Dear Bunmi, my fiancée and I are set to get married soon. She has told me she sees no reason why she should take my surname. 

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I believe she should be proud to. But she says she doesn’t see any reason why she has to give up her ‘individuality’.

She has offered to hyphenate our surnames, but I think that’s just ridiculous. I am a traditional man and I find her attitude irritating. 

Dear Bunmi, lf she’s not going to be proud to take my name, I’m not sure I want to go through with the wedding. 

Muazu, By e-mail.

Dear Muazu,

Is there more to this relationship than a name change? 

You need to really sit with your fiancée and have a ‘heart-to-heart’ about your expectations of marriage and of each other, before setting a wedding date.

It looks as if there might be a major mismatch here that could cause problems in future.

You described yourself as traditional (and I’m guessing also quite conservative), which usually means you have set ideas on how a wife should behave.

Your fiancée wants to maintain her independence and may see marriage as more of an equal partnership than the conventional ‘man-is-boss’ model.

This is not a good sign for future happiness, when you’re not prepared to compromise by hyphenating your surnames.  It is, after all, a meeting-in-the-middle solution.

You’ve got a lifetime of decisions to make together, which are far more important. All should be made as joint decisions, with each of you prepared to meet in the middle.

Share your problems and release your burden. Write now to Dear Bunmi: [email protected].

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