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.

I’m old enough to remember the days when partner was only used in these instances. If a man referred to his partner you instantly knew he was gay without him having to say. I think slowly it changed when less people started getting married and there were more instances of older or divorced people not wanting to use the term boyfriend/girlfriend because it sounded too young.

Agree that people can use whatever they like EXCEPT as others have said you’ve been seeing your “partner” for three weeks. They’re not your partner!

A pp observed that in many cases it’s wishful thinking. Dh’s friend visited with his latest girlfriend who he’d met a few weeks before. (He has been engaged four times and married once.) This woman referred to herself at one point as “Mike’s partner” . I knew she’d be gone in a week.

Important to remember that for some women marriage is an achievement and they gatekeep it. I am frequently told that I don’t have in laws!

Really? When was that?

If you're not married, you technically don't. (The operative words in in-laws being in law)

This is a ridiculous reason to marry someone. Good grief, some of the things I read on here 🤣

What a strange thing to say. You want total strangers to go through a legally binding ceremony - one they might not even have any belief in - just because you don't like hearing people say 'partner'?

Personally, after 23 years together I sometimes refer to mine as my partner, sometimes my boyfriend, sometimes my other half.

OP - YANBU. People are completely entitled to refer to their own relationships in whatever way they choose, regardless of what gatekeeping randoms on a web forum think.

I didn’t consider this tbh. Everyone I’ve ever known has been very open about their sexuality even at work. But I’m 30 so I could see older folk or people in smaller towns hiding it.

Maybe we need a new word for unmarried male partner. Top shagger perhaps.

Because he is not a boy and I am definitely not a girl.

There's no law against anyone using the term 'boyfriend', but it does rather call to mind a pair of schoolchildren holding hands at break time.

Exactly - it sounds really childish.

Same as saying "my lover" sounds like something out of a mills and boon novel. People are allowed to use whatever label they like and my partner is probably the least cringe

Partnership is a specific type of relationship though. It signifies a joint commitment, whether in business, bringing up a family or paying a mortgage. If you don’t have any of those things, you aren’t partners.

Edited to say obviously there are other ways to be in partnership

Once you’re out of your 20s, ‘boyfriend’ starts to sound a bit ridiculous. I don’t have an issue with ‘partner’. My friend has been with hers for 25 years, they’re not married but they are in a civil partnership (legally), so he’s not her husband, he’s her partner.

Would you have an issue if your 14 year old daughter was calling some kid at school her partner though?
I've seen some mothers on here calling him just that.

Oher posters have "partners" they've never met in
real life.

Personally, I detest the term ‘partner’ whoever uses it! Married, living together or not!

Why such a visceral reaction to the way someone else characterises their relationship? It has no bearing on you whatsoever.

I definitely agree with the boyfriend/girlfriend and the associations that come with it.

I thought that was the point of saying spouse but thinking that was a way of saying an unmarried couple who lived together.

If an older couple, thinking it was ‘beau’ for men which is likely seen as old-fashioned.

I used to say 'partner' when referring to my wife, because most of the people I know are Christians, I didn't know what their thought on sex marriage were, and I didn't particularly want their negative reactions. 'Partner' was bad enough for some people....

Back in my circles in the 80s. I had a lot of gay male friends who all referred to their other halves as partners. No straight person I knew at that time used that term.

What a load of shite! Why would you get married just so that you didn’t have to say boyfriend or partner.

I’m fully aware of that, thanks, but as with most things in life, we often dislike things/sayings that have no bearing on us.

Ah, right. In my circles, straight and gay couples both used “partner” at that time and earlier. I think it was about many of us deciding that marriage wasn’t necessarily for us and experimenting with language to fit our new reality.

How about “companion”? One of the Oxford Languages definitions is

a person's long-term sexual partner outside marriage.

I rather like that word.

What should unmarried couples use?

One of the reasons I wanted to marry my husband was that I was sick of being called partner, which could mean anything!