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.

It's Mumsnet. People are weird about practically everything. 😀

I've been with my partner for approaching 23 years, the word partner represents a more stable and mature relationship rather than somebody I just met on a dating app. It also sounds a bit stupid calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend when you are 46 and 51 like myself and my partner are. You need to work on your issues that you have with it because it's your attitude that's wrong.

Why do you need to be annoyed? Not so many people faff about with marriage nowadays and using the term partner is common because it doesn't make assumption of anything. Do you think unmarried long term couples are lesser citizens because I don't get the anger?

Just use husband or wife, even if you are not legally married, if you live like a married couple it's the same thing as far as everyone else is concerned.

What does your comment even mean? Because I've got a partner that I've been with for 22.5 years! I've lived with him and mortgages with him for 22! What is your predjudices about partners and why are you claiming there's no such thing? The issue is something wrong with you, not the people using the term.

Well, my “partner “ is of 2 years duration. We don’t live together, because we’re happy with how life is. We both had long and happy marriages before being widowed, but we don’t wish to marry again.

We’re exclusive with each other, and certainly not just casual shags to each other.

But, we’ve long marched past the age where “boyfriend/girlfriend” would be sounding good - too “teenage years”.

Lover/manfriend/ladyfriend is all bit “not quite “nice” sounding.

So we describe each other as partners.

But, each to their own - it’s nothing to do with anyone else. 😊

That's a you problem though, that's you having an unhealthy predjudiced view of people. Middle aged people who have been together and lived together a long time are not boyfriends and girlfriends, they are partners in life! There are unmarried people that have been together decades and have kids and grandkids and you think they should still be called boyfriend and girlfriend? I question whether predjudiced people like you have bad relationships and feel jealous of those that happily stay together without even needing to be married.

All the people who say we should use boyfriend-would they be happy as an adult woman to be referred to as a girlfriend?

But you literally answred your own question! It's about being in a relationship with someone for decades and feeling way beyond terms used by school kids and people who have only just met and are dating. Some of ate making a problem out of nothing and refusing to see how fine and appropriate it is to use the term partner!

But again why have you got this massive problem with it avs who are you to tell us that we can't use it! Fucking hell you make us sound like we are living in sin and should be hiding our shame!

That's a hell of a judgement you put on the end there! I've lived with my partner for 22 years, we never wanted kids and he's a sound guy, I wouldn't be without him and we both share bills, mortgage, cost of travelling the world together, there doesn't have to be negativity attached to using the word partner! Plenty of people push for marriage because they have a false sense of security that it would stop a relationship breakdown! How many husbands do we see ending relationships with wives who they've not long since had a kid with on here!

People should get married because of how you feel about the word 'partner'? What a strange attitude.

The trouble is that you get people in this world that are insecure and obsessed with being married, you see them on MN moaning because they want to be engaged, they want a ring, they want to be married asap! You don't tend to feel like that if you are confident and in a happy relationship! This shows in the barbed comments on here that look to find fault in long term unmarried partnerships and jealously telling us that we should use the lesser terms of boyfriend and girlfriend to mask the length, stability and maturity of the relationship just to make married people look better than us? I couldn't be in a relationship with a predjudiced person that insults people and tells them what to call themselves! It reminds of how shoddily the gay community were treated in decades gone by, made to feel lesser, told to hide what they were and having their loving relationships diminished!

Just to add here as I've just noticed your last sentence that marriage is usually better for people? Really? If I had a quid for every person I've ever known who has been divorced or married more than once! If you've got an ugly attitude, it won't stop causing problems in a relationship just because you are married! There's plenty of relationships that were just fine until people got married!

I think what changed my view of it was when I knew someone who had been together with pooled finances, even renting together for over 30 years, and when one died, the other had the rug pulled from under them emotionally (and financially as they were suddenly liable for the full rent). Yes, they were partners, but they had no more rights than a stranger.

There wasnt any money but the partner still couldn't do any probate or make end of life decisions. It caused stress because in the last few days the doctors relied on the family views which delayed certain conversations and decisions. The family prioritised the partners feelings for planning the funeral but you can't guarantee that it.

It was so difficult to watch that I actually married my partner of 15 years when previously I'd wanted nothing to do with it. And I say that having watched the best case scenario where the partner was put front and centre of all decisions.

So for me, what I'm getting at is that people can use the word partner, of course they can, but my lived experience is that it literally means nothing when the worst happens and if you want to be together forever then it matters to be married or to appoint someone with legal powers for when the shit hits the fan because partners have no more legal standing than boyfriends or strangers.

I don't dislike the term partner, I recognise that people use it to denote a close and loving relationship. But I don't think until you're in that situation you realise how jarring it can be and i hate to think of other people going through it.

I call my wife my partner when I’m not sure how someone will react to me being gay.

it’s a real consideration!

other than that I say wife, and before we were married I’d say girlfriend. I have no issue with people saying partner!

I have no problem with the word partner on the basis there's no really good alternative. It slightly has an air of a business relationship but that's unavoidable.

The thing I wanted to say was however that long term partners particularly with kids should think about marriage particularly for tax reasons (apart from CGT on primary residences which is the main exception). Or at least ensure your will is drawn up properly with provision for IHT mitigation if applicable. As a PP says, you have no legal rights of inheritance as an unmarried partner. I'm sure people are aware of this but it's worth repeating.

Absolutely this. If being married is the pinnacle of your life’s achievement you are bound to get all chippy about people undermining what you think your besr asset is.

Its pathetic.

Oh I agree, you need to have things in place like being joint mortgage holders, beneficiaries on each others pensions and life insurances etc.
My mum was married to my dad for 50 odd years when died and she still had nightmares with his affairs but a big part of that was that he was tech savvy and she wasn't, he did a lot of financial stuff online and when he was taken gravely ill with sepsis during chemo, he was on morphine etc and he just couldn't remember his passwords and log ins etc for his financial stuff - I think that's a big thing we all need to think about whether we are married or not, gone are the days where all our financial stuff was paperwork in a draw, it's all online!

I agree that people reacting to the definition of partner (two people together in a usually long term relationship) is strange. I don't like the term myself and will refer to someone by name wherever possible or sometimes 'other half' or 'better half'.

Plenty of people push for marriage because they have a false sense of security that it would stop a relationship breakdown! How many husbands do we see ending relationships with wives who they've not long since had a kid with on here!

It's not a false sense of security though, it's genuinely protective.
What we do see tome and time again is a woman who has children with a man she's bot married to, scales back or gives up a career, then when the relationship falls apart she's entitled to nothing beyond a visit of child support and completely up shit creek. (She's inevitably even given the children his surname).

Any woman planning to be a SAHM or be the one who scales back her career when starting a family, would be absolutely mad to do so without the legal protection of marriage.

As for child free couples, "partner" isn't a legal position. A pp referred to "faffing about" getting married, but it's a lot less faff than the legalities required to protect each other at death when unmarried, for instance. Partnered couples are legally strangers to each other.

It is just very odd for people to be so upset and triggered by the way an unrelated person chooses to characterise their relationship status.

Its a bit like getting upset because of someone else’s job title: why would you care?

This is what makes me think its usually people who are married and who have put a huge amount of time and work into being married and think its the most important thing to have happened to them and believe its a status symbol.

So when someone who has been dating someone for two years describes themselves as a “partner” they feel somehow undermined by it. As if someone had bought the same make of car as them at half the price.

Partnered couples can put protections in place by a visit to a solicitor.

I hate “other half” or “better half”. I am not half of anything-I am a whole person. And, incidentally, a woman, not a girl.

Or a registry office!