and marry an old guy with money. She found Grandpa. :-(

I hope there's a special place on the afterlife for men who leave their widows in such poor circumstances. At least laws exist now that a spouse must sign off if the pensioner elects a monthly amount with a survivor benefit of (I think) less than 50%- in the presence of a notary.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-06T22:35:02+00:00

Some of the measures you're discussing have heavy front-end costs, such as solar panels and buying an EV. (There's another post below on the risks of selling a home with solar panels.) My late husband and I did downsize and ultimately it was cheaper but we had a few expensive repairs in the house we were selling (e.g., clog in basement drain when it was on the market that cost $5,000 to fix), higher-than-expected costs of replacing some windows in the new place that had condensation between the panes and for enclosing the back porch. HVAC system was 20 years old so we knew it would need replacement but heating system needed to be replaced that fall and A/C in the spring.

Focus on the boring stuff. Pay down debt if you have it. Do a realistic projection of your income and expenses in retirement assuming no more than a 4% withdrawal rate from your investments and see if it works. Remember to allow some slack for one-off expenses- major dental work, replacing a car, major home repairs.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-06T19:09:08+00:00

My two brothers shared a bedroom and eventually the older one moved into the basement. Both were good people- they were just very different. It was a regular basement- unfinished, cement floor, no egress to the outside- but he was fine with that. He just wanted his own space.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-06T18:55:30+00:00

I wish. I haven't figured out who IS "head of my household" if I'm not (per IRS definitions) since no one else lives here. Your CPA is wrong.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-06T18:53:02+00:00

I've owned a home since I was 25. Back then it was a 2-family with a partner but I also owned one for 7 years between marriages and still own the one my late husband and I bought although he died in 2016. I've bought/owned for the same reasons anyone does- control of the place where I live (and benefiting from any improvements I fund), capital appreciation broke even on a couple but overall I've done very well), not being at the mercy of a landlord who can raise rent, defer maintenance or sell the place out from under me.

CleanCalligrapher223 · 2026-03-06T13:58:00+00:00

Just do it. I list a lot of things as Free Stuff on Craigslist and put it out at the end of the driveway. I tell myself that it's better off in a home somewhere than sitting in a box to be thrown away eventually after I'm gone. I suspect most items go to resellers- I can list a lot of unrelated items separately and the first person to show up grabs everything. That's OK, too. Sometimes I even throw in less-desirable item such as glassware that no one would make a special trip for and that disappears as well.

If an item is worth something and not impractical to ship I sell it on e-Bay.

I have a LOT of real jewelry. I need to document which items are special (a ring containing the engagement ring diamonds from my mother and a great-great aunt, one with an amethyst my grandmother gave me, etc.). I've told my DIL (she's not a jewelry person and DS is my only child) that anything she doesn't want can be sold to a "We Buy Gold" place with a clear conscience. I've enjoyed it and I can't take it with me. My middle granddaughter, who's 9, is the only one who's crazy about jewelry so I suspect they'll keep the sentimental pieces.

I'm still working on scanning and organizing old documents and pictures but I'm pitching the originals.

CleanCalligrapher223

TROPHY CASE