Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 ··· 26 27

Original poster

Calling DP 'hubby' when not married?

661 replies

stqueen · 15/06/2015 22:21

This is winding me up far more than it should be. I have a friend (actually one of my oldest friends who is lovely) who refers to her DP, in person & on social media, as her 'hubby' or 'hubs'. FB status posted at the weekend referring to her 'lovely hubby'. They are not married & never have been ! Many couples consciously choose not to marry & it isn't a big deal these days simply to have a long term DP. They have 2 children together so I suppose she feels married but I feel it makes a mockery out of those who ARE married! I have asked her why she does it, she simply says she feels married & he is her DH in all but a marriage certificate. As I said, this is winding me up far more than it should be, perhaps I have too much time on my hands noticing these things but she's done it for years & its really starting to get on my nerves! AIBU?

OP posts:

CrystalHaze · 15/06/2015 23:39

Fatmomma is Margo Leadbetter after she's dropped a load of acid at a WI meeting.

SPOOOOOOOOOOOKY, Mitzy ~ in my head, I heard 'I am a wife. I have a certificate to prove it' in Margot's voice

bbcessex · 15/06/2015 23:40

I imagine from the OP that hubs/hubby was a red herring, and that her friend referring to her partner being her husband was the real issue.

YesThisIsMe · 15/06/2015 23:42

It would piss me off too OP. Not because I'm proud of being married (essentially in it for the inheritance tax break) but because I'm a raving pedant.

AcrossthePond55 · 15/06/2015 23:43

My late uncle (Episcopalian, divorced) and aunt (very strict Catholic, widowed) were not able to marry as my uncle was not able to obtain a Catholic annulment. She would not marry in a civil ceremony as she did not believe you were really 'married' if God wasn't represented. After they were both diagnosed with cancer, they stood in their living room and pledged their vows to each other, before God and before us. When they died, about a year apart, their headstones proudly said 'Beloved wife/husband of'.

Don't fucking tell me that they were not married. In the eyes of God and their loved ones they were just as married as if the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury had married them.

Just because you can 'legally' plonk a 'Mrs' in front of your name, it doesn't mean a damn thing. You haven't accomplished anything more than any other woman who has made a sincere commitment to a man.

BTW, I'm married. Been married since the earth was cooling. And it wouldn't bother me one iota if someone called their partner 'husband'. Now, hubby, hubs, or hubster? Them's fighting' words!

MitzyLeFrouf · 15/06/2015 23:45

I have a friend who frequently refers to her husband (yes, she has a certificate) as gorgeous and hilarious.

He's clearly neither but I keep my own counsel.

Original poster

stqueen · 15/06/2015 23:46

Yes bbcessex I think you are right. . .the hubs/hubby/twee terms are fucking annoying but over & above that it is referring to her OH as her husband when he is in fact, not her husband.

NOTHING wrong whatsoever with not being married, my issue is describing yourself as such publicly to make people think you are. Why do that?

OP posts:

KingJoffreyLikesJaffaCakes · 15/06/2015 23:46

Why don't you post, "Listen, bitch, I paid good money to call Bob 'hubby' - don't you fucking dare try to cheat your way out of paying for it"?

MitzyLeFrouf · 15/06/2015 23:46

Ahh. That's really touching AcrossthePond.

mileend2bermondsey · 15/06/2015 23:47

my issue is describing yourself as such publicly to make people think you are. Why do that?
This

ChwatFeechers · 15/06/2015 23:47

KingJoffrey

Blu · 15/06/2015 23:49

Just to really wind the OP and make the other married zealots choke on their own froth , may I point out that legally you can refer to yourself as Mrs when not married : it is a term with no legal status whatsoever .

CalleighDoodle · 15/06/2015 23:51

Mthr main issue here is people who have conversations with their husband / live-in-partner on their facebook status. When you know theyre sat next to each other makes it even worse. Seriously?! Why?!

LittleBearPad · 15/06/2015 23:52

Across the Pond that's a lovely story but the taxman wouldn't have agreed had their estates been liable to inheritance tax, next of kin status wouldn't have been automatic for medical purposes etc etc.

CrystalHaze · 15/06/2015 23:52

"Just to really wind the OP and make the other married zealots choke on their own froth , may I point out that legally you can refer to yourself as Mrs when not married : it is a term with no legal status whatsoever ."

I might make my 'hubs' (we've got a certificate and everything) start calling himself 'Mrs CrystalHaze'

StoppingByTheWoods · 15/06/2015 23:54

DP and I have been together for 17 years. We have a house and two DC's. Haven't got round to getting married yet but will do so for tax - financial reasons (how romantic )

We are 'married' in every sense - except we don't have a bit of paper confirming it. If someone refers to him as my husband by accident I wouldn't correct them as it feels true.

Normally I call him DH here on mumsnet - not DP.

Getting married to me is just a bit of paper allowing access to certain benefits of marriage - but makes no difference to our relationship.

sallyst123 · 15/06/2015 23:54

Yabu. It's not a big deal, what/how they refer to each other isn't hurting or causing offence to anyone.
I would like to know how it makes a mockery of marriage?

They are living together,raising their family with love they are a stable happy couple how is that so different from a marriage?

TooOldForGlitter · 15/06/2015 23:59

See, all this Bob stuff is offending me. My dog is called Bob and he's far more dear to me than my boyf/OH/hubs. They just won't give me that damn certificate

KingJoffreyLikesJaffaCakes · 16/06/2015 00:00

Marriage is supposed to be a romantic thing.

All this talk of legal status and financial benefits makes it a bit sullied...

I want it to be about love and sunshine and pretty birds. Now it all feels a bit Post Office.

KingJoffreyLikesJaffaCakes · 16/06/2015 00:03

See, all this Bob stuff is offending me. My dog is called Bob and he's far more dear to me than my boyf/OH/hubs. They just won't give me that damn certificate.

Microchip?

It won't be many years until couples are just microchipping each other. No green paper. If you meet someone else you can just call the helpline and update the information for a fiver. Or possibly just do it yourself online.

BertrandRussell · 16/06/2015 00:03

"
I don't think you "get" the right of society taking your relationship seriously, and respecting it, unless you've actually done it.

I hear you OP, I hear you...."

So is my 35 year unmarried relationship somehow less worthy of being taken seriously than a 15 year married one? I suspect my relationship is longer than anynother on this thread- is it less valid because we a are not married?

ggggllll · 16/06/2015 00:08

YABVU

Many people are effectively married who haven't got a marriage certificate, and there are people who have the relevant documentation but are not in a marriage. Some of us are married but grew up around despicable parents who divorced for their own happiness, and will never see the state marriage and the attached marry/divorce/marry/divorce cycle as something we want to get within 100 feet of. Others have religious marriages that aren't sanctioned by the state and/or feel a state marriage is not a badge of legitimacy.

Probably best to mind your own business and take her at face value tbh.

Devora · 16/06/2015 00:11

This thread is comedy gold. Thank you, fatmomma [wipes eyes].

Personally, I thought there was NOTHING I cared about less than whether people bf or ff, or indeed whether they are SAHP or WOHP. And then along came the devastating chutzpah of non-married people pretending they are...

'Hubs' IS bad, though. Though not worse if you're unmarried.

TooOldForGlitter · 16/06/2015 00:11

KingJoffrey has it right...microchipping is the way to go. And with that username, who'd disagree, your grace.

ElkTheory · 16/06/2015 00:11

Well, he may not be her husband in the legal sense but he can still be her hubby or hubs (despite how cringeworthy I find those words). But if she wants to refer to him as her husband, who cares? It's her relationship, surely she can define the terms herself (obviously not from a legal perspective but from a personal one).

I have been married for a long time but our reasons for getting married, rather than simply continuing as we had been prior to that, were essentially practical ones. We did not suddenly become more committed to each other because we were legally married. We were every bit as committed to the relationship in the years we lived together before marriage. I'm not proud of being married. That is a very odd concept to me. I'm not ashamed either, I hasten to add. But the idea that marriage is something to be proud of seems quite odd to me. The quality of the relationship is what matters, not the presence or absence of a piece of paper.

HoldYerWhist · 16/06/2015 00:12

I don't get this "effectively married" thing.

You're either married or not. One is not better than the other. But if you're not married, you're not married.

What does feeling married mean, anyway?! If your relationship is just as valued and solid as a marriage, why say husband/wife?

I'm being pedantic, not offended. I just don't get it!

Flip

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 ··· 26 27

Swipe left for the next trending thread