Calling people in laws when not married

[rosie991]

Am I the only one who finds this odd?

I keep coming across people in relationships (but not married) who refer to their partners parents, siblings etc as 'mother in law', father in law, sister in law etc.

Surely the meaning of 'in law' mean you are married to said person 'in law?'

Not sure why it bothers me, just confuses me when someone says this

Yes I do.

Horrible. I really hope this is a piss take.

Other than the fact that marriage offers legal protection, how is the actual relationship between two people different a day after the wedding compared to the day before? I never knew there was some super duper love switch that goes on the moment you say 'I do' and makes your relationship so much more 'valid' than everyone elses

I use it for shorthand. It's much easier to say than 'my partners /mum/sister /sister's boyfriend'

Have a 6yo together and have been together 14 years, which is longer than my parents were together for never mind married for.

I don't call my partner's mum MIL though, because she makes a point of signing every friggin' birthday and Xmas card as "HMIL", which stands for 'Honorary Mother-in-Law', which is her way of making the point that we're not married. 🙄

It doesn’t bother me at all except when a poster starts a thread about their ‘ILs’ and it turns out they’ve been with their boyfriend for 5 minutes, don’t live together and they’ve never actually met his parents.

I say it. Easiest way to describe my guy’s parents. Meh.

As a species and a society, I think we’ve all got far more important things to care about right now to be honest!

It’s a shorthand way to describe the relationship. Not a legal statement.

I refer to my sister in law when in reality she is my partner’s brother’s wife.
Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue does it?

Ex-ILs used to sign cards ‘Mum + Dad’. Now that bothered me.

I live in sin. 20 year relationship and unmarried by deliberate choice.

So I call them the in-sins.

It’s not ‘my partner’s mother’ vs ‘my mother in law/out law/in sin’ is it, though? The first describes your relationship with someone who has a relationship with someone else. The second is the relationship between you and the subject. It bypasses the husband/partner. Which is why many here still use it to describe their relationship with people even when the husband/partner is out of the picture.

In laws/out laws/in sin/whatever doesn’t just apply to parents of partners, it also applies to siblings and extended families who may or may not be married. For example, if I am not married to my partner of 20 years I might not call his sister my in-law but what about her husband? What do I call him? And what do I call the other husband she was married to before him?! My partner’s sister’s husband and my partner’s sister’s previous husband? What about the families of the husbands, who are just as often at family gatherings? My partner’s sister’s husband’s brother’s partner’s child?

It’s a collective term.

Words matter, but to me calling an unmarried partner a spouse, a husband, a wife, and the family my in laws matters most because it conveys the relationship. I don't want to marry. You may think this indicates that i do, and that's ok, but it's not correct.

"Yes, Tabby. The family aren't arseholes. They know I have no parents and never did. They see me as family. Fucks sake."

No need to be rude or swear? It's different strokes for different folks thats all. I know for a fact my sil and partner hate that their other sil calls their Mum, mum. And they are not arseholes. She isnt her Mum. She had her own Mum, who passed away only a few years ago. I would never ever call anyone else Mum, it would feel totally wrong to me.

Some of the folk saying it's easier- have you actually counted syllables? "My partner's mum" has fewer syllables than "my mother in law"! Also "partners parents" vs "parents in law".

I totally get it on MN or any internet forum where abbreviations are easier, but in real life it's usually more of a mouthful than the factually correct words...

SunshineCake

Some really horrible opinions on here..

My sister’s boyfriend is my brother in law as far as I’m concerned.

Boyfriend makes him sound like he’s 12 and fly-by-night, partner sounds twee and pompous. They’ve been together 18 years, he is DD’s uncle (and more of one than her blood uncles have ever been)

I couldn’t give a toss if it pisses anyone off.

We do this. We a a certain age couple who’ve been together for 30+years. Our family (when alive) held certain ideas about societal norms. ... we were married in their eyes as to be anything else would cause ‘apocalyptic death, disease and destruction beyond all comprehension.’ So we started to refer to ourselves as married and them as the in-laws (both sides of our families came from the same Victorian ideals). Saved so much trouble and the habit has stuck. No intention to get married or get a civil partnership. We are 1x male & 1x female.

"more valid"???

What bullshit.

Not when those opinions are homophobic.

Is it necessarily homophobic to say you don’t believe gay marriage is valid? My brothers in law had a civil partnership then latterly a wedding. When we went to the wedding reception, I was speaking with another gay couple, friends of ours who’s civil partnership we went to and asked if they would be doing the same. The response was “no, we think marriage is for men and women and that’s how it should stay” I’m not sure I’d label two gay men as homophobic.

It mildly annoys me because it’s factually incorrect. As a solicitor I see the practical affect of not being married and people saying they are “as good as married” because they’ve been together for ages - well they really really aren’t

Is it necessarily homophobic to say you don’t believe gay marriage is valid?

That's not what she said though. She believes the underlying relationship of the gay couple is less valid.

My FIL used to like being referred to as Father Outlaw before his son and I got married.

"Is it necessarily homophobic to say you don’t believe gay marriage is valid?"

"That's not what she said though. She believes the underlying relationship of the gay couple is less valid."

That's not what she said either. I took it that she thinks the relationships of all unmarried couples are less valid, ie whether they are heterosexual or gay. The question was asked of her if she therefore thinks the relationship of unmarried gay people is less valid too, and she said yes. I think that's quite different to being homophobic.

So they’re “just” a cunt then, why are you leaping to their defence splitting hairs over the technicalities?

The reason it comes across as smug/I'm better than the unmarrieds is because you're pretending to be confused about it. It's just silly and I can't stand false confusion. We see it all the time on here, usually to do with food "oh I don't understand why anyone would want to eat more than an eighth of a grape".

People say in laws because it's just easier than partners mum or whatever. And I've only heard people use the term when they are in a commitment and established relationship rather than a girlfriend/boyfriend iyswim.

I have had two long term relationships. The first was 12 years and married for 5 ended in divorce and no children thankfully. The second is coming up 20 years long and with 1 child not married, may do one day sometime.

I personally feel that my second relationship is more "valid" than my marriage ever was.

Our sil, newly married into the family, got her son, who is in his thirties to start calling parents in law "grandma" and "grandad". He'd never even met them.

@havelockvetinari Again, only speaking for myself here... But its not easier for me in terms of how long it takes to say it, it just conveys the type of relationship in a more concise and accurate way. I could say my partner is my boyfriend, but I choose not to, because I feel like the word 'boyfriend' comes across like we've been going out for 5 minutes.
To say 'my partner's mum' kind of does our relationship a disservice, she is the grandmother of my children, and I have a relationship with her, that isn't just defined by her biological relationship to my partner. Im trying to convey she is part of my family too, and until there's a word to describe that for people outside of marriage, I'll just continue to refer to her as MIL whether the pedants like it or not.