If you're not married..

[CurlewKate]

What do you call your partner's relations?

I've seen on a lot of Mumsnet threads that "She isn't your MIL, OP, you're not married."
"He isn't your nephew-he's your boyfriend's nephew."

So what do you call them?

Everyone who’s married was once unmarried. I called them my boyfriend’s mum/aunt/nephew.

Ach, just ignore those people, they are ridiculous.

Well, even if you're married, there are non-in-laws.

The woman who's married to my husband's brother isn't my sister-in-law, she's my brother-in-law's wife. The woman who married my friend's father-in-law in much later life is not her mother-in-law, she's her father-in-law's wife.

And so on

For me it depends on my actual relationship with them. If I know them well and feel like they are family then I'll call them such. If I've never met them and don't know them then they are partners whatever.

We've been together 15 years and have 2 DC. I call them my in laws.

I also call my uncles partner, who is my cousins mum my aunty. They've been together forever.

My DP is my neices uncle, just as I am his sisters dcs Aunt.

If other people don't agree they don't have to, but that's how it is in our family.

My boyfriends mum is called just that, she calls my kids her grandkids though. His brothers are tossers so even if we had been married 20 years I wouldn't be associated with them. My adult and teen kids call my boyfriend dad, it started off ironically but it's morphed into being real I think 🤣 my younger kids call him step dad because he's been around for 5 years, so most of their lives. We don't live together yet though.

I do call my sons girlfriend my DIL, more for shorthand than anything else, but they are getting married and have been together for a few years.

So basically there's no rhyme nor reason to it in my family 🤣

Yeah, this. Especially when posting on here, MIL is so much easier to type than "boyfriend's mum". In 99 times out of 100 a marriage certificate doesn't change the main point of the thread, and even if it does that's easily explained.

Outlaws?

@Chersfrozenface I disagree. My husband's brother's wife is my sister in law. The 'in law' is the key part here. They are 'legally' married. I am legally married to the brother. So isn't my sister in law just as much an in law to me as her husband?
Mind you I don't go so far as to say my MIL's second husband is my father in law, guess I could describe him as my step father in law!
I do describe my stepson's children as my step grandchildren.
OP before marriage I just said 'John's brother/mother' etc.

He doesn't have much to do with them so nothing really.

In conversation with others it tends to be John's mum/dad/sister/uncle.

I've been with DP for 20 years. I call my MIL my MIL and FIL etc...because it's just easier even though we're not married.

We’re not married, nor engaged, been together 6 years, known his family for the best part of 20 years. His sister was my best friend throughout secondary school, have good relationship with his other siblings, even before we was family I felt like family. I call them nieces/nephews, SIL/BIL ect. Even if me & DP were to break up nothing would change, I can’t imagine us not being together but even if that were to happen I think me & him would still always remain friends. Genuinely think we were all meant to merge into a family from the start. I’ve had 2 other long term relationships in the past, last one being nearly 9 years & my relationship with his family over my DP was always totally different & I did get along with ex family also! His brothers were also good friends of mine growing up but it just wasn’t the same as my DP family.

You call them what you want to at the end of the day. Sod everyone else’s thoughts.

I like this! Call them the Nin-laws OP!

like how my kids call my friends 'Naunty Rachel', because she's not actually their aunt, she's just a really good mate. Her partner is Noncle, but sounds a bit like a slang word for an awful person so he's not overly fond of it.

Or this, which is equally great