Christina Anstead is returning to her roots and her maiden name, announcing on Wednesday that she has changed her surname back to Haack.
In an Instagram post, the Flip or Flop The star explained that her grandmother, Mildred “Biddy” Haack, was “Christina’s greatest influence as she grew up”. Now, after his 2018 divorce from Tarek El Moussa and the 2020 divorce from Ant Anstead, it seems that Mildred was also his biggest inspiration when it came to changing his name again.
“She was always real in a world of so many fakes. I spent summers on my family’s farm and spent the night awake talking. She is the only person I have really trusted in life,” wrote Christina of her grandmother. . “I miss her every day. Remove the family’s surname and know that my grandparents are smiling up there.”
Barbara Greenberg, a child and family psychologist, told Yahoo Life that the television personality explained the decision quite directly. “Her grandmother was the only person she trusted completely,” Greenberg points out. “The implication is that she wants the name of someone she can trust, and that it is not the two men she has divorced.”
Although Christina did not change her name between her marriages to El Moussa and Anstead, Greenberg explains that she probably wants to return to her “original identity”, especially after revealing her journey to “get to know me” after her last separation.
“In my clinical experience, when a divorce is more contentious, I have seen women very, very ready to go back to their maiden name,” explains Greenberg.
Laura Wasser, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in California family law, agrees with Greenberg’s sentiment. “They want to recover and have a sense of identity and go back to who they were if their marriage was not happy,” she says of women returning to their maiden names.
Still, she tells Yahoo Life that it is not uncommon for others to keep her married name after the divorce.
“Many women keep their names because they have been identified for a long time as a given name that is difficult to change. Especially if they have children, they want to have the same name as their children the night before. It is useful for school and travel,” says Wasser . “Sometimes a person’s sense of identity goes with their spouse’s name or who he was in the world and he doesn’t necessarily want to miss it.”
In terms of the process for making legal change happen, Wasser says it is not difficult in California. “Actually, it’s just a check mark on the box when you file your petition or your response to the divorce. You say, I want to return to my maiden name and you put your maiden name, so that the divorce sentence is granted, you get your maiden name back, “she explains. “If you decide to do this later or at another time, there are only other forms you will have to fill out.”
As for Christina now with a different surname from her three children – Taylor and Brayden El Moussa, which she shares with Tarek El Moussa, and Hudson Anstead, which she shares with Ant Anstead – Wasser says this is not uncommon, nor is it legally an issue .
Greenberg adds that returning to a name that none of Christina’s children share may even be a way to make things more “fair” for her half brothers. “It might be easier for her to have a name that is different from all children, instead of sharing a name with the child and not with the other two,” explains Greenberg, noting that she obviously has no way of knowing whether or not this factored in the Christina’s decision making.
Ultimately, Christina’s name change and personal reasons for doing so make it the best decision for her and her family.
“If she is feeling better and stronger because she changed that name to connect with her grandmother, then that must be good for the children too,” says Greenberg.
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