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.

My use of fact accords with dictionary definitions. The arbitrariness you find so odd is what happens when people try to come to grips with changing social circumstances, often expressed as changing language usage, which is exactly what is happening on this thread.

I had to bite my tongue just after my husband died when one of his kids referred to DH as my 'partner' just after referring to their mother's latest boyfriend (of a few months) as her 'partner'. This was during lockdown and they didn't come up fo the funeral, so they didn't see the expression on my face.

No, I never said anything about it, but it did feel as though my relationship with my husband of 27 yrs was being disrespected. (Yes, I know that that is illogical.)

Thinking about it, it does seem as though the word 'partner' has become downgraded, in that it no longer denotes longevity.

I recall that we'd sometimes hear people talking about their 'longterm boyfriend' in order to emphasise that they weren't just going out on dates.

I'll add that I'm nearly 66, so I realise that I'm probably not au fait with modern usage. It's only over the last 5 yrs that I've become aware of people my age and older using the word to mean a man with whom they go on dates, holidays etc but do not actually live with full-time.

I've been with my bloke for nearly 6 years. We don't live together, no current plans to. I call him my partner, sometimes my boyfriend (although as we're 50s/60s that does sound a bit weird)

Most recently however we've been calling each other someone we shag and socialise with, as said by some poster on here a few weeks ago. (The OP was in reference to long term relationship, not a brief fling)

If you're in a civil partnership, same or opposite sex, you can't call each other husband or wife - it has to be partner

No but they (and many other similar corporate employers) will have taken legal advice on what is reasonable. It reflects how social attitudes have changed

I dislike partner, boyfriend, significant other, other half, better half. Is there any other word to describe someone I'm seeing longterm, exclusively? We're not cohabiting because I'm grumpy independent. My man? My friend? Just his name? Or do I suck it up and pick one of the words that make me shudder?

Well, in my opinion, no I don’t think they would be partners. My husband was my boyfriend until we bought a house together. Living together is a huge step up in a relationship. It is (or should be) a partnership. Of course you can be committed and love each other and live apart, but it’s that extra step of sharing the boring bits and not being able to run off home that makes you partners.

No thanks. Partner is fine.

I'm not 12

Why on earth would anyone else think they have the right to determine how someone else chooses to describe their relationship?

Not my relationship, not my business to decide what it's called.

I think if I started referring to my partner as my boyfriend it would give the impression he isn’t the father of my baby. Maybe i’ll start using baby daddy in deference to the posters who find partner a bit too uppity.

Really? I just assumed the ‘partner’ crew have come out to vote.

Just my opinion but if you’ve never lived with the person they are your boyfriend. If you’ve been together less than a couple of years, they are also your boyfriend.

To me ‘partner’ implies a significant commitment and entanglement. I don’t understand the point of people trying to elevate their boyfriend to partner status.

You see all the time on here women referring to people as “partner” and “what should I do he never helps in the house” and then 5 posts in they reveal they don’t live together and have been dating less than a year. It is important for communication to use the appropriate word, but also the heart of the problem is that women overstate their relationships with these shithead men, when they could and should drop them like a hot potato. When women name these men as “partners” it gives the men a status they don’t deserve.

I mean having a baby together is pretty entangle! I would call you partners (assuming he is fully involved in child rearing).

Well, the Cambridge dictionary has one of the definitions of Partner as being....

the person you are married to or living with as if married to them, or the person you are having a sexual relationship with

There are so many new words created every day, mostly by young people, yet so few alternatives for Partner. Boyfriend/girlfriend does sound rather odd if the person is a mature adult.

Not liking the word boyfriend is a terrible reason to get married.

Too could have stopped that title after the word weird tbh.

I hate the word husband! I’ve always called my DH partner, apart from the first couple years we were dating when he was my boyfriend but I was 24. If I was dating a man now, in my 40s, I wouldn’t be calling him a boyfriend

Yes, lol. Relationships come in all kinds of constellations. My husband and I used to live together, but for various reasons (ok, in-law reasons), we separated our living places and live in separate flats (in complexes - we're South African) in the same area. It's been like this for two years and works for us. Still married, still spend lots of time together, just don't live together.

Maybe I'm one of the people who you think is weird. I do take issue with any OP using the word "partner" for a man who is then, in the same post, clearly described as someone who does not care for or support her in any emotional or practical way, who clearly just regards her as a woman who he shags sometimes. When the main point of the post is about how totally inappropriate his actions and attitudes are for someone who is a "Partner" I think it's valid to point out that he clearly isn't.

There's nothing wrong with having a casual boyfriend or a FWB who has no commitment or obligation to you and who is just in your life for the fun date nights. Call it what it is. Such a person isn't going to do the same things as a partner would and it's unrealistic to consider it to be a "dilemma" when this is shown.

If there's a man in your life who you do loads for and who doesn't give back to you in equal measure but takes advantage and demands more, then he's an abuser not a partner and escaping that abusive situation requires an understanding of that. Stopping using the word "partner" is the first step towards gaining self respect in that situation and sometimes that's the first message an op needs to hear.

As someone is a same sex couple its really really helpful it's become so popular, I'm very pro the word partner being used by hetro people too

The ability to have a genderless term is really helpful because you dont have to immediately out yourself in all sorts of random situations which remains still difficult. I used partner in things like shops, new work colleagues because it does still impact the way you are treated and is sometimes unsafe

Previously most of us would have lied, or fluffed it but having partner as a social acceptable fall back is really helpful. Something like boyfriend/girlfriend than husband/wife seems to illicit stronger responses as it's a bit more sexual, (and encourages a stereotype especially for gay men of immature relationships based on sex, twinks and parties)

Like everyone else i dont want to call a 40 year old who id been with for 10 years my girlfriend/boyfriend like I was 12. Equally until fairly recently you could only be partners because either nothing was available to you or civil partnerships

Interestingly a family member challenged my use of the word wife because they assumed we were "only" civil partnered and another challenged my sisters use of partners on an invite because they felt it "made them all look like lesbians, we are married actually". There's sometimes some interesting gut reactions from people about demoting weddings, and a touch of homophobia

I used to say other half but it's incredibly twee and worse id argue!

Its really bloody helpful to have a blanket term so you dont have to say "bring your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/spouse" it's a good catch all term, especially if the person in a shop processing a return for example doesnt need to know your sexuality, living situation or that actually it's a bit complicated because you mostly just shag on a weekend

Please keep using it

YANBU. I've seen it loads on here. It's very weird. I find it fascinating that so many women still think living with a man is the only way to have a commited relationship. I know many older women with partners they don't live with. It just suits some people better. And they absolutely are their 'partners', they just have their own homes. And for many women with grown children it's better financially to protect one's assets by keeping separate homes and remaining unmarried.

I don't mind how people describe their relationships (noble of me, I know!), but a recent MN survey didn't give the option of ticking Husband. So each time I ticked Other and wrote husband in the box. Being married is a legal relationship and I have never described DH as DP.

What would you call someone who I've been with for coming up to 20 years, own a house together (mortgaged), children together.
But not religious and atm it financially wouldn't benefit me to marry. If that changes and we'd benefit from inheritance tax threshold then we would have a civil partnership.
I think partner is the perfect word to describe it. We are partners in life. I think using the same word that a teenager would use for her/his boyfriend is weird.

This response is great. I stupidly didn't think of the genderimg having to use boyfriend does. And I realise that I do use partner a lot when talking to people I don't know very well (ie I don't know their sexuality).