I’m an American who has lived abroad in SE Asia for a quite a while. On a trip to Australia I heard a lot of people refer to their significant others as their “partners.”
It seemed strange to me as an American because I only used to hear gay couples use that tern back in the States.
But now it seems like it’s caught on back in the US.
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We’re all gay now, actually.
Only partially kidding, i believe it took off in 2008-2010 when there was still a political struggle for marriage equality. At least thats when my girlfriend at the time started saying it.
also, the word is far superior verbally to either girlfriend or boyfriend, or spouse or significant other because it leaves ambiguous the status of the relationship as well as the genders/sexualities of the people involved. You could be on a first date or have been with someone for five years and they would be your partner that night.
I would say its still primarily LGBT used, though that’s changning withyounger generations.
Many of us, straight and gay, choose to be in monogamous, long term, committed relationships without being married or at least not married at this time. and we may use the term partner because “boyfriend” or whatever sounds like you’re in high school or you’re just dating and not sure where this is all leading.
I would say it’s grown in popularity over the past decade. Some people might be doing it to avoid making same-sex couples who were using it feel like the odd ones out. It also might be helpful to suggest a relationship more serious than what boyfriend/girlfriend implies. “Partner” suggests that, even if you’re not married, the relationship isn’t merely casual.
The first time I heard a straight person refer to her male “partner” was exactly 1998. We all rolled our eyes behind her back.
But, she was living in the future. We were living in the past. Simple as that.
I started using partner because as a couple we are pushing 50 and are not married.
Semantics. I started using it about 5 years ago because it felt weird calling a 35-year-old man my “boy”friend. My dad also uses “partner” instead of “girlfriend” because he’s seeing a 68-year-old woman, not a girl.
I think it has become more common in the last few years. I mostly see it amongst LGBT couples or middle aged folks who are dating but unmarried, since partner conveys more seriousness than boyfriend/girlfriend does.
After living in Australia for a few years, partner has become my default term just because it covers everything. Personally I feel like I hear it more in tv/online content (where people are trying to speak more broadly or inclusively) than in everyday conversation (where people might be more specific).
Along with other explanations, it can also be used for non-binary people in a relationship. My best friend is in a relationship with a non-bknary person and she uses partner to make them feel more comfortable. It doesn’t have any gender attached to it like “girlfriend” of “boyfriend” would have.
I use both “wife” and “partner” interchangeably, but I’m really trying to switch to “partner” as the standard. Over the past few years I’ve been hearing “partner” or “spouse” far more often.
I like ‘partner’ because it makes people wonder what we are. Are we detectives? Are we cowboys?
When my boyfriend and I, both middle aged, bought a house and moved in together. We didn’t want to get married but were obviously a real couple, so we started calling each other partners. It felt a better fit for the relationship. Later we married and now we switch back and forth between husband/wife and partner. We coparent the cats and dogs.
My mom and dad used to say that cause they werent married. It weirded me out eben as a kid
My wife was preggers about 15 years ago and had some medical issues so we were in the hospital frequently.
Every single time they would ask me if I was either the “partner” or “the father of the baby.”
I would just say that I was the Husband. Apparently this was considered a novel reply.
(Everything went well, kid was born and is doing great.)
I noticed the same exact thing, and definitely a recent phenomenon, maybe 5 years at most. A friend hypothesized, as some others have, that it’s a way of making LGBT people more comfortable.
I started using it because it felt weird to refer to the person I’d been living with for three plus years as my ‘girlfriend’.
And it has the benefit of helping normalize the term for LGBT people. If everyone can say partner, they don’t have to worry about outing themselves to the wrong person by accident.
I know a lot of people who use it because they want to normalize it for everyone. A lot of people assume it refers to an LGBTQ+ relationship. Straight people use it to be allies and stop that assumption.
That being said, it’s good to know how to refer to each other. I have a couple married friends who weren’t on the same page on this. She called him her partner, he called her his wife. Finally they talked about it. He wanted to be referred to as her husband, she wanted to be called his partner, so they do that now.
Within the past decade, for sure. It still isn’t that common, but it’s becoming more common with straight people in their 20s and 30s. As a gay guy, I’ve been confused at times because I was used to only LGBT+ people saying “partner”.
In the past it has been used almost exclusively by the queer community. If I heard someone say it I would immediately assume they were in a gay relationship. I’ve also always thought there were some undertones of disdain for the illegality of same sex marriage.
I have started hearing it used by non queer people over the last 10 years or so, and a lot more frequently over the last five. I always assumed it was to normalize the term kinda like when very obviously cis people put gender pronouns in their email signatures. It’s not so people know to call me he/him/his. It’s so it doesn’t feel so abnormal to people who need to indicate they prefer something else like they/them/theirs.
I don’t know any heterosexual Americans who use that term, plenty of them from Great Britain regardless of sexuality use it.
People usually say partner when they’re in a long term relationship (so boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t sound right) but they aren’t married.
I find that people use it for when they have a really serious relationship and probably live together, but just haven’t or don’t want to get married. Because at that point saying “dating” and “boyfriend/girlfriend” makes it sound less official than it is.
I’m a married, straight woman and I prefer the term partner. It feels more equal to me – this man I chose to spend my life with is my partner and together we’re a partnership.
I know some people are saying that “partner” is too ambiguous. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s not your business to know what kind of relationship someone is in until they decide to tell you.
I guess I don’t think that the sex and official status of my relationship is the business of strangers. Married or significant other, female or male or in between, it doesn’t matter. It only matters that I have a partner
I like it because it’s age, gender, and legal-status neutral. I remember first hearing a straight person using it in the mid 2000s. I incorrectly assumed he was referring to a same sex partner. I started using it when my partner and I started living together a few years ago.
Partner works for when you don’t know if they are married or not, or if you don’t know the gender of the person they are with. Or if either piece of information isn’t important to specify.
Never for me. I married my girlfriend and she is now my wife.
I’ve been using “partner” since the 90’s. It just sounds more respectful to me than saying “my boyfriend/husband”. It doesn’t imply ownership, but still gets the point across.
when the economy failed so spectacularly that it made the nuclear family unaffordable, and the only way to survive was to start a small business with another human and pool resources just to afford a microstudio.
Just speculation, but I think it has a lot to do with the normalization of homosexual and long term dating without marriage. When I was younger, before the legalization of gay marriage, the term ‘partner’ usually referred to a long term homosexual relationship. It was sort of euphemistic, to leave room for probable deniability if confronted by a homophobe or something. Once gay marriage was legalized, the term ‘partner’ hung around, but became much less euphemistic and started to be used by people of a variety of sexualities. Again, pure speculation, but I think it’s related to long term relationships/cohabitation without the intention to marry. “Boyfriend” and “girlfriend” are seen as somewhat immature words, that a lot of people associate with less serious relationships, while husband/wife has a very specific meaning. ‘Partner’ generally sounds more mature. It also has the added benefit of implying equality, and being gender neutral. This is entirely non-scientific, but it is how I’ve experienced the word being used, and changing over the years.
It’s probably a reddit thing. I have not heard it outside of online unless it’s a homsexual couple. Even than saying partner is less common than it used to be. Usually people will just say BF/GF now. I guess it could vary be region however.
I still don’t. He was my boyfriend now he’s my husband. I only call him my partner in terms of how we work as a team to do all the life things. Even then, it’s rare.
In some areas such as California or New York that has been becoming more common or even standard since the early 2000s. But for most of the US it is still not common and something typically only used by those who are far left leaning politically. Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Husband, Wife, or Significant Other is more common.