Why is DP not my DP?

[Hurr1cane]

I've known him forever, been with him 2 years, he supports me with my disabled DS a lot, I support him, but we can't love together because of major routine differences.

Someone (on MN) has just told me that he's not my DP but only my BF and has made me feel really shit and that my relationship doesn't count just because we don't live together

And yes. MN is very vipery about this.

Just seeing how many replies I can get in a row

I don't get the mushroom joke?

I think 'partner' is the phrase used to life partners who are not technically your husband or your wife. So you are bound by a (supposed) lifelong commitment, like living together, or having children together. Anything else is a boyfriend. Unless you've been together for like 20 odd years and just choose not to live together, in which case I think it would be fair enough to be elevated to partner status.

for, not to.

You didn't upset me no one here has that's why I posted here for a safe place. The mushroom joke.... Much room sounds like mushroom and he thinks he's dead funny. He's not.

I've heard lots of young women referring to their boyfriends as their partner, I think they find it more sophisticated and adult, as though people will take them more seriously if they have a partner rather than a boyfriend.

Exactly fell.

Ha! I like that. LOL'd again. Does he have a brother?

Partner implies partner in life which implies living together.
The term partner is commonly understood to mean unmarried but living together, it's common parlance.
You have a boyfriend.

fell now you've said that i'm wondering whether my dp (who in rl i call "boyfriend") is seen as a less permanent fixture than he really is!

i haven't really thought about it before, just used the terminology i'm comfortable with

so wildbill, am i not allowed to call my (what you would describe as) partner, a boyfriend? is it verboten?

I call my partner my partner.

Not married, don't live together.

I feel daft saying boyfriend at the age of 35

Only you know your relationship with him so if it feels right to you to call him your Dp then carry on. Sod anyone who disagrees.

Oh wildbill how I have missed you!
Ignore wildbill. He/she is a goady fucker with no hobbies.
I have a partner I don't live with. I don't like the term 'boyfriend' we have interlinked businesses. I can hardly say to a client I will get my boyfriend to quote you. They know I am not referring to a business partner!

I have a partner. I wouldn't call him my anything in real life. But he is my partner. Im standing firm now. Our situation is not our fault and it works. Id marry him tomorrow but I still wouldn't live with him. If we did then he'd have his own soundproofed room.

ah that's all right then. i'll keep saying boyfriend and pretending we're still 18

We do have a child. Just because DS isn't his biologically doesn't mean he isn't just as important. He also has a daughter from a previous relationship who isn't his biologically and has another biological dad but still calls him dad and is just as important to him as DS and his biological son.

I don't really have an opinion on DP/BF whatever.
People tend to know the committment and seriousness within their own relationship and they can call themselves what they like.

The only reason I ever argue about DP/DH is when women say it is the same because it isn't. I don't mean in a love /committment way but in a 'how royally fucked are you if anything happens' way.
As long as women know what their financial situation is if life turns out to be not so rosy 5 years down the line, the nature and name of their relationship doesn't matter at all.

Frogisatwat

I have different views to you - why hurl abuse?

well quite pag

i have told dp before we have children we either get married or have a shitload of equivalent legal stuff sorted that protects both of us and any offspring

given that doing the legal stuff separately would most likely be a massive ball-ache i suspect we will opt for marriage

The word partner has replaced the outdated phrase 'common-law husband/wife' which is what used to be said in the 70's and earlier, for anyone who lived together and/or had a family together but were not married. To say 'boyfriend/girlfriend' did not lend enough weight/formality to the arrangement, and sounded a bit daft if you owned a house together and had three kids.

Common law wife/husband was okay until lots of people became comfortable with publicly coming out about being in long term, living together senile sex relationships, and the phrase 'common law' could not be applied to them because they were not considered any such thing in law back then. And over the years a sense of equality has meant that your partner is your partner regardless of their gender or your sexuality, and there is no need to distinguish a difference by using a different phrase.

A boyfriend is a boyfriend. Someone you've been with for two years, don't have children with, don't live with, don;t have joint finances with is a boyfriend. It really doesn't mean that your relationship 'doesn't count.' I don't know where you got that idea from.

I wouldn't say its abuse. Unless you mean 'goady fucker' which is a statement of fact.

^wildbill

Gah!

FFS that is autocorrect at its finest.

Single sex relationships, not senile sex relationships.

So classy Frogisatwat your boyfriend must be sooooooo proud