Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Partner

[ethandron]

It what point and under what criteria does a long term girlfriend or boyfriend become a partner?
Is it down to sharing finances, or moving in together, or length of relationship, or something else?
A discussion we're having regarding how we introduce our sons long term girlfriend....himself reckons she's now his partner, I refer to her as his girlfriend.
Thanks.

[mrs_overall]

No I didn't have a boyfriend called Aloyisius - it was just an example.

Funnily enough I went out with a string of Dave's in my teens. It came in handy as I never called them by the wrong name

[tonyav]

In my youth it was customary to introduce your girlfriend as this is my bird.

[ethandron]

Woofgang, son knows nothing of this conversation. When I say 'himself' I mean the Ron part of ethandron, me being the Eth part.
We were chatting to some people and Ron referred to sons girlfriend for the first time as 'our sons partner' which surprised me, we then had a conversation about how we each thought of this lovely young lady...partner or girlfriend. Son refers to her simply by her name, although this too can be confusing as her name is very unusual and could be either male or female.

[China Doll]

I consider myself and the man hostage to be too old to really call ourselves boyfriend/girlfriend. I don't much like partner or other half personally, so I stick with man hostage as it sounds more personal, (if slightly stalker-ish)... Think he says other half though.

[Kiki-frog]

"A string of Daves" - I always wondered if there was a collective noun for Daves

[Kiki-frog]

When my stepson brought home his first girlfriend he referred to her as 'the missis', which I found hilarious as they were both 14 at the time, but OH reckons that's quite usual around the Midlands/Black Country.

[EcclesCake]

I agree with Maidup, it was a huge relief when we got married and I could refer to him as my husband.

The boyfriend/girlfriend thing does start to sound a bit silly when the couple in question are closer to pension age than school leaving age.

Partner is ambiguous, but tends to be my default term.

Titles such as Other Half, Missus, Hubby, Significant Other and their like make we squirm.

I do really like China's 'man hostage', it always makes me smile.

Given the richness of our language there must be a suitable alternative for grown up relationships???