To want to call the Man I married my Husband

[Mrsdavidcaruso]

First I am not saying that Marriage is in any way superior and don't want to have a discussion about that, its more how someone wants the the special person in their life to be described or referred to.

The word Partner is exactly the correct term to use for the vast majority of people who are in a relationship but not married, but I do object when someone refers to my Husband, knowing he is my Husband as my Partner when I have made it clear I find it offensive.

If I am in mixed company where other halves are discussed like parent groups/childrens groups then the word Partner is the right word to use, forms with the word Partner on can (and are) changed by me to Husband.

But in a one to one situation I expect the person I am talking to refer to the man I married (not Mr Caruso alas) as My Husband.

I am going into Hospital soon and the Nurse was taking details, and asked me if my Partner would be picking me up after surgery, now just because I am Mrs C on paperwork does not of course mean that I am still married to Mr C so she was right to use the word in that context.

However when I said my Husband would be picking me up she continued to use the word Partner, when I gently and politely explained that I have a Husband not a Partner and I didn’t want her to keep referring to him as my Partner, I got a lecture from her saying ‘we don’t use the words Husband or Wife or Spouse as it discriminates against unmarried and same sex couples ‘.

As I say I can understand that term being used when addressing a group of people all with different situations and I would never in such circumstances demand the word Husband be used just for me in that situation.

But this was just her and myself and surely having established that I wanted to use the term Husband that she should have shown me courtesy and respect by using the same term herself and not giving me a lecture.

I am afraid in the end I got very annoyed and told her I found her attitude personally offensive and terminated the meeting, ( I will find out what I want to on the net).

I am sure there are plenty of people on here who would find it equally offensive to have their Partner referred to as their Husband or Wife when they have made it clear they prefer to use the word Partner.

So I don’t think I am being that unreasonable or am I?

I think that we have come a long way from OP and while there is no doubt that some NHS have no tact and empathy some are excellent and you get the whole range between, in fact the whole of human nature.
However, it is a fact that now it is standard practice to say partner which covers all eventualities. I really can't see that it matters.

I can see why married felt like that. cheeky HCP commenting on married's home and being insensitive after her poor ds

thanks for being open about your experiences and glad you got through it and had your dd.

Oh if you want to descend to that level what do you wear then a belt for a skirt and face full of piercings?

Now that's just cuntish.

I love the use of the term 'insubordinate' on this thread

At first, I thought the poster had merely picked the wrong word, didn't understand it (like people who use 'myself' instead of 'me' or 'I'), but it's much more amusing to assume that she actually meant it.

Nothing wrong with anybody who has facial piercings. If you do you are clearly a snob.

Well, to be fair, theree's nothing wrong with a twinset and pearls either.
This is the trouble with aibu sometimes. Too fraught with understandable emotion.

Wow, "Mrs"inWhite, I am disgusted by your attitude towards parents who, for whatever reason, having not opted for marriage.

Asking if the pregnancies have the same father is very important for booking, and if you weren't asked, and it turned out later on you had pre-eclampsia, and the risk had been under-estimated because whoever booked you had made assumptions, and you lost your much wanted pregnancy, that would have been the midwife's fault too.

Insubordinate. Gah.

Honestly, OP?

Get over yourself.

Sorry.

Funny that I know quite a few people who have been fucked up by their parents who stayed married because of the kids/sanctity of marriage/appearances' sake....

And they were planned and wanted too.

Nothing wrong with anybody who has facial piercings. If you do you are clearly a snob

Nothing wrong with wearing twinset and pearls either. And if anybody thinks so they are clearly a snob.

On it's own, Married's 'belt for skirt' comment may have bad but she was responding to the 'twinset and pearls' comment in the previous post. So, not bad IMO.

Childish behaviour, rude and completely disrespectful to someone who was just doing their job.

Get over it - if you have so little else to worry about that you'll concern yourself with minor crap like this, then you're doing pretty well in life I'd say.

FWIW, I haven't actually taken offence at what married said about the belt and facial piercings. It was in response to what I said after all. And I didn't actually mean anything offensive by what I said - it was all just a bit 'pearl-clutching' really.

So I don't think her post should be deleted, unless mine is too.

Oh goody - another 'if you have so little to worry about you can worry about this stuff' dig.

I will repeat my previous post:
"McFox - I am sorry, but this 'Be glad you don't have a real problem' sort of comment is a cheap and crushingly insensitive shot.

Firstly, no-one has ever said MN is only here for us to discuss the truly major and traumatic issues - it is a chat forum, and as such we can discuss whatever we want.

Secondly, it is stupid to say that people can only ever get upset if they are suffering a major life trauma - not to mention an arrogant dismissal of someone's genuine and real feelings. It is not a misery competition, with only those who are suffering the most being 'allowed' to be upset.

Thirdly, given that she was having a pre-OP visit with the nurse, it is very possible that the OP unconsciously transferred some of her nerves about her up-coming surgery to the issue of her husband not being referred to as such, and it became a bigger issue in her mind - and the nurse should have been sensitive to that, and could easily and with no negative consequences, have been a bit more sensitive and tactful, and could perhaps said "I'm sorry - we are told to,use partner, so as not to offend those in same sex partnerships, civil partnerships and those who are single - but I will refer to your husband as your husband from now on" - that would have been good practice, in my book."

I havent got a problem with twinsets and pearls either

I don't like it when someone calls my husband my "partner" and it slightly annoys me that they carry one saying "partner" after I've used the word "husband".
BUT to make such a big deal of it with the nurse was out of order IMHO. She was just following the guidelines and wasn't giving you a lecture, she simply stated the reasons why she was using one word instead of the other.

SDT - oh goody, another person acting as an apologist for weird and unreasonable behaviour over a triviality.

And why bother copying your previous post? I can read, and also, my comment wasn't aimed at you , but thanks for your input.

I genuinely can't see what the issue is. Who cares? Marriage is a personal thing between two people who love each other and is completely irrelevant to other people around you. That person, the other half of the equation, is your partner in your life. He or she may also be your husband or wife and yes, there are legal differences if you aren't married, which is pretty silly in the case of long-standing partnerships involving property and/or children. But how is it a bad thing to call someone your partner and why on earth should anyone else care what you call him or her? It's genuinely nuts to be bothered about it. I do have a husband, as it happens, and I also have a partner (the same person). I don't care what they call him to me if it makes life easier for them, esp in the case of health care professionals who have more important things to think about than my preferred terminology. How is partner rude? It's a statement of fact that allows a person dealing with important stuff like actual medical procedures to not have to waste parts of their thought processes on trivialities.

Has the OP actually been back, apart from early on to say her husband would feel the same way.

I am finding this thread depressing. Here we have an OP who made a perfectly reasonable request to her nurse. Unfortunately, it seems that the nurse's brain was too institutionalised to process this really quite simple request. Even more unfortunately, it seems this institutionalisation has affected a good proportion of the general population, or she would have recieved a bit more sympathy on this thread.

Political correctness at its best is nothing more than honesty and politeness. Unfortunately, in behemoths like the NHS, politeness has been replaced by a book of rules. Because its minions have to spend all their spare mental capacity remembering the rules, they have no spare brain-power available to use basic human virtues like kindness, sensitivity and common-sense. It is rank stupidity to refuse to refer to a specific patient's husband as "husband" on the basis that it discriminates against other people. It has nothing to do with those other people at all.

Someone up-thread said "we do dignity and respect". It is a revealing turn of phrase. I bet it means memorising a rule book with two parts: one entituled "dignity" and another entituled "respect". I expect those required to learn it are also required to put aside any previously-held notion of what "respect" and "dignity" mean, and also forget any notion that those values are something that govern human relations, and aren't something that you "do". Following rules is something you "do".

I actually feel sorry for the nurse. She has been turned into a robot, as have many of you, it seems.

toad I couldn't agree more.
I work in the NHS and if someone (as they often do) asked me to call them Miss or Ms or Mrs I would immediately do so. Similarly if they referred to their relative in the waiting room as their husband/wife, then I would use the same language.
Many patients do not wish to be referred to by their first name.
I am a doctor qualified for 11 years now and married 9. If I choose to introduce myself as doctor or Mrs or by my first name, I expect the person to use it. I think I've earned it.
Oh, and I have never been on a course to tell me specifically how to address a patient. What a waste of precious NHS time and money. This thread makes me weep.....

Just realised my nickname on here.

Oh and huitre how patronising that you wish to save me a couple of neurones by sparing me the effort of addressing a patient as they wish. I'd be more concerned about an inflexible individual who spouts policy as outlined by the OP.

Here we have an OP who made a perfectly reasonable request to her nurse. Unfortunately, it seems that the nurse's brain was too institutionalised to process this really quite simple request.

I agree that it is a perfectly reasonable request.

But I can see a potential difficulty for the nurse. I don't know how many patients a nurse might have to deal with in any one day, but I certainly wouldn't want to have to remember how a hundred or so people might want me to refer to their partners - which ones wanted husband, which ones wanted partner etc.

Unless they write in large letters on you notes 'this woman finds it important to use the word husband' they simply won't remember. It all seems a bit precious for a short visit.
I can't believe that there are more than 600 posts on a triviality, especially when your husband is your partner.

What a ridiculously unimportant thing to get that annoyed about. YABU. Who cares what a stranger refers to your partner as? (oops, sorry, husband)