How to address a woman

Here is my eternal conundrum.

I really dislike being addressed as Mrs. I mean, it's not like I get in people's face about it. In fact, I rarely mention it to anyone at all. But I sincerely, honestly hate it.

And this influences how I view client correspondence. Because I have a nearly physical reaction to addressing any client as Mrs.

Well, I take that back. A very old lady whose husband just died contacted us, and I felt that it was probably wrong to send her a letter addressed to Ms. Blah Blah. I figured considering her age, she would probably prefer Mrs., and that's what I used.

But for couples, who are John and Linda Smith, when I am writing them a letter telling them their estate planning file is closed, and I have to address Mr. and Mrs. Smith - ugh. I just want to vomit. But Mr. and Ms. Smith looks weird.

I dunno. It is not particularly important. And most of my important clients are getting divorced anyway, so I feel like the default to Ms. is appreciated. It's just these dumb, one-off people that get me all in a tizzy.

Cellmate, 12 years older than I am, thinks it is insulting to be addressed as Ms. by people who know she is married. She thinks it is the difference between "our generations," though she isn't THAT much older than me, maybe she's right.

I also agonzied abotu becoming Mrs. Husband instead of keeping my birth name. I finally decided the annoyance of people calling me teh "wrong" name my whole life because of our children - teachers would assume I was Mrs. Husband, as well as parents of friends, etc. - outweighed my preference to remain my birthname. And Husband really appreciated that I became Mrs. Husband. Weirdly, that was an important thing for him.

So maybe it is not a generational thing so much as it is a me thing.

Anyway... *prods file closing letters* *scowls*