What do you call your Person? Just for fun

[hotcheesetoastie]

So I read an article today from a writer who was looking at what terms there are for her significant other that didn't stick that conveyed the stage they were at in their relationship. She referenced Margaret Atwood, who had been with her partner for 46 years. Margaret's partner passed away and Margaret put out a statement saying “We are devastated by the loss of Graeme, our beloved father, grandfather, and spouse”. She thought this was interesting as the couple weren't married.

"Ooh’, I thought, ‘interesting.’ As someone who also has a long-term (although at nine years we’re amateurs by comparison) non-husband, I’m always on the lookout for ways to describe our relationship to people, without the solid, easily-recognisable parameters of marriage and children. But even in 2019, in a dictionary brimming over with new ways to sum up the ever-shifting nuances of modern life, there aren’t many".

Ive been with my partner for 6 years and we have a mortgage and a dog together, but aren't engaged. I was just curious as to what you call you partners and thought it could be a fun chat topic :) I tend to just call him my boyfriend or partner to people. It conveys enough, but I agree with the writer of the article's frustration that boyfriend can mean you've been together for 4 weeks or 4 years and that it would be nice to have something that conveyed you had moved beyond getting to know each other and were serious about the relationship, just not married (the didn't sound business-like or too formal).

www.stylist.co.uk/long-reads/relationships-what-to-call-romantic-partner-boyfriend-girlfriend-long-term-couple/338181

The options the author gave were:

Spouse
Partner
Boyfriend/girlfriend
Other Half
Significant other
Baby daddy
Companion
Fella/the old lady
My darling
My person
Preferred human
Paramour
Husband
German - "Lebensgefährte”, which translates literally as “companion through life”.
Swedish - “sambo” - which neatly describes a couple who live together but aren’t married.
Irish - “mo chuisle” my pulse
simbelgefera - constant companion
Beloved Bedfellow
Headmatch

Depends who I'm talking to - he was either my husband, or "the git". Similarly I was his wife or "the dragon". Together 20 years, didn't take ourselves seriously and happily insulted each other regularly without actually meaning a word of it. I didn't like the term partner much, we married 2 years after we met and I can't remember how we referred to each other before then.

Mon Beau

"Himself"

Partner or other half when I’m on a good mood. Prick or knob when I’m not. But only when he’s being a penis

@TellItLikeItReallyIs but my fella calls me his other half. Is he not allowed to because he’s only half a ‘man’ without me?

GuitarTwat. Or Himself.

I'm post-divorce and older, and boyfriend just sounds ridiculous at our age, but it's the term I used pre-marriage for my relationships. So, it's a default if I'm not really thinking but if I am I call him my partner.

Chicken. Together 1 years.

21 FFS!

Swedish - “sambo” - which neatly describes a couple who live together but aren’t married.

Fucking hell please please don't use this.

Boyfriend or “dude I’m seeing.” We’ve been together three years and will live together early next year but we don’t share finances, have joint life goals, have children, or have any real commitment to each other so I don’t think of him as a partner, which to me implies at least some level of those things.

Boyfriend / girlfriend I quite like, although I some think they sound juvenile. I think partner is incredibly overused: I’ve seen MNers referring to DP or “my partner” about some man they’ve been dating for three or four months.

I'm married, but always cringe a bit when someone talks about their 'partner'. Don't think there's much of an alternative though, but do love 'bidey-in' (am in Scotland).

The Irish one is more of a term of endearment, not really a word for a partner.

In Dublin, a serious girlfriend is “me mot” (or some people write “moth”) - pronounced Moh
and a serious boyfriend is “me fella”.

Babe
Or dickhead

Depends

Disappointed.

I was expecting half the responses on here to be "beloved bedfellow" and the other to have "head match"

Partner around unsafe people like work colleagues etc.
Boyfriend around safe people like friends.
Noori to his face and occasionally fat shit.

Sambo is commonly used in Sweden (my boyfriend is swedish and introduced this meaning to me), however sambo/zambo is a very derogatory word for someone from the indian subcontinent or someone with mixed african heritage.

I call DH my first husband prior to marriage he was my partner

It would be pretty weird to use sambo if you weren't living in sweden, different connotations....
Before we were married I'd call my now husband min sambo if I was talking swedish, or my partner if talking english.

I largely use his first name.

My husband calls me 'er indoors

Imaginary or fictional depending on my mood

Lebensgefährte sounds great - has the word 'fart' in it, so quite apt for my Chicken

@TellItLikeItReallyIs but my fella calls me his other half. Is he not allowed to because he’s only half a ‘man’ without me?

Yes. It's just as unpleasant. No person needs someone else to be an whole individual. It's excruciatingly twee and speaks of personal weakness.

It is worse when women say it though because of the 'lesser' status of women throughout years of patriachy. I must have a man or am only a half.

Urgh. Makes my flesh crawl whether a man or woman says it.

I call mine my partner, which is controversial on mumsnet as we live seperatly, but after 14 years and children, he is more than a boyfriend or lover, and yet not a husband.
If we lived together, id go all scottish I think and call him my bidie-in cos I love that.

I find "my lover" works well in all scenarios.