AIBU to get annoyed about the amount of posters who say “you’re not even living together”

[toobusytothink]

Read 3 or 4 posts over the past 24 hours where people have commented on the fact that the OP isn’t even living with their partner and implying therefore they can’t be that serious... If we move a man in we are selfish, moving too soon and not thinking about the kids ... but if we don’t it seems we aren’t committed. Do people not understand that it is possible to be completely committed but not live together because of kids or other factors? Because we are “just” a girlfriend and can’t possibly be someone’s partner unless we have a ring on our finger or have moved in 🙄

It’s not serious if you don’t live together

If you don't live together, have no kids together and have no financial commitments together, you aren't partners

Well I lived with my first husband ams had financial commitments but unfortunately my reproductive system is fucked so no children. Guess that 20 year marriage wasn't a partnership then.

@constantlyseekinghappiness

"Well me and my PARTNER live together, have bought a house, and share all financial commitments. We don’t have children."

I could've written that myself 2 years ago. I agree with you fully.

I didn't mean to imply that bf = no children & partner = children so my apologies if that's what you thought of me. I just think that 'partner' equates to living together / shared finances / children etc, just something that's a step up from dating. As u can see I mentioned several things, not just children. That's just what I think though, how other people define partner doesn't bother me in the slightest, as we are all different.

I think you’re mistaking emotional commitment and practical commitment.

I agree with this.

It’s also to do with untangling. The harder it is to untangle a relationship the more committed it is, because both parties have chosen to tangle, or merge/blend/combine their lives to that degree.

If you’re married but not cohabiting you’d still need to divorce. If you’re not married but cohabiting you’d need to unmerge your lives, fight over the CDs etc and one or both parties move out.

All of that makes one person leaving harder. And suggests a higher level of commitment.

If you’re neither married nor cohabiting, as someone said, you can leave their toothbrush and spare t shirt in a bag by the door, block them and carry on with your life - practically at any rate though of course ty emotional toll will be harder.

GrumpyHoonMain

‘It not serious if you don’t live together’

See my previous post. 10 year of absolute devotion to each other but a different thought pattern to yours before he died. We adored each other and were totally committed to and serious about each other.

Thanks for your compassion. You’ve made me cry.

I agree. I've been with my DP 7 years. We don't live together for various reasons, one of which is that we don't want to uproot the DCs, as they have their own friends at their respective schools and if we moved in together one set of the DCs, if not all of them, would have to travel to spend time with their friends.

By trying to be considerate of our DCs we are apparently not serious about each other. Both sets of DCs have their other parent living locally, so they would end up being further away from them too, which would make their life less convenient.

It's just daft that we're berated for putting our 'sex life' before our DCs when we do move in together, and told we're not allowed to say DP because we're just BF and GF regardless of how long we've been together, if we don't.

I'd like nothing more than to be able to afford a big enough house for us all, without putting too much pressure onto DP, but with 3 DCs of my own and 2 of his, the cost of keeping us all would inevitably end up mainly on his shoulders and I'd end up losing child benefit and working tax credits which I get for being a single mum on a low income, so I'd bearing the brunt of housework for 7 of us instead.

So we'd end up with a less convenient location for everyone, with less disposable income between us, more stress for him and more work for me. Where's the incentive?! Just so that MN could agree that he's actually my DP? I'll stick with my own space thanks, and he can keep his and we can get together whenever we choose and retreat to spend time with our DCs when we choose.

That doesn't mean I'm keeping an eye out for someone better to come along or that he's just using me for sex, it just means we realise that we're not the nuclear family we all set out to create the first time around, and we're making the best of where we are.

It’s not serious if you don’t live together

Tell that to all the cocklodgers sitting texting some other woman while they're on the sofa next to their DW.

Someone sharing a space with you doesn't make you serious. It's an attitude.

I lived with my XH for 12 years, he never considered us a team, didn't want to be involved in family stuff, considered the money he brought into the home his own, despite the fact I was a SAHM. My current DP treats me more like a partner than XH ever did.

I don't live with my husband, we only got married last year. Our houses are in separate names and we don't share finances (yet). We also have no children.

I guess we don't count as a proper relationship...

. You’ve made me cry

Don't cry. You know your relationship and your love. Don't let anyone tell,you it didn't matter and you weren't serious. It did. It was.

It’s not serious if you don’t live together

Well that’s bollocks isn’t it. I think the best people to define how serious a relationship is are the people in it.

Leighalfpenny thanks. I know you’re right. Ignore, ignore, ignore...

@DeeCeeCherry I agree, it doesn’t matter. A partner is someone who is always there when you need them, always ready to listen or help. My man is my partner even if we don’t live together. I’ve seen a lot of threads on here of living together so called committed relationships where the man isn’t reliable or has a wandering eye, that’s not my idea of a partner.

Partnership implies a sharing of lives usually by some combination of living together/ financial commitment/ legal commitment/ children.

People can be emotionally committed at a distance, but there is a gap in vocabulary between boy/girlfriend and partner. Maybe "companion" is an underused word? It suggests an emotional connection without alluding to practicalities.

I switched from using "boyfriend" to "partner" when I moved in with DH after a couple of years. That was the stage when we shared practical responsibilities with each other. Marriage further changed legal and financial responsibilities and made the relationship another stage harder to disentangle from. Having children creates a permanent connection. If we divorced, we have to share PR and would not be 100% independent of the other's influence on our lives.

Using "partner" to describe a long-standing relationship is fair, but there have been numerous AIBUs over the years where the not-so-"D"P has turned out to be a fairly casual boyfriend of merely a few months and there's no partnership involved in the relationship and dumping him should be pretty straight forwards (assuming no stalking tendencies emerge).

It is often the posters in their 50s up who very wisely comment they would never let a man move in/query why single parents who meet someone can't go on living separately. With age comes wisdom I think!

In my 50s.
If you don’t live together then you aren’t a partnership. You’re just boyfriend/girlfriend, girlfriend/girlfriend or boyfriend/boyfriend.
You aren’t committed. If you have children then you will almost certainly be living as separated parents to a certain extent.
If you or your partner dies then the legalities will become complicated as you are not legally spouses.
I do wonder about when two people date and suddenly call themselves partners.’ No you’re not .
You become partners because you have chosen to commit to be together .
If you live apart, you are not partners. Yes, I appreciate that some couples prefer to live apart , but it’s not really a relationship.
I suspect I’m in a minority .

I've been with my DP for sixteen years. We have never lived together, and won't be changing that in the foreseeable future. It's still a very committed relationship.

We're getting married later this year. I don't particularly want to be married but I worry that, without the outward trappings of 'committment' that we risk the relationship not being taken seriously if one of us was seriously ill, or in an accident.

I have a partner. We stay with each other 5 nights a week - 3 at mine, 2 at his 20 miles away. We don’t share finances but we have a separate joint account from which we buy nice things and holidays and meals out. We’ve been together 5 years. I have two teens and his are grown up. When mine leave home we’ll likely move in together. I’m 51 and he’s 50. To call him my boyfriend sounds ridiculous. Sometimes I call him my gentleman caller. Partner works for us. We could be partners in crime, we could be sexual partners, we could be both. We are both. 😁

Totally agree with you OP.

Obviously it’s harder to end a relationship if this requires a degree of financial untangling but why this is a good thing has never been made clear to me, I think there are a million reasons why living separately is better.

I think this need to distinguish between boyfriend and partner is a strange phenomenon anyway. It’s some sort of hangover from the days when people were expected to be married to have a sexual relationship.

We have moved beyond this but a lot of people seem to get very hung up on an arbitrary distinction that rests on whether or not you share a mortgage and bills. Sharing finances does not denote greater emotional commitment - it’s increasingly likely to be about expediency and as others have commented the world is full of cocklodgers.

I think this endless navel gazing over boyfriend v partner is a combination of puritanism and a need to feel superior through silly and meaningless gradations. None of it actually matters.

I’m really not going to begrudge someone who has shared their life with someone for years and years the word partner. It’s not a perfect word, but nothing is.

The real problem is that anyone who has been on 2 dates now refers to their partner.

The problem isn’t the people with unconventional, but serious relationships, with people with no real relationship
To speak of.

i agree with you op

so actually one could argue that couples like this (and my relationship) are more committed because we choose to be together and are not trapped by responsibilities and having no where else to go.

Yep. This.

If you dont live together thats not a partner thats gf bf.

GraceBelly Unless you are married and choose to keep your seperate houses.
Like my husband and me.

Ours was a children thing. Much easier not to uproot them. But also he works away a lot ( random jobs not deployment). We both liked that he has his own home to return and decompress in and I don’t have to break my routine every time he comes and goes.
We’ll move in together in a few years when the children move on.

Interesting it’s so split. Really came from the fact that I was reading posts and some of the comments some OPs were getting were quite harsh - implying that they “didn’t even live” with their “other half/boyfriend/partner” so almost they had less say or right to complain because it can’t be that serious. And that if you haven’t discussed moving in after eg18 months it’s time to move on ... I do agree it’s different if you’re younger and no kids though.

People say it because of the contingent who refer to someone who they met 3 weeks ago and have been on two dates with as their "partner". Nope - just some guy you like who seems interested, not a partner.

The word has pretty much lost its original meaning - of, well, partnership, joint lives, etc.