I’ve recently amicably separated from my wife. It’s likely to be quite a while before we make the divorce official. In the meantime, how do I refer to her in conversation? My aim is to be concise without misstating our relationship.
Just saying “my wife” implies we’re still together, and “ex-wife” is inaccurate in a legal sense.
“My de jure wife” is good in text, but sounds too much like du jour when spoken, and that’s definitely not the right sentiment.
“My ex” is the best I’ve come up with so far, as it conveys the idea without saying too much.
How do other people handle this? Please keep in mind that I’m not looking for mean-spirited epithets, though I’m sure there are plenty of colorful ones available.
For a while I still said “my wife”, then I just started referring to her by name, once I was more comfortable it became “my soon to be ex-wife” or when typing STBEW/STBXW/STB Ex-wife/STBX-wife or some other combination starting with STB.
Your “ex” is not accurate, as that should only apply post divorce.
She is your wife. You say that implies you are still together, well you are, you’re not divorced. If you want to be completely transparent, you can say, “my wife, with whom I am separated.”
Is your separation, a legal separation?
In what occasion do you need to refer to her, but not needing to give more clarifying information?
Even though some might consider it not entirely correct, I just say “ex”. People who know me well enough to know my situation understand it, and it’s just a short identifier. People who don’t know, at this point probably are not close enough to ever know, and so “ex” is a convenient enough gloss. Among a very few people I use her name, or at least a short nickname I’ve come to use for her (which is mostly but not entirely neutral/flattering). This constitutes maybe 3 close friends.
I like EvilTOJ’s suggestion in my evil little heart though.
I’m not sure if you’re joking or not, but from beginning to end, I was with my ex-wife for 11 years, she is/was a pretty big part of my life, even if I didn’t have a child with her, she’d still come up in conversation from time to time.
Presumably, with your close friends, family and co-workers, they know you are separated, so you could go on referring to her as you have in the past (no need for a new label), and those people should understand the context, that you are separated.
Seems like the only area where being clear on you current status of relationship with people that may not know about it are people that you are dating or considering dating. In those cases, it is important that you are very clear that you are separated, not divorced. Because the distinction can be important to some people.
Just as a outside observer here, I wouldn’t fault you for referring to her as your ex-wife. For casually conversation, ie, “Hey I know that guy, he’s my ex-wife’s brother”, it tells me as much as I need to know, ie, she’s not your “significant other” socially, I shouldn’t refer to you and your wife as a couple. Legally isn’t really my concern unless maybe we’re talking about your dating life, but I assume you’re just talking general chit-chat with friends of friends, etc.
Nah, I don’t agree. “Ex” is casual, so isn’t wrong. They’ve split up, so they are exes, even if it’s not legally sanctioned. You can have ‘exes’ you were never married to (I’ve got plenty )
I guess it depends on your social circle. I wouldn’t have any issue with a friend describing their ‘soon-to-be’ as their ex, whether the divorce was through or not, because I would know that they had split, so ‘ex’ would sound right to me. Certainly more right than clinging onto ‘my wife’ when they’d long since split - it would make me worry that he was struggling to let go.
Maybe ‘marriage’ just doesn’t hold such a sacred category in my heart. I’m gay, my friends are a mix of married, not-married and civilly partnered. Those that are married don’t have any extra special status amongst our friends, and their exes aren’t more finely defined in casual conversation.
Calling her your “Ex” is entirely appropriate at this point in time. “Ex-Wife” perhaps wouldn’t be though, but she’s certainly an Ex… Ex-Lover, Ex-Parter, Ex-etc…
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