How do we feel about the term...

Sounds a bit wanky and PC to me. Personally I wouldn't have a problem with boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife or just plain old 'partner' but something about the phrase 'life partner' just seems...bleh.

My wife and I use Spouse. Life Partner seems cliche.

"Life partner" brings to mind "special friend," which always made me chuckle. It sounds like something said by someone uncomfortable with gays. Cuz it's contagious, you know. Saying it makes you one.

ETA: I'm hetero, but I would feel awkward asking my gay friends about their "life partners" or "special friends." He has a husband as much as I have a wife. Call them what they are.

Life partner does sound a bit cheesy to me, and it implies rejection of spouse/wife/husband/the institute of marriage. On the other hand, maybe some people have compelling reason to use that phrase. And if someone introduced me to their "life partner", I wouldn't laugh. Boyfriend sounds very short-term IMO.

Sometimes I call my old lady "partner" (as technically we are domestically partnered, and legally unable to marry). Or spouse, which if you think about it is very gay. And sometimes I say wife, and sometimes I say wifey, for comic relief purposes.

Pretty much all the long-term-coupled LGBT people I know say wife, husband or partner.

And people who haven't quite figured things out do call her my "life partner", or "friend". Friend always cracks me up. It's like word of choice for the most uncomfortable people.

Chris P said:

"Life partner" brings to mind "special friend," which always made me chuckle. It sounds like something said by someone uncomfortable with gays. Cuz it's contagious, you know. Saying it makes you one.

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That's why I call it 'ghey'. Stops me catching cooties.

scarletpeaches said:

That's why I call it 'ghey'. Stops me catching cooties.

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Cooties are so ghey.

I think it's one of those "personal preferences" things.

scarletpeaches said:

That's why I call it 'ghey'. Stops me catching cooties.

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Doesn't stop you from spreading them, though. Ew. Girl germs.

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

CACTUSWENDY said:

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

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Typically, two men are each other's husbands and two women are each other's wives. They don't have to fulfill certain roles, even in straight marriages. In some ways, my wife is more the man than I am.

CACTUSWENDY said:

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

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What makes you think there are roles?

In NZ "partner" seems the most common to refer to any spouse-like relationship (married or unmarried, gay or straight). It is like the 'Ms' of terms for a long-term significant other and possibly co-parent.

Boyfriend/girlfriend feels less committed. But I certainly would not laugh at anyone for their choice of term.

I call my wife... my wife. We were legally married before Prop 8 passed.

When she was my girlfriend, I would sometimes say Girlfriend, sometimes Significant Other, sometimes Partner.

This varied between who I was talking to and in what context. Because if I were to say, "I'm going to a movie with my girlfriend," people who didn't know would sometimes assume I meant a female friend.

Amongst women, it's not uncommon to hear: "I'm going out with my girlfriend(s) tonight," and have them referring to female friends.

For men it's usually: "I'm going out with the guys tonight," or "I'm going out with my buddy/buddies tonight." I've never heard a man say "I'm going out with my boyfriend(s) tonight," unless they meant an actual boyfriend.

As for Life Partner, I always thought it sounded funny. But if that's what someone wants to use, I don't see a problem with it. It's just not a term I'd ever use myself. I have a wife. I am a wife. We don't have 'roles.' So therefore, she is my wife/spouse.

I've never seen anyone use "life partner," but "partner" has been common among some people. The difference between boyfriend/girlfriend and partner is that partner generally means something equivalent to marriage. But increasingly people prefer husband/wife, it seems.

CACTUSWENDY said:

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

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Heh, sorry, but that's just a popular misconception. We don't really have roles like that, at least in any cultures I know of.
EDIT: I could speculate about where the misconception comes from, but to keep it short, I'd say one part is the old heteronormative assumption that if two guys have sex, only the "catcher" is gay and thus would be "the wife" (or in prison, "the bitch.") The other part is the old butch/femme dichotomy in the lesbian community, but that's not really a big deal anymore; not all lesbians identify with either of those two identities, and relationships don't automatically have one butch and one femme. Even if they do, it's not a "butch=husband, femme=wife" thing in 99.9% of cases. (There are some butch lesbians who are in the transgender spectrum and use male pronouns but don't want to transition. They might identify as the husband.)

CACTUSWENDY said:

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

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Um, yeah, except no. Not at all. Neither one is the wife. The beauty of my partnership is that neither one of us is the husband It's not like we couple up and then we figure out who's who: one has to kill the scary spiders, use the power tools, drink beer and watch football, the other has to wear nail polish, cook dinner, and be naggy? Most queer relationships aren't like this, even if they might look like it from outside.

ether said:

I call my wife... my wife. We were legally married before Prop 8 passed.

When she was my girlfriend, I would sometimes say Girlfriend, sometimes Significant Other, sometimes Partner.

This varied between who I was talking to and in what context. Because if I were to say, "I'm going to a movie with my girlfriend," people who didn't know would sometimes assume I meant a female friend.

Amongst women, it's not uncommon to hear: "I'm going out with my girlfriend(s) tonight," and have them referring to female friends.

For men it's usually: "I'm going out with the guys tonight," or "I'm going out with my buddy/buddies tonight." I've never heard a man say "I'm going out with my boyfriend(s) tonight," unless they meant an actual boyfriend.

As for Life Partner, I always thought it sounded funny. But if that's what someone wants to use, I don't see a problem with it. It's just not a term I'd ever use myself. I have a wife. I am a wife. We don't have 'roles.' So therefore, she is my wife/spouse.

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My hetero brother in law calls his really close guy friend "my partner", as in "Me and my partner went to the A's game last week," which has the potential to lead to massive confusion. I'm not sure where he got that particular turn of phrase, but I have to chuckle inside whenever he says it.

Kitty Pryde said:

My hetero brother in law calls his really close guy friend "my partner", as in "Me and my partner went to the A's game last week," which has the potential to lead to massive confusion. I'm not sure where he got that particular turn of phrase, but I have to chuckle inside whenever he says it.

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Haha, yeah. I have to say, if I heard a guy word it like that, I'd definitely think he meant romantic partner.

CACTUSWENDY said:

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

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In addition to everything else, why does that make you think life partner is the better phrase? It doesn't tell you about their "roles" any more than the word married does.

Yeah, 'life partner' doesn't sit well in my mouth, because it sounds self-conscious, but when I hear simply 'partner' my first thought is that the person is a cop. Or a lawyer. It just has a business ring to it.

I think 'husband' and 'wife' keeps everything easy, but can certainly see where it brings to mind the unjustness of not being able to marry in most US States. I also think 'husband' and 'wife' need only connote the sex of the spouse, not always gender roles.

I like 'life partner' as a term more than I like 'significant other', which, to me, always sounds ridiculous.

And there's the weirdness of full-on adults having 'boyfriends' and 'girlfriends'. Why, why, WHY are we so complicated?!

Most gay couples that I know just use 'partner'.

Perks said:

Yeah, 'life partner' doesn't sit well in my mouth, because it sounds self-conscious, but when I hear simply 'partner' my first thought is that the person is a cop. Or a lawyer. It just has a business ring to it.

I think 'husband' and 'wife' keeps everything easy, but can certainly see where it brings to mind the unjustness of not being able to marry in most US States. I also think 'husband' and 'wife' need only connote the sex of the spouse, not gender roles. A pair of gay men are both men, neither of them is the 'woman' or 'plays the woman's role'. The same for a lesbian couple. Neither is the 'man'. This seems to be a difficult conceptual speedbump for many heterosexuals.

I like 'life partner' as a term more than I like 'significant other', which, to me, always sounds ridiculous.

And there's the weirdness of full-on adults having 'boyfriends' and 'girlfriends'. Why, why, WHY are we so complicated?!

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The bolded makes me giggle because last night we were watching TV and this man invited his mother, who had to be 90 yrs old and her "boyfriend" who was her age, over to his house. The narrator said boyfriend. I thought - at what age do you get to say something else?

In several non-western cultures their only traditions of semi-acceptable homosexual behavior was for the homosexuals in question to conform to hetero gender roles.
The book Sapphistries has examples of a few. And it's hella interesting.

What word would you use for an older unmarried couple as in the post above? Partner? What if it was more casual than that. Grandma might be a swinging chick. She might not want to tie herself down to any sort of partner.


ETA: Though I forgot we live in Iowa (der), so we can actually get married and wife is double extra acceptable and legally true. now for the rest of country...

Several of you have asked why or what I meant by roles. I have been introduced to 'mates' and have had them introduce the other as wife/hubby and both being the same sex.

Example....Two guys, and he introduces him to me as his wife. Two gals, she calls her her hubby. That has happened in real life. That's why I asked.

CACTUSWENDY said:

Then what do you say when say...two guys, 'married', how do I know which one is the 'wife' and which one is the 'hubby'? Life partners is a much safer phrase....IMHO. It's not meant as an insult. I would not want to assume I knew who was filling what part. What do you say? The same could be said for two gals. How do I know the parts?

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Well, first of all, husband and wife are sex-based titles, not social-roles, even in terms of English history and etymology.

It's a bit risky to assume a same sex couple's roles map to those of hetero couples with a "wife" and a "husband."

Two men are often husbands, two women are often wives--if the couples personally prefer those terms. Many people use partner.

Frankly, I tend to use spouse to refer to people's SOs when it's clear that it's a committed shared-life sort of thing, no matter what the orientation, sex or genders are.

Spouse doesn't apply sex based gender roles, and it means "contracted to," so it works even for same sex couples who can't marry.

CACTUSWENDY said:

Several of you have asked why or what I meant by roles. I have been introduced to 'mates' and have had them introduce the other as wife/hubby and both being the same sex.

Example....Two guys, and he introduces him to me as his wife. Two gals, she calls her her hubby. That has happened in real life. That's why I asked.

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Yeah, it does happen--and when it's clear that that's the case, and that that's what the people prefer, then use it.

It's sort of like my mom does NOT like people she's just met using her first name. So people generally don't.

My father used to tell people who called him Reverend that Jim was fine. So because that's what he wanted to be called, people respected that. But not all clergymen would feel that way.