To think many posters are very weird about the word ‘partner’?

[Savante]

I’ve noticed it for years and find it so bizarre.

If a poster says she’s been with her partner for five years but they don’t live together there are screams of ‘you don’t even live together. He's your boyfriend’.

If she says they live together but have only been together for a year it’s ’not sure why you’re calling him your partner. He's barely a boyfriend’.

And then on the flip side, if a woman calls her husband her partner, presumably due to habit, she gets leapt on with ‘why are you calling your husband your partner OP’.

Am I missing something? Is there some strict definition of partner I’ve missed?

It irritates the fuck out of me, unreasonable or not.

Yup. People are weird about all sorts of trivial shit. The best thing to do is not give a fuck what randoms think.

When I mastered that, life got a lot brighter.

Yeah, I find it weird too. I am not going to call my middle-aged...erm...lover a BOYfriend regardless of our living arrangement or relationship longevity. He basically went from "a bloke I am seeing" to "my partner" in one fell swoop.

For a clear definition I think The Long Ranger and Tonto were partners (rather than boyfriends) and, of course, The Chuckle Brothers were too.

I have always disliked the word partner. Business partner fine. Otherwise it’s boyfriend or husband. What on earth is wrong with boyfriend? If you don’t like it just get married. Much better for you usually.

If it's a LTB type situation, it makes a massive logistical difference if the "partner" is a casual boyfriend that you've been seeing for 2 months, or you've got significant commitments to such as children and mortgages built up over years. It's an ambiguous word but does imply that you have a shared life together, and often it's used when a casual boyfriend or cocklodger really isn't a partner in any practical sense of shared responsibility.

YANBU, and I think it is weird to try and police other people's language like that anyway.
I have a DP, we are both middle aged. I am not going to refer to him as my boyfriend as that just seems like something someone half my age would do. But I don't care how other people refer to their boyfriend/partner/SO/loved one etc.
I also don't really get some think you have to live together to be considered partners, or even serious. Neither me or DP want to live together.

I'm failing to see how marriage would be better. We have no shared children, I am financially independent and have more assets than him. Not to mention ridiculous expense of the wedding ho-ha...and divorce. What benefit is there for me to marry? Just so I don't have to use the word "boyfriend"? I don't use it anyway.

People overstate the significance of casual relationships. A person you don't life with MIGHT be your partner just as plenty of married people have to live apart but he's probably not he's probably a shag.

I think that it is because
i) some people are harking back to a time when partner meant 'life partner' ie basically equivalent to marriage. (And some people in these long term relationships therefore feels the usage diminishes their relationship)
ii) some people use partner to mean 'bloke I am shagging this month'
iii) there are a lot of very rigid thinkers on MN

My boss referred to DH as my partner this week and I got weirdly annoyed about it so clearly I am not exempt from this type of thing

Calling your partner partner is significantly easier than getting married because some people are strange about other people’s language.

You can call yourself a giraffe very easily, doesn't make it true.

It isn’t really for you to decide that though.

I think the responses show YANBU

Personally I don’t think ‘partner’ is the right word for someone who isn’t invested in your success as a couple. When a man rocks up for sex, but won’t go to your DP’s funeral with you, or when he buys himself expensive treats while you are living on beans on toast to pay the gas bill, that’s not a partner.

I find it a bit pompous sometimes. Usually from youngsters, when they're trying to sound grown up and make the relationship sound more significant than it is. But I don't say anything. Not my business what people want to call their boyfriends/lover/man friend....

You can't just make things be by insisting they are.

Where I've seen it pointed out, and I have done this, is when the OP describes as a partner someone who does not live with them, nor are their finances joined/shared in any way.
It is always always an OP who is being treated like shit, strung along or otherwise fucked about by a man, or has been with them for a nano second. The partner designation is wishful thinking.

Wait until you’re 62 and he’s 71 and realise how ridiculous boyfriend sounds.

Ive been with my partner 15 years and have two kids together. I'd never call him my boyfriend. We aren't teenagers so the word just doesnt fit. He's not yet my husband so he is my partner.

I have known older people to use "man-friend" or "lady-friend". But more often than not, they have been people they met in a care home.

Words actually mean something. “Partner” implies your lives are deeply intertwined (ie living together). What is worse is when someone calls their partner their “DH” because husband has legal implications (and the DP is always being a tosspot to the OP wrt child rearing/financially/household tasks)

Are people in civil partnerships allowed to use the word partner?

Yes. It's because they think marriage is a prize they've won and they're better than women who aren't married, for some bizarre reason.

If my partner of 20 years and I eventually get married for tax reasons, we'll get a civil partnership and I'll continue to call him my partner. I don't want a husband, not do I want to be a wife. (I do want the legal stuff sorted though.)

So if she was being treated like shit but they were living together with intwined finances, they’d be partners?

So if a couple aren’t living together they cannot be partners, regardless of the length of relationship, commitment or love?