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.

But what is "committed"? I'm completely committed to my partner of ten years but we don't live together due to existing kids, not wanting to blend. Hopefully in about five years we will but maybe circumstances will continue to dictate we don't. The commitment to the relationship is there.

Literally no-one on this thread has claimed this.

No-they don’t have to. It’s evident in the way they gatekeep the titles! “I hate the word partner-what’s wrong with boyfriend?”-the subtext is “How dare you undermine my married status and let people think you’re as good as me?”

What on earth makes you think that those who say what you say they say are married or regard marriage in the way you say they do?

Your “evident” is doing some very heavy lifting.

Why the rush to ascribe intention to what has never been said?

Boyfriend you live with over 35 is weird tbh
boyfriend you been with for more than 3years and no engagement is weird
women need to start. Understanding when a man isn’t into you and just needs somewhere to stay

Can you think of another reason for anyone to say that people shouldn’t say “partner”, they should say “boyfriend” even if they’ve been together for 30 years?

Your boss probably didn't mean anything by it. Sometimes it gets hard to remember who is married and who isn't so partner becomes the default.

I'm not in the business of defending or criticising or ascribing reasons to what people appear to have said (bearing in mind that absolutely no-one on this thread has said marriage is an achievement asserted by @Thepeopleversuswork).

Not being able to understand that not everyone needs to live in one particular way is weird. Plenty of people on this thread have explained why they don't marry or cohabit with their long term, committed partner.

Some of them. There are others that they cannot have unless they're willing to get married or register a CP, because they relate to the way in which the state treats you and you can't alter your access to them via a private contract.

That said, not everyone wants these either. Some people care more about testamentary freedom than they do about potential IHT liability, for example. Which might be a totally sensible decision for their circumstances. The main thing is for it to be an informed call.

Moving on to the broad topic of the thread, I think 'partner' is fine! Also the whole point of it is to be unspecific, broad ranging, so I don't really get why people would gatekeep the term beyond the bleeding obvious.

Surely it depends on circumstances. My partner and I have been together since we were 18 we were absolutely not ready for engagement/marriage at 21!
We moved into together properly at 22 and discussed marriage a few times and decided it wasn't for us. Then there was a discussion about bring in civil partnership for heterosexuals couples and we decided that is what we would want to do.
Life got in the way when it did come in so we didn't get it straight away. We were 35 when we did get it which was right for us.

This is just your opinion though.

But why else would people seek to gatekeep the way other people describe their private lives?

It has literally no impact whatsoever on anyone other than the couple concerned (except possibly their children).

I have observed over the years this huffiness about the length of other people’s relationships and these weird arbitrary benchmarks of commitment being imposed by others, such as whether the couple lives together.

Invariably it’s people judging others for asserting that a relationship is serious because it doesn’t resemble a marriage.

What other reason could possibly justify this bizarre and intrusive obsession with how other people classify their relationships?

Why is it weird to be with a man for over three years and not be engaged?

My partner and I aren’t engaged and don’t intend to be. We both own our own homes, and I earn more. Why is it weird not to be engaged?

Where does this leave people who live together but have separate finances? What term would you propose then? Housemate with benefits?

No I completely disagree. There are so many posts from women - and sadly they always seem to involve children - calling men they have been with for a relatively short amount of time a “partner” which seems to elevate the “partner” to a similar status to their children.

You see it all the time and it’s really depressing. Women calling someone they have been with for 6 months fairly casually their “partner” and because of it putting his needs on the same level as her actual children’s needs, funding his lifestyle etc etc.

It’s really not the word partner that’s the issue in this situation.

But that’s nothing to do with the use of the word “partner”. The use of the word is irrelevant to the situation.

No I think it is, and actually I think that’s where people get called out the most (and quite rightly). The terminology is important.

The last time I saw someone called out over the words they used was a woman asking for help about her “partner” and his children that she’d met THAT DAY. Her own children where so excited apparently to have a “sister” and she was confused as to whether him leaving her to look after his children for several hours was ok. She referred to loving him and his children (who she had JUST met).

She was called out and quite rightly. By using the word “sister”, “love”, “partner” she’s elevating these virtual strangers to the level of her own children. It’s dangerous and it happens all the time on here.

I rarely see people being called out for having a long term, loving, respectful partner. Maybe it happens, but rarely.

It happens constantly when a poster calls her partner a partner and there are no issues but she isn’t living/sharing finances with him. There is always a queue of people waiting to tell her that he’s just a boyfriend.

If the poster in your example was talking about loving children she’d just met and calling her daughter their sister but talked about them being her boyfriend’s children rather her partner’s, would that be okay? Of course not.

I favour bringing back the term 'gentleman caller'.

😆
XH once sarcastically referred to my fella as my ‘fancy man’ and I sometimes jokingly call him that now!

When I moved in here, my neighbour opposite doesn't like her next door neighbour and corrected me when I mentioned the lady's husband. " He's not her husband. He's her fancy man! "

I still have no idea if the neighbour is the OW in some long running affair or whether fancy man just meant boyfriend/lover/partner who does not live there!

I think you have a very sheltered life if you think every woman wants/needs to get married. I agree there are a lot of situations when the legal contract of marriage is the best decision but it's not always the best decision financially or for other reasons.

Some people have some odd ideas about life scripts, and anyone not following it is somehow faulty or wrong.