When does someone change from a boyfriend to a partner?

[Samlewis96]

Thought of this when reading another thread. Ones of the replies was that " you don't live together so he's not your partner" So when does someone become a partner. Is it only relying on living together?

There’s a magical transformation moment — a shaft of light falls on them at an unpredictable moment and they light up all sparkly. Then they’ve transformed into a ‘partner’.

(I would say that for many it’s the kind of understood, agreed commitment that usually involves cohabitation, though obviously there are people in longterm, committed relationships who plan to spend the rest of their lives together who never cohabit, for their own valid reasons.)

I imagine you have to be with someone a couple of years to qualify as partners regardless of living together or not,

Long-term, exclusive, committed. Usually living together but some choose otherwise and are still partners. Perhaps shared projects such as buying a home. Nothing under a year I'd say, and not even then if the connection is weak. A lot of women seem to think they have 'a partner' when they have a casual acquaintance who comes round for sex, or a cocklodger.

Hmmmm. Good question.

I think it's when you live together.

I know some folks who have long distance relationships which go on happily for years and years living separately would disagree. I guess that's a different case.

We went from boyfriend to husband, so maybe a similar level of commitment to marriage? Combo of living together, pets, house, kids? It’s just down to what the individual couple feels surely.

Why does it matter?
I mean, none of these things are official titles. My mum is in her late 60s and I think it is a bit silly to be calling her partner of 10 years a boyfriend. They don't live together but she does stay at his house 3-4 nights a week.
Whoever takes issue with technicalities is a being a bit nitpicky.

I think it’s enmeshing your lives together in a partnership - so that’s usually living together but might be something different like my mates who each lived with their parents while self-building and funding their dream home together, they were acting like a partnership with joint long term decisions for about two years before they could actually move in together

There are a lot of people on here who don’t understand that people can be committed without having to cohabit.

Bizarre, old fashioned view that states your commitment is measured in terms of whether or not you wash your boyfriend’s socks. Cohabitation is massively overrated.

I think a lot of these people have a poor snf small minded grasp of the complex nature of modern relationships which often involve children from previous relationships etc.

Ultimately who cares what you call them. Partner or boyfriend. Call them what you like and stuff what anyone else thinks.

If you'd asked me this question when i was in my 20s i'd have said as soon as you're 'exclusive'.

Now i think differently. I think you have to be sharing a certain amount of life's load to truly be a partner - which mainly means sharing responsibility for the roof over your head and/or the care of DCs.

When you are over 30.

@CutPiece There’s a magical transformation moment — a shaft of light falls on them at an unpredictable moment and they light up all sparkly. Then they’ve transformed into a ‘partner’.

I agree 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Living together, when you're in a partnership where you plan to live together at some point.

If you're never planning to live together e.g. have 2 separate households with kids then I reckon it's about 3 years in.

Thepeopleversuswork · Today 08:11
There are a lot of people on here who don’t understand that people can be committed without having to cohabit.

Bizarre, old fashioned view that states your commitment is measured in terms of whether or not you wash your boyfriend’s socks. Cohabitation is massively overrated.

Well i don't think my view is bizzarre. I was 'with' DH for just over 2 years before he met my older children and we got a place together. Until that point we were highly committed and planning our future, but he was still 'just' my boyfriend. Once we were sharing actual important stuff together he was my partner. Nothing to do with who washed socks?

to me it’s when you decide to build a future together, when you have this spoken or unspoken agreement that no matter what lofe throws at you you will face it together: the great the good the bad and the ugly.
thats how it works for me.
6 yrs into our relationship and 2 kids later, we decided to marry to protect our children, ourselves and to make all inheritance and purchase easier.
marriage for ua was a way to officialise a verbal contract we had made to each other years before. The declaration of love in front of everyone wasnt something we cared about - to the up roar of my family 😝🤣🤣

@Laiste

But why is cohabitation the benchmark? It’s increasing irrelevant these days. A lot of people don’t want to live with a man. I have been with my partner six plus years but we only moved in six months ago. That doesn’t mean we were less committed two years ago.

A lot of women sensibly want to avoid becoming enmeshed financially with men these days but are emotionally committed.

It’s not like there was a specific moment, but looking back I’d say it was when we started making decisions about our lives together, as a partnership. For the first year or so that we were together, my now husband was trying to buy his own flat - he considered me in terms of location, but it was very much his project. We weren’t partners. When he decided that he would rather live with me and I said I didn’t want to live in a place that just he owned, we chose to start looking for somewhere to rent together - at that point I’d say we were partners, because we were joint planning our lives.

@Thepeopleversuswork totally agree, partner and I been together 7 years. We don't live together yet, it's happening this year. Before, not good timing for the kids and I wanted to live with just DD and I.

And besides I am 52 I'm not calling him my boyfriend it sounds ridiculous.

And in my first post i said this:

I think it's when you live together.

I know some folks who have long distance relationships which go on happily for years and years living separately would disagree. I guess that's a different case.

So yeah - 6 years = partner. I agree.

I'm thinking more about folks being in a relationship a few months or a year, living apart. I think that's still boyfriend territory. (Although it's an awful cringy word to say 😂 Partner does sound much more grown up!)

I was married before current DH. With mortgage and kids. I left him. So i guess anything less than living together and sharing bills and sharing the sitting up with sick kids at night does feel less than a 'partnership' to me.

I have only ever heard of this being a thing on Mumsnet. Nobody I know in real life talks about it being different stages.

For me, it's when you have started to commit to joining your lives together. As in, have had all the discussions about the future, have a firm plan and are making steps to enact it. In 99% of cases that would mean living together.

Colloquially, it can just mean "I'm too old for boyfriend to sound right". I wouldn't call a friend out for using that term, but I wouldn't personally see their boyfriend as a partner. And if I was giving relationship advice, it would be different for someone I saw as a boyfriend rather than a partner.

I don't ever use partner, it's always struck me as something people say because they don't want to call their boyfriend a boyfriend, to seem more committed than you are

Yeah this. MN only place I've heard it

My ex I was with 10 years and we had a child. I considered him my partner. Same as with my current OH. We have been together 8 years but live seperately ( ,2 mins walk) Both of us have our own places , spend majority of time together. We also have adult kids of our own but still consider ourselves more than bf/ gf . I feel it's different than being with someone for a year

Fundamentally I don't really see why it matters? Whatever means "partnership" for you is partnership. If that's sharing a two-up two down and doing each other's laundry, fine, if it means living 50 miles apart and sharing romantic trysts once a fortnight also fine if it works for you. Why is it society's business to define whether your relationship meets some arbitrary threshold of permanence?

Partner is a weird hybrid for the post marriage age: a lot of people who would in the past have got married want to latch onto something which has the same level of gravitas as a marriage but without the legal and contractual rigmarole. I can kind of understand that but it's completely subjective.

It makes o sense that you are judged not to be serious if you aren't rushing to share a mortgage. I frequently see people on here being taken to task for calling someone a "partner" when they don't live together. There are plenty of extremely good reasons why people might choose not to live together and plenty of extremely silly ones why they might rush into it. It's absolutely no sign of permanence or commitment.

I always read it as a couple who have knitted their lives together like a married couple but without the binding and legal protections of a marriage.

So, I definitely wouldn't automatically think of people who don't live together.

I don’t really see any diffference between Boyfriend and Partner - they’re both just words to describe the same thing and you use whichever is your preference. I just don’t get this idea that you have to change words to signify the seriousness of your relationship.