To think i will call my boyfriend my partner if i bloody well want to?

[malificent7]

There is quite a nasty put down on mn which is disguised as a statement of fact.
If a woman is seeing a man but does not live with him she is told " he is not your partner... he is your boyfriend. "

Well my other half/ bit of stuff/ love of my life / darling boyfriend is my partner in crime. He is my rock.
We dont live together and we are very happy with this arrangement.

We dont have kids together, we hacd no plans to marry or have kids just yet/ if ever but we just get each other.

Did i mention that we have only ( shock horror) been together for 18 months? And yet we always introduce each other as partners.

Many people who are married, live together and have kids are not partners if they are not in live.

Aibu to think that no outsiders can tell you what to call your dp?

I think dh took about 5 years to move from bf to dp (and more till dh). Hmm wonder, if stbxh is the logical next step?
I think partner does imply sharing a whole load of day to day shit that you probably don't if you don't live together or share finances. Unless you mean sexual partner, though I wouldn't introduce him by saying that!

Hah - introducing DW as 'my sexual partner' from now on.

My (now) fiancé and I were together more than ten years before we moved in together. We used partner to describe each other for the last few years of that as it was starting to sound silly for a mid twenties couple who had been together nearly a decade to just be boyfriend and girlfriend.

If you're with someone in a serious long term relationship then I think partner is fine, whether you live together or not.

I think partner implies exclusivity and a degree of permanence, whereas BF/GF is more temporary -- one is going out until you both decide the relationship is not going anywhere or that you want to make some sort of commitment. Partners don't necessarily have to live together but generally do so, whereas the terms BF/GF don't give any indication of cohabitation at all and can merely mean they've had a single date and might consider a second.

I agree with you OP. You can call him what you like and it's none of anyone else's business. I happen to think the term boyfriend is ok if you're in your teens or early 20s, but a 30 or 40+ bloke is no way a boy. Partner sounds more grown up for starters. It does imply a serious committed relationship rather than someone you've only just started going out with, but 18 months more than qualifies. YANBU.

Do what you like, but tbh when I see it on here it's usually from an OP who is bemoaning the behaviour of said DP / his family / some other red flag....the drip feeds that they met 6 weeks ago on Tinder / are just seeing each other / have an LDR of short duration.

I mean at 18 months I wouldn't bat an eyelid tbh, but when people have been on a handful of dates it just sounds a bit silly. When it's longer but the guy in question is demonstrably non-committal (also frequent on here), it sounds deluded.

I get why people don't like 'boyfriend' after a certain age, but there is surely a transition between 'this bloke I've met' > 'a man I'm dating' > 'my DP'. Like I say, you can use whatever you like but I think for most people on here it's commonly understood that a DP has a certain level of commitment (albeit this could be anything from exclusive non-cohabiting relationship to a marriage-like relationship).

we are partners in crime.
Let me guess: you are Bonnie and Clyde!

Partner is a horrid term.

My widowed mother in law calls her live in lover her partner. It would be silly to call an 85 year old a boyfriend. They aren't married so he's not a husband and significant other is just ridiculous. Partner seems to fit the bill.

Actually funny that 'sexual partner' was mentioned as I refer to DP (well, D-boyfriend) as my 'lover' occasionally when the audience is appropriate (I.e. Not parents' evening)

The man in my life is 'yang' and i'm 'yin'. We even refer to each other as that on facebook. I can't see the problem with wanting to be bf/gf if you're happy with those terms.

Although 'partmers in crime' suggests you steal sweets for each other or nick the milk off others' doorsteps when you roll in at 5am

How about manshape?

Yanbu call him what you want. He's your partner, that's the term used for the over 30s anyway.

Yes people on here can be very thingy about this. To me it's just another word for boyfriend for the over-30s, not a special designation reserved for unmarried life partners (since it's 2017).

When people say this on MN, it is generally in a context. As in "of course you are right to ditch him if you're having second thoughts, you've only just met him and don't owe him any loyalty" or "shouldn't you think twice before you move him in, encourage your kids to call him daddy and insure your life in his favour, you only met him about 5 minutes ago".

Its almost like different people prefer different terms, and should be allowed to call their 'person they have some sort of close relationship with' whatever they personally prefer. And...its not up to anyone else to say they're wrong.

Personally, I like the 'bit of stuff' which the OP had introduced to the debate, and will be referring to my 'special friend' by this term from now on, as it amuses me every time I say it :-D

Call him whatever you like.

Except partner in crime, don't do that.

Unless you're Bonnie and Clyde.

YANBU OP call it what you like!

I used to hate the term partner as it had connotations of business partner. But if you're not married and you're not a teenager, it can feel strange calling them your boyfriend/girlfriend.

I don't think partner has legal connotations at all so I wouldn't say you had to live together or share finances. It's more like life partner - the person you go through life with or something. Also I think it can be liberating to some people as its gender neutral and also I have heard married people use it about each other.

I'm surprised by how many people think that you have to live together just to be taken seriously as a partner, I know many people who don't and their relationship is as close as those who have joint finances and live together. I dislike the word 'commitment' and some people still view that marriage, living together, children is the only way you can express this when that is not the case at all.

manshape? Well there's a term I've not heard for a very long time!

Me neither! Always really hated that term, tbh.

Yanbu unless you include the word life then I get a bit stabby- no rational reason but despise the phrase life partner.

Don't really think it's something to get quite so wound up about.

If you were asking me, I agree with the many who think that there is something legally binding about the word 'partner' - ie mortgages or joint finances (or a business), but it's not something worth getting that het up about. Call him what you want.

To me BF/GF implies being together under around 20 or not being together for very long.

Partner implies (again, just to me) a joint life... Living together, joint bills, possibly DC but not married.

DH/DW implies (to me!) having undergone some form of legal or religious commitment to each other.

I don't judge anyone for anything. I started to find BF uncomfortable before we got married, and we went for "significant other" which is a nod to the Tales of the City books (I think book 5???), and we liked that because we loved the books.

I have a bit of a "grrrr" when people refer to "DH" or "DW" when they're not married... I don't care whether people are married or not, but given that there's no pressure to do so, and that many people choose NOT to marry, why then pretend you are?

There was a guy on The Chase recently - Bradley asked whether he was married (not sure what that had to do with anything) and the guy said no, they'd been together for 30 or 40 years and had a number of children - I have to admit I wondered why you wouldn't marry in that situation.

"Partner" sounds seriously naff to me (unless you wear cowboy boots and live in a John Wayne film, in which case it's cool)