[amber]

Its occurred to me that if you're neither married to a long seperated man or young enough to be a "girlfriend" to one and hate being a "partner" (now often either gay/lesbian or business) there MUST be a "nice" word for me.

I've tried and tried to find one but always end up babbling something like "Oh, we've been together for years, etc etc."

AND I'M NOT A "COMMON" LAW WIFE!!! YUK YUK!!!

Any ideas PLEASE??

[Romantic Old Bird]

How about he is 'my current love interest'

Actually, it is a difficult one. I think you are a girlfriend really. Who says you aren't young enough?

'Lady friend' has a 1950's 'nudge nudge, wink, wink' feel to it, and I agree things like partner and life partner are somehow too business like.

On our forms we use 'significant other', which actually can be a nice upbeat way of saying it.

In Friends there was an episode in an early series (when it was still funny) when Phoebe described Ross as Rachel's 'Lobster. Her theory was that Lobster's had one other Lobster they were meant to be with always, and to walk claw in claw with for life....

So there's another one.......


Then there is 'enamorata'..........

'Sugar Daddy' if he has money, or Gigolo if you have money

'My penance' if he is a pain in the backside

Speaking of which, my husband (who is known to those here as OH which can be either one's husband or other half) always calls himself 'the alleged father of her children'....

I have just looked on the internet and found a similar conversation HERE

if that is any help!

Here is another quote from an American site But organizing around these issues is a linguistic challenge. The word "unmarried" is a real problem, because it defines who we are based on what we're not -- married. I think the word "single" is even worse, though -- it comes with this stereotype of someone sitting home alone, watching reruns and eating cold pizza. When you hear "single" you certainly don't think of committed couples, or unmarried people who live alone but have rich, fulfilling lives full of friendships and relationships.

And there are similar linguistic problems on the individual level. There's the challenge of how to introduce each other. At some point, most people outgrow "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." "Significant other" has so many syllables. "Partner" leads to all sorts of confusion: Are you business partners? In "Unmarried to Each Other," we have our collection of 40 different terms unmarried partners tell us they use, from "sweetie" to "spousal equivalent" to "copilot." One woman we interviewed told us that years earlier, she was on "The Today Show," and they asked her what she calls her partner. And she blurted out, "I just call him Frootloops." Afterward, all her friends asked her, "How could you call him that on national TV?"

[amber]

Thanks so much for all you help. However I feel I'm none the wiser

Is it time for a completely NEW word, e.g. mowberle or queeddle. Something not derived from an "ism"??

Come on girls, there must be a way....... PLEASE!!

[Janette]

I always introduce my OH as "my beloved", simply because it shows that our relationship is strong enough for me to openly show my feelings and it doesn't matter that we're not actually married!