You Go, Girlfriend…uh, Partner…Wife…Significant Other?

Recently I have been faced with more than a few situations in which “relationship to petitioner” has been required to define my association with my co-conspirator in life.  I usually pause a minute and then write “family”.  The pause is not from indecision, but from a place where we both agree that all possible monikers are just not quite adequate.

We both do the same thing when we are making introductions to acquaintances.  We laugh at the thought of “girlfriend”.  There is nothing wrong with the term, several of our friends use it, but for the two of us, we are at the age where girlfriend just doesn’t seem to encompass it all.  “Girlfriend” was someone from high school and college.  You know, that secret everyone suspected, but didn’t really know.  “Girlfriend” was the one I got caught with and was the impetus behind that extended stint in religious summer camp.

Don’t get me wrong, we have no problem professing to the world we are the couple Focus on the Family warned you about.  I have blogged before on the comedic responses we get from those whose cerebral switches eventually turn to the on position.  I call it the big-eyed “OOOOh” effect.  Read here about our mall adventures, Oh…yeah. OOOOOOH! for a little cosmetic counter comedy.

I guess I could use the term, wife.  We have been together longer than many of our hetero friends, but wife reminds me of too many bad country songs I heard growing up.  And what part of the term wife would ever morph into the word mamma?  Plus, gay marriage is not legal in my state.  We even have one of those legislative proclamations that say marriage is between a man and a woman and according to the latest political headlines, his hooker, his mistress, and his male prostitute.  Marriage is way too crowded in my state.

Better half?  Not really.  Honestly, sometimes she is my better three-quarters.  If I actually believed in the fraction designation, then I would have to believe in that old platitude of “you complete me”, and I don’t.  I don’t prescribe to the notion any one person is responsible for the fulfillment of anyone else.  Placing that kind of burden on someone you love is just irresponsible.

Significant other suggests that she is somehow noteworthy because she is my alternative.  And lover, well, that may turn the heads of the mini-van driving suburban men around here, but it turns the stomach of the loyal L-word watcher.

There is always the old stand by of “partner”.  Though there is nothing very romantic in its semantics, the definition comes more to the point of what we are to each other.  A family is a business with a profit margin and stakeholders to satisfy, and even in this economy the only bailout we requested was from a broken pipe in the basement.

So, I am no closer to filling out my latest bureaucratic form with a one word delineation of a same-sex couple.  I just smile when I recall the words of my best friend when she says, “you two couldn’t hide it if you tried”.  So, from now on, when I get to the box that says relationship to petitioner, I’ll just type in, “see attached video”.