It's March 1998, eight months after I've made my vows and put the wedding gown into its mysteriously sealed dry-cleaning tomb. By now I've grown accustomed to the changed last name, and I've recently amended my byline for brevity's sake. No maiden name, no middle initial, just me and the last name I share with my husband.

I'm content with that decision, and happy to be married to a guy who (among other wonderful things) never expected me to change my name in the first place.

Something about getting married makes me want to get super organized. We start using financial software and tracking our spending habits in the hopes of forming a realistic budget. Come tax time, we brace ourselves for more complicated forms, what with combined incomes and the complexities of self-employment and education factors. We want to start off on the right foot, after all. So we buy a copy of TurboTax and pat ourselves on the back for being so grown up.

After the software sits idle for a week or so, I offer to start plugging in the basics on my own. I figure if I get to anything I can't answer (or more likely, lose patience sorting through the details) I'll just wait for counsel from my former-accountant hubby.

I clear off the desk and surround myself with the various manila folders holding CompUSA receipts, W-2 forms and miscellaneous tax-saving articles we've collected in the past year. I even make myself a soothing cup of Sleepy Time-which I like to do just to overdramatize the idea of Doing My Taxes. I get comfy and open up TurboTax. After an introduction and product updates, the first question pops up: Who is the primary taxpayer?

Hmm…Is this a trick question? I glance down the screen to see blank lines for a Primary Taxpayer and a Spouse. I don't know what I expected to see when we decided to file Married Jointly, but it wasn't Primary Taxpayer and Spouse.

My tea suddenly tastes a little funny. I brace myself for the tsunami of bitterness that is swelling out on the horizon. Oh no, don't do it, Liz…come on, be an adult. Don't freak out.

Too late.

So I suppose HE is the primary taxpayer, just because he's the man of the house? My mind is suddenly reeling and I've instantly switched gears from Reasonable Tax-Paying Citizen to Disrespected, Second-Class Other. And I'm not even a significant other, mind you, just an extra name. I'm no longer a taxpayer, but the spouse of taxpayer. A subset of a person. A contributor by association only.

I am not feeling good about this at all.

My mind continues to race. And though I know it's crass, I remind myself that he is in grad school and, even considering school loan income, I'm making more money than he is-so shouldn't that count for something?

I realize he would shudder if he heard me thinking these things, which is why I do what every Daddy's Girl does in a moment of such distress: Call home. I relay the scenario to my father, including details of these internal torments and even irrelevant information on my widespread struggles as an individual, a woman and a newlywed wife.

His response is atypically acidic, but as always, cuts through the crap. "Well, Lib, what can I say but 'It's a man's world." Thanks Pop. "Punkin, I don't know what to tell you…when Mom and I first did this, we never thought twice about it." I don't bother pointing out that the year they first filed taxes together was 1966, and just think how far women have come in society. I don't point this out because I figure if we women had made such enormous cultural leaps, then I wouldn't be spazzing like this. I wouldn't be wasting an entire afternoon on the section of the return that is technically called Label. I have not even made it to line 1.

Why this is suddenly a big deal when changing my name was effortless, I'm not quite sure. Somehow changing the name was more fun, like we had formed a team or private club. Plus, when I adopted McGuire as my own, I was able to make my Welborn my middle name. So my heritage and sense of self, if you will, remained intact. On the tax forms, they don't even seem to care who I was before I got married.

To find out how the income was separated, someone would have to dig deeper and turn several pages to get to the W-2. But on the basic form itself, my name appears once and it's never attached to any money.

Perhaps the theorists are right when they say that we as a society invest too much of our self-value in our paycheck. I'm not here to debate that because I don't think that is my problem anyway. My problem is that today I feel faceless. I don't count. How would the IRS know that I, too, contributed to the Total Income on line 22? Why don't they care? And more important, why do I want those government bean-counters to care anyway?

After analyzing myself to the point of annoyance, I slouch once again in my chair to face the evil IRS and its devil-messenger, TurboTax.

I notice a link in this first question, a link apparently leading to an extended definition of taxpayer. I move my mouse over it and click. Up pops a box with these words: "On returns with more than one name, such as married filing jointly, you'll have what's called a primary taxpayer and a secondary taxpayer, or the taxpayer and the spouse. Primary doesn't mean they're better or earn more. It just means that somebody's got to go first."

And suddenly the sky opens up and the angels sing Hallelujah.

Somebody's got to go first. These guys should quit software development and look into marital counseling.

I am a little embarrassed that such a simple idea made such a tremendous impact on me, but that quote is the only thing that got our taxes completed on time that year. Somebody's got to go first. My husband and I have since embraced the phrase as somewhat of a mantra for times when we fear some tiny injustice will upset the boat.

Since then I have found great comfort in the realization that relationships are never entirely equal. In a world where women are often prepared to fight any inequity, there is value in choosing our battles. Sometimes it takes something as minor as a tax return to remind myself not to spend an inordinate amount of energy fighting the one I love just to fight something.

Unless we regulate our marriage by a strict, systematic code, things will always be an ongoing swap meet of responsibility and fairness. One of us will end up taking out the garbage more often than the other. One of us will earn more money than the other. And if we continue to file our taxes together, then only one of us will have a name at the top of the annual tax return.