...to think 'partner' means a cohabiting partner, not just boyfriend.

[fideline]

This has twice caused major confusion recently.

I realise most of the time it doesn't really matter much, but referring to someone you are 'just' dating as your partner is confusing wrong.

Isn't it?

YABU. The sort of people who declare someone their partner (and where applicable their childrens' new father) within a week of the first date are just as likely to move that person in within a similar time frame. And when they do so it doesn't make their relationship more significant than one where the people involved have been together over a year and would move in together if other factors allowed it, but suffice to say those factors don't. Every thread here where someone talks about her partner (or uses 'ILs' when not legally married) seems to disintegrate into 'YABVVVU to use that term' and an interrogation about whether the relationship is serious enough to count.

"Found out the other week he refers to me as his 'ladyfriend' WE NEED TO FIND SOMETHING BETTER THAN THIS! Makes me sound like a hooker (that was probably born a man)"

Sheriff that is truly a grim word. But it sounds more octogenarian than hooker to me. Don't suppose that's much of a consolation?

I do think we need better words though; I always thought 'wife' was the word with the heaviest baggage - it will always sound matronly and chattel-y to me- but clearly everyone is hearing connotations I can't. To everything

"I don't think it is anyone's business whether we have walked down an aisle, share and address or anything else."

Oh god Stinky what about my address book?!?

I HATE crossings out

I just can't call my dads girlfriend a 'girl' to her face as she is most definitely a woman rather than a girl and for some reason womanfriend sounds weirder than partner.

It would be so much easier if people just did what I did- wait until marriage for sex/cohabitation. (I was 21) Then you won't have any problems with how to describe your arrangements!

And in any case Stinky, people must know where you live? You're not a spy or in witness protection are you?

I do sort of get 'its nobody's business' but how does that work? What do you say at parties? "This is Smelly, my...

Blessed you are a brave woman to recommend that solution here

I am rather fancying tea cake and biscuits now. all those pictures..

On MN, it often means someone you dated a few times.

Amber my dear, what on earth are you on about

Well, to repeat the rest of my post, rather than the end part that you quoted,

I don't know why people get so worked up about this, it does seem to be an issue for some of those who are married though [smug marrieds] as though 'married' is some kind of protected characteristic that needs defending from pesky interlopers

I had a boyfriend when I was 17, now I'm nearing 40 and in a long standing and exclusive relationship, I have a partner and no, we don't live together. He is much more than a shagpiece though

IMO misogyny is at the root of this mindset, that only women who are 'worthy' of marriage have any status. Anyone else is 'just' this, or 'only' that. That being married makes you 'respectable', which, is of course, bollocks

I am talking about the idea/mindset that not being married makes a woman 'less than' or not 'respectable', IMO that is why some smug marrieds can be so scathing about what other people who have no bearing on their lives decide to call their significant other. It is based in misogyny and it has been drummed into girls and women for many years, because women who are sexually active but don't have a ring on their left hand have long been classed as 'loose' or of 'lowmorals' etc.

Most people these days have moved on from that mindset, but it does still linger.

I do agree that it would be silly/premature to call someone you have been seeing for 6 weeks a partner, but you weren't talking about those sorts when you said you think someone is only your partner if you live together.

Where are you getting this bit;

"IMO misogyny is at the root of this mindset, that only women who are 'worthy' of marriage have any status. Anyone else is 'just' this, or 'only' that. That being married makes you 'respectable', which, is of course, bollocks"

specifically from? It bears absolutely no resemblance to anything i've said (or thought)?

I was talking generally. I said some of those who are married. The smug ones.

Women who are sexually overexperienced do have low morals...but this applies equally to men. It's about self-control, not misogyny or bigotry.

What BitOutofPractice said, many times over.

Guess what, not even all MARRIED couples cohabit!

If someone calls a person their partner, I take it as an indication of their commitment to that person. I don't worry about whether or not they share the same billing address.

I have never heard the OP's definition of a 'partner' before.

Same here fridge

But normal/usual usage is different from the wackiest examples offered.

I accept that cohabitation is not (should not be) the only indicator of an enduring committed relationship.

But most people are agreeing that 'partner' indicates long-termism or joint children or intent to cohabit or ^something

Three 'hubbies' in a month, dating for two months, polyamory (how do you have a partnership of three or more?), teenage relationships, are all unconventional uses surely?

Right?

fridge the female friends/girlfriends thing throws me too. I always thought it was an American thing. Interestingly I have never heard a male referred to his chums as his boyfriends.

blessed Sexually over-experienced???? What in the name of Jesus cunting Christ does that mean?

Tell me, is there was an optimum or approved amount of sex one can have?

As for not cohabiting or having sex before marriage, you do realise that since cohabiting/ having other sexual partners before marriage has been the norm that the divorce rate has fallen drastically?

The baby boomers who got married young before living together or having other sexual partners are those who accounted for the rising divorce rate in the 1970s/80s/early 90s.

It might have worked for you, count yourself lucky, but it isn't the case for everyone.

Blessed you do sound rather, shall we say, victorian

Sometimes "partner" can be used to describe an excessively entwined relationship of the sort the Facebook "it's complicated" status entails- like Fridgepants speaks of the exotic 'polys' and genderqueers sneering at man/woman norms. I was reading the work of an author and poet who has written extensively of doomed love in rural British and European settings- he seemed altogether decent, traditional, family oriented- and came across his main website which included several autobiographical posts. He appeared to have referred to the same woman as his 'friend' in some posts and 'partner' in others and I was intrigued to notice such a discrepancy.

I called up to speak about ordering some of his work and got through to the lady of the house, an experienced teacher and mum of an 18 year old from her first marriage; a more understanding or outwardly respectable professional you'd have to go a long way to find. When I knew them better we got around to discussing her relationship to him, as I discreetly raised the conflicting language he used to describe her- only for her to drop a bombshell on my impression they were a regular couple who at worst had some fussiness about the word 'marriage'...
She said they live together but he has sexually submissive tendencies so he 'provides for her intimate satisfaction and affirmation' without having full sex and he consents to her 'fulfilling her desire to be penetrated' with other men, with no limits except that they cannot be a 'replacement' for him in her life.

What is it with the artistic/creative classes and their outrageous sexual deviancy? Can they not produce the works of beauty and elevation of the human spirit they do without living as captives to their excesses and sensual desires?

Sexually over-experienced= having had too many partners without any respect for the concept of controlling one's lust for sex, or experimented with all sorts of perversions. It's hardly an exact mathematical concept, but I thought people would get the drift of it.

It would sadly be unrealistic for me to expect everyone to have waited until marriage like I did...but even those who would find such an absolute standard too severe can show a degree of moral fortitude by only having sex with someone who they can say they love and have spent time getting to know, not swapping partners every other night like some of the uber-sensualist Bacchanalians we see these days.

What is it with the artistic/creative classes and their outrageous sexual deviancy

That is not deviancy. It is by the sound of it, a mutual agreement between two adults, nothing deviant about that.

They don't sound at all captive...unlike you.

I had sex with loads of men. But I've never had a 'partner', only husbands. 3 of them, in fact. Go on, blessed, gimme a label.