Happy & Healthy

I AM KALINKA, NOT

‘THE WIFE OF’

I was due for a new passport. Heavily outdated and unflattering photo, smudged cover, and an expiration date from prehistoric times – you can't get anywhere with that. At the counter of the relevant district office, I ordered a brand new identity booklet. “Would you like to include your husband's name in your passport?” asked the lady behind the counter. My eyes narrowed and with the laugh of a madwoman, I replied, “Why on earth would I want that?”.

I am me, that is the point. Who I am is not dependent on who I am married to or with whom I share my bed or home. When I got married, I was certainly not planning to attach his name to mine. Why would I? I have been on this earth with my own name for a million years and that has served me well so far. My name, my identity. I did not change because of a marriage certificate, and I do not see the necessity of an extra or different name, or making public the legal bond I have formed with someone.

You may find that very unromantic, but there is a sore point here. You can really annoy me by calling me ‘the wife of’ or ‘the girlfriend of’. It feels as if you are merely someone else's appendix, and not someone in your own right. And even though my lovely husband is a much bigger celebrity than I am – at least in certain circles; the man has a well-listened internet radio show on Red Light Radio – that does not mean I live in his shadow or think, do, and feel the same as he does. Who he is and how he behaves does not define my character. We are totally different. The same goes in reverse, of course. How silly is it if he meets someone who immediately labels him as ‘the man of’, without really listening to his name?

It feels as if you are merely someone else's appendix, and not someone in your own right.

You probably know it; it mainly happens at parties. “Oh, are you Reggie's girlfriend?” Or, if you have been talking to an unfamiliar face at a wedding for less than five seconds, the inevitable question: “And who do you belong to?” To myself, I belong to myself. Love relationships come and go. And although every relationship is different, one brings out the worst in you and another the best, they do not make you a fundamentally different person. And although it may feel like someone completes you, another is never the perfection of you as a person. You were already someone, not a blank identity that suddenly gains character by cohabiting with another. Really not, even though it seems that some people think so. You can see it in the status photos on their WhatsApp, for example, where next to their name suddenly not one face can be discerned, but two. Who are you dealing with then? With him? With her? With them? And you notice it in stories, where one of the two acts as a spokesperson for what they think. “We don't like tomatoes.” Yes, and I don't like ‘you’.

Well, that's why I reacted sharply to the question from the lady at the district office. A bit too sharply. Because when the lady chuckled amusedly that it could be handy if I wanted to travel with my daughter – who does carry my husband's last name (and it looks great on her) – without having to present special travel documents that she belongs to me, despite that other last name, I relented. Embarrassedly laughing. Oh yes. It is indeed handy – ‘wife of’ in your travel documents. I feel the beginning of capitulation here. But no, never. En garde!

Written by Kalinka Hählen