Please define “Partner” for me

[Chatonette]

When I hear someone mention their “partner”, my brain thinks living together as married basically, but without the ceremony—renting/mortgage together, possible children, etc. Sometimes I see posts on MN about “my partner did X….” Then it transpires that they don’t live together and they’ve known each other for a few months.

My understanding of “partner” is clearly off-kilter. Can someone please give me a definition?

I’m in a long term relationship with someone (both divorced) but we don’t live together. I cringe at using boyfriend/girlfriend because we are in our 40s but he’s not a ‘partner’ by definition of living together (both got DC and not in a position to blend any time soon) so I call him my ‘other half’ or ‘fella’ most of the time. Once my friend said for a form, refer to him as ‘live out partner’ but accidentally said ‘live out lover’ which I prefer 😁

@FaithHowells But if I wanted to be a wife I would have got married!

Partner is a long term thing and it doesn't matter if living together.

I don't live with my husband. He was my partner before we married last year.

Spot on

Remember the poster who referred to her 16 year old daughters partner 😂

Until this post came along it's not something I really gave great thought to.

Now in my 60's, and not saying it's not a privilege to have a family....
After growing up being known as (insert parents or siblings name's) daughter/sister, then putting the children through years of schooling being know as (insert DC names) mum and when introduced as (insert DH's name) wife when we go to his friends/work events it's really nice to just be introduced firstly as Crumpleton...
Just Crumpleton, me a person in my own right..

I have a 13 ds with sn's. My partner will not be living with me anytime soon. We are years away from that.

He's my partner because we are in this life together. We will get married one day and live together and are committed to that.

My ds comes first though. We might not live together until DS has moved out and is settled. That doesn't make him not my partner though.

If anything his understanding that ds comes first makes him a good partner.

It's a committed relationship, length of time and living arrangements may vary

Fair enough! It’s personal preference.
Totally understand people feeling that boyfriend/girlfriend is a bit twee when you past a certain age.

Partner means basically married but for whatever reason choosing to not get legally married. It’s possible to have a partner you don’t live with if you are at a stage of life where separate housing just makes good sense, like if you have teenage children of your own or are trying to not contemplate end of life finances.

Basically it means a long-term exclusive relationship where you take a serious degree of responsibility for one another however you set that up.

the people who use it for less casual relationships just sound like children playing house.

He's my partner because we are in this life together. @Josette77 I like this description. To me partner in a relationship is much the same as partner in other contexts. Do you plan your lives together? Share finances, at least to some degree? Know each others families and friends? Consistently be a plus one to events? Is he / she your next of kin on medical forms? Share responsibility for each others lives to some extent?

I’ve seen it used to describe teenage relationships. Absolutely ludicrous.

Why is it ludicrous though? I mean I understand that a casual fling of a few weeks can’t seriously be described as a partnership. But people are always very quick to defend teenage marriages on here… conceptually why is calling a relationship when you are young ludicrous but a marriage isn’t? Who gets to decide?

“Partner” is a deliberately ambiguous word precisely because there is ambiguity in relationships. It’s not a state that has legality or permanence. But people always insist on interpreting it as “marriage lite”.

I just don’t understand why people are so bizarrely affronted by someone else’s definition of their relationship.

As a couple who live together but we are in our mid sixties i call him my partner as boyfriend would sound ludicrous

Basically all uses of partner are fine - but you have to be sharing your life . Three dates doth not a partner make.

Okay, this sounds so unusual that I have to ask. Why doesn’t he live with you and your son?

Then they can have a ‘gentleman friend’. 🙂

@YankSplaining it's not at all unusual. I'm in a similar set up. Two teens on my side, one on his. We've been together nearly a decade but never wanted to do the blended family thing and I didn't want to risk my childrens' stability on whether a man wants to keep sleeping with me, having had the rug pulled out from under us by ex and ow.

I might be confused about the first post. For whatever reason, I was thinking @Josette77 ’s partner was her son’s father, but now I realize it doesn’t say that. 🫢

Not everyone defends teenage marriage.

That isn’t really the point though. Most teenage relationships are fleeting. My DD’s 15yo friends swap out boyfriends and girlfriends as quickly as they change clothing. Yet they like to bandy about the word partner like it means nothing.

I think what I have never liked (been married 30 odd yrs now) is the lack of an official title . We have been family for so many years now , including his mother (🙄)and his sister , we have been family for so long without having to go through courts and lawyers .It would be strange for the kids to realise they're parents have no official title to each other .
I also brought up my children in the armed forces where all their friends parents were married , so it was a bit strange when we left and they realised not everyone's parents were married .My family were brought up at a time when everyone was married too (80s)so most of cousins are married too .

In corporate speak it is often used to mean a spouse or permanent girl friend or boyfriend - to cover both. That is confusing in my view and I would rather see spouse/partner and being married or not is completely different.

As far as I'm concerned, partners are living together. You could be 97 and have a boyfriend - or if you felt that that sounded immature, you could call him your gentleman friend. (I'd use boyfriend myself. ) I wouldn't want people thinking I was in a serious long-term relationship - or that I'd deluded myself into thinking I was - if it was actually just a bit of fun.

A long term relationship.
Living together doesn't really matter because there's lots of reasons people don't but I would say been together at least 6 months and make decisions together for the long term.
Also the boyfriend/girlfriend anyone over 30 regardless of how long you've been together

Not ds's dad. 😉

I'm a single mom. Partner has no kids. I don't want any changes in our home life. We have enough challenges as it is without bringing in another person into our home.