What words do you use - lover, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, something else?

I have two partners, a girlfriend, and a friend with benefits. Good luck on explaining yourself!
 
I immagine that I will call them "Hey you". LOL
 
I'm currently debating this with my [fill in the blank] - what exactly do we call each other? What do you call your secondaries?

When I speak to vanillas (we are not out) I call her my girlfriend (girlfriend, you rock!). He is a friend.

Amongst ourselves or those few who know, she is wife. The wife moniker actually stemmed from a joke. My Zumba instructor had a partner class. DH agreed to come. He got "sick." So she came instead. Later, in facebook there was a great deal of kidding around with said Zymba instructor about how every woman needs a wife. The joking was largely around domestic matters and helping out when your man lets you down. We thought it was funny since we are romantically involved. But in any event, I would marry her in a minute. So it still works.


He is boyfriend, lover... DH calls her girlfriend.

I guess I had better get over to introductions...

S
 
As a secondary for over 17 months, I am quite happy with boyfriend. I find it respectful to me and recognizes the unique connection Redpepper has with her husband. I am her boyfriend in a secondary relationship :)
 
I agree that boyfriend and girlfriend are appropriate, and partner if it's "more serious."

Basically, whatever term you would otherwise use if you weren't poly should be fine if you are.
 
for me and hubby it is a strange situation. i call hubby, my husband hubby etc. or else by his name. my other guy who is very serious with me. He gets called by his name or else with people who know he is my boyfriend. He calls me his weekend wife (he is single) because we basically live together on the weekends. I stay at his house. my hubby has his girl i call her the girlfriend or else hubby's playtoy. Again it all depends on the audience of who you are presenting your other too.
 
I always liked the term "partner"
 
I've been paying attention to this more since I first answered the question.
The truth is I call him M'ebe when we are home or in public and I'm talking to him, which is my pet name for him.
If I'm introducing him, I call him by his given name.

At boyscouts I refer to him as "the boys uncle" because they have always identified him as their uncle. The ROLE he takes in their life is very similar to the role my sister has taken in their life. COMMONLY people who are only in our lives due to scouts or home school activities identify GG and Em as the kids "aunt and uncle" in a way that suggests that they are a couple.
We don't bother to correct it.These people are peripherally involved in our lives, never invited home with us or anything like that.

But if someone asks in the adult social circles we are involved in, I just tell them he's my bestfriend or boyfriend based on what is most likely to be comfortable for HIM and for Maca.

For example-at church, best friend; Maca's work-best friend; random adults at grocery store, boyfriend; hospital/dr. offices, boyfriend.

The hospital brings up another interesting technicality. I made a point of identifying him as my boyfriend and doing all the paperwork that he was my emergency contact because I want him to have the right to be at my side if needed. Maca HAS those rights. As my husband those rights are guaranteed to him-and that makes me VERY VERY happy. But, I don't want GG left out of the loop because he's not my husband. He's a critical and integral part of my life and my heart-he should be side by side with Maca as Maca's supporting friend if anything were to go wrong.
 
For me....

I do think in terms of primary/secondary, so online I would explain it in that manner, so people would know who I am refering to.

In real life, When we had poly dynamics going on, I had a 'hubby' and a 'hunny'. :)

I also found saying 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' had a special uniqueness to it.

To me, the bf/gf label, has a fun innocence or purity to it, that stops people from concluding ; ' fuck buddy '.

Unlike other pet names, which might seem to vague.
 
This is quite an old thread but I'll bump since we were talking about this with my girlfriend just yesterday.

Well, more accurately we debated whether she should/could call me wife once we're that far. It's only been 2,5 months so not for some years, but we enjoy talking about this kind of stuff. :p She said she would feel as though she was misleading people, since we are both already married and thus can't marry each other (if we were single we could get a legal partnership in our country despite both being women). But I feel as though I'll have every right to call her wife once I feel ready to get married. Society won't recorgnise the commitment for each other, but I want the word to reflect what I feel and our relationship. Actually, I feel it as a political thing to do signifying that society should recognise multiple relationships legally.

If one wanted to be even more political, they could adopt "Unlawful Wife" or something like that. :D But I find wife to be more practical in everyday life. ;)
 
I use the word "friend." It's the best description I can come up with. In my personal philosophy, there's very little difference between what one usually thinks of as friendship and romance. To me, friendship is the strongest bond there is. Romance seems to me to be too often more about ideals and expectations, whereas friendship is real.

Two friends of mine, I'll call them Jeff and Krystal, started dating when they first met. They decided shortly after that that it wasn't working for them, and decided to be friends. 14 years later, they are best friends, and love each other a lot. They even have sex once in a while. In the time they've known each other, they've has many arguments. However, they always end up working things out. Had they continued to pursue a romantic relationship, they would have gone their separate ways long ago.

A few years ago, Jeff set Krystal and I on a blind date. It didn't work out because we both thought the other wasn't interested, but we did become friends. Recently, we both discovered that the other was polyamorous, and that we were, in fact, interested in each other. We're now talking about becoming "better friends," as I would phrase it. There's also plans of introducing her to another couple I'm involved with (assuming those two and I can work out some issues I started a thread in "New to Polyamory" about. Which, slow progress is being made.) Now that Krystal and I have known each other for a while, pursuing this kind of relationship now seems like it'll work out a lot better that it would if we forced it to happen when we first met.

Using the word "friend" is also adaptable to most situations, and prevents the possibility of accidentally revealing the situation to those that aren't in on it. For instance, my father knows about my "new friend," but not that she's my best friend's girlfriend. If he figures out that they're together, it's an ambiguous enough term that I can pretend nothing is going on. I'll tell him eventually, but not until I have to. However, I can also put emphasis on the word "friend" when in situations where I want to communicate that a given "friend" and I are "totally doin' it," as it were.
 
As a unit, I say we're a family though occasionally have used the cute word "throuple". ;)

Hahahha LOL!! Throuple!!! That's fab :D

This thread is funny. Actually, I had the same "problem" when I was in a mono relationship. In my first marriage it was clearly "my husband", but my second partner was that, a partner, we were not married. Although, for some people I said "my husband" (because some people don't take it seriously if you say "partner" or "boyfriend"), then I started to dislike the word "husband" and ended up just saying his name and letting others figure out (it was nobody's business if we were married or not).

Now my poly relationship is pretty new and we haven't had much of that, but for the moment we all stick to introducing the other person by their name and let others figure out :)
 
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I use the word "friend." It's the best description I can come up with. In my personal philosophy, there's very little difference between what one usually thinks of as friendship and romance. To me, friendship is the strongest bond there is. Romance seems to me to be too often more about ideals and expectations, whereas friendship is real.

Thats really interesting. I am always curious about peoples takes on friendship since mine is pretty fucked up... haha..

thanks
 
That's why I don't like the word "friend with benefits"... Friendship without benefits is just friendship. Benefits without friendship is just sex. But if you have a real friendship with someone plus a sexual relationship, I don't see how that's not love. Unless the friendship is not such. My two cents anyway, maybe someone likes the word :D
 
Right now I only have Seamus, who I talk about as my boyfriend or fiancé or husband, depending. Usually I say boyfriend, sometimes fiancé. Husband is rarer now that we're living apart.
With Raga I said husband, and sometimes I said "my guys" when referring to both of them.

Otherwise, boyfriend and partner are the common ones. Friend for a FWB. Usually I make sure to use their names so that I go by that afterwards.

EDIT: and usually "interest" for someone I'm interested in but not with.
 
Why Use The Terms "girlfriend" or "boyfriend" instead of "lover"?

The question is in the title.~

This is some thing that has been bothering me for awhile ever since I learned how to speak, read, and write English growing up and English is my first language as a born & raised American.~

Why use these terms of "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" when referring to "lovers"?~

Let's break it down:

"girl" means a pre-pubescent Human female who has not yet reached sexual maturity and is not yet capable of producing offspring,

"boy" means a pre-pubescent Human male who has not yet reached sexual maturity and is not yet capable of producing offspring,

"friend" means close associate or "companion",

"lover" means "one who loves" who can be involved in a relationship of a romantic nature.~



Wouldn't it logically follow then that referring to one whom you love and are in a romantic relationship with as your "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" is both demeaning of their sexual maturity and their relationship to you?


In case you're wondering I was advised to make this into a separate thread instead of including it in Semantics / Language is Fluid topic also in the Fireplace forum section as this subject was deserving of a thread all its' own.~


I am quite perplexed by this conundrum and I highly desire to discuss the nature of such a concept.~



Please feel free to share your opinions.~
 
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