I’m Kate. I’ve got a (male) partner, two donor conceived kiddos, and a retired sled dog. We’re pretty committed to attachment parenting, and are trying our best to raise happy, healthy, confident, caring people who seeks to be a positive force in both their immediate and global community. Actually, that’s the sort of person I’m trying to be too.
hey kate… just curious – why do you use the term partner instead of husband? you don’t have to publish my comment, i’m just being nosy and would love to know your thoughts.
I feel like the partner vs husband thing could probably turn in to a whole post! Didn’t want you to think I had my knickers in a knot over the question
I think it comes from a variety of places. I remember the first time I was exposed to the term as anything other than a same sex relationship identifier in a way that impacted me. I was walking down a road with a fellow Frontier College Labourer-Teacher, and she said something about her partner, while also identifying him as a male, and my whole lack of a filter problem meant that I asked her why she used the term in a heterosexual context. She actually wasn’t very eloquent about the whole thing. I don’t think anyone had ever asked her such a thing before, to be fair. The gist of her message was, “Why should it matter if I have a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/fiance(e)/etc?”. I didn’t totally get it, but, ok, file that away.
Sometimes I wonder if, in the wake of “partner” becoming such a pervasive term, queer folk resent the appropriation of the word by the heterosexual population. You know, in the same way that some people get worked up about the word “marriage” being applied to homosexual relationships?
Some of my use of the word is a ridiculously immature way to test people. If I use the word “partner” and the “Christian” person still treats me with respect, then I often extrapolate that they are the sort of folk who would treat everyone with respect and are therefore the sort of folk I would enjoy getting to know a little better. Sometimes it’s a way to smooth transitions into the social groups of the “midwifer” sort (that being the sort where people are not typical church folk, where there are more “hippy” leanings, etc). This makes me sound shallow. Oh dear.
Ultimately, I use the word partner because that is what I hope and work for our relationship to be. A partnership. Respect, communication, give and take, unconditional support paired with the ability to challenge…
I know the term “husband” has the same meaning for many people, but, for me, there are no warm fuzzies or feelings of resonance with the term. Partner just resonates better.
What do you think?!