To find the use of the word ‘fiancé’ irritating?

Well if that floats his boat, it makes you sound quite exotic 😁😁

I agree. So you don’t think he should refer to me at a corporate event as his “lady friend”?🤣

I still use it. As do many people I know.
For engaged couples.
I also use husand/wife/spouse.
For married couples.
I use boyfriend/girlfriend too.
Lady friend/man friend too.
For people going out regularly.

I only use partner if the person themselves uses it to describe themselves.

I use partner, as in business partner, more so.

Partner. Sums it up to me. If you said husband, who would really care though? Unless they are your lawyer or IFA, it doesn’t matter. No one really cares do they?

I always ask on threads like this what I should call the man I have been in a committed monogamous relationship with for the past 40 years?

Oh, no one knew we’d got married for years! And I’m your partner in this scenario! And yes to the grudging wedding.

People think it's wild that my parents don't know we have a CP. We were on the cusp of begrudgingly doing a tiny wedding for admin purposes when it started to look like the rules were going to change so we held off.
I know the date but that's the sort of information I hold on to, my partner couldn't even tell you what month or year it was! 😆

Yes, exactly, that’s why we would have chosen a CP if it had been available for straight couples then. Having said that, we got married in jeans with two witnesses, and literally nothing changed in our happy, egalitarian relationship. Some posters on here were horrified that I have only the vaguest idea when our wedding anniversary is, or thought I was pretending to be ‘cool’.

The institute of marriage and it's legacy very much is built around that idea though. Having witnessed too much domestic abuse that ramped up following marriage as now "you are mine" was something I didn't want to support. So when we decided to formalise our relationship from a legal and admin point of view, and as we had the choice, we chose to not get married and had a civil partnership instead.

I have not changed my name, we didn't have wedding rings, we didn't exchange wedding vows, I didn't have a wedding dress. I had no desire to be a bride or a "Mrs", or a wife just as my partner had no desire to be a groom or husband. My partner and I are in a committed loving relationship and we class ourselves as being in a partnership where we both in consider one anothers wants needs and requirements always. For us our values aligned more with the concept of a civil partnership than a marriage.

The meaning of the word partner really does seem have to become much broader than it was. I know several older people who use it to mean "the bloke that I go out with, but don't live with", whereas at one time it would have meant someone that with whom you live full time.

Marriage doesn't make someone an 'item of property'. I am married but my father did not 'give me away'. I kept my surname (no judgement to those who didn't, but my body of professional work is under my own name so I wasn't going to change it) You do you, but I don't think that marriage is the patriarchal institution that some people insist.

I've never used the term 'partner'. That's far more cringe than fiancé IMO.

People that don't want to be married but do want to be legally connected to their partner.
We waited until civil partnerships were available to heterosexual couples as we didn't want to be married/have a wedding so we did a simple 2+2 civil partnership one Tuesday morning which gives us the legal protection that marriage gives without the baggage of marriage and all that comes with it.

I am not an item of my father's property that can be given away

I couldn’t say anything about stats but some people feel CP is an institution less frighted with historical inequality than marriage. If it had been available for straight people, DH and I would certainly have chosen it when we married.

Who even is in civil partnerships these days? That died out with marriage equality.

Of all the silly threads I've read, this one has to be one of the silliest. YABVU.

What about for those in civil partnership? Where legally they are not husband and wife and neither fiancé or boyfriend are appropriate?

Ha ha, yes! I have several partners as well as a husband.

This made me smile. I've been reading too much Austen lately.

I'm more annoyed with people calling someone they have known for five minutes their partner. But I know that's a "me issue".

I prefer using words which don't telegraph legal relationship status, both for myself and for others.

99% of the time I don't care whether the other people are married and fiancé sounds like over sharing. Good for you, but who cares?

That's the correct term to use. Partner is awful. I prefer fiancé/boyfriend/husband.

Absolutely we did, when I was at uni in the 80s/90s there was a definite push to use partner as a way to be an ally so it was normalized. I think it also fit well with the move amoung straight people to living together without getting married, so filled a gap.

I have a theory that those that use 'D'H are trying to disguise the fact they are actually an arsehole!

I agree. I hate 'partner'. It sounds like someone you play tennis with.

I’m old-school. I think straight people poached “partner” from same-sex couples, who used to use the term to mean, “My long-term gay lover, who I live with and would marry were that legally possible.” Women talking about their male “partners” makes me cringe, so I’m perfectly fine with your colleague talking about her fiancé.