How about “Reason for Living”?
I’ll be a little surprised if anyone knows the source of that, but people have been quoting Dead Milkmen lyrics over in Cafe Society, so anything’s possible.
“My Man” “My Woman” 
Because the word marriange implies (even if not technically true) a legal joining, and a wedding. The concept I am against is that I have to get legally married in order to prove that I am in the “serious long term committment” I am pretty sure I am already in. And I know I can do the justice of the piece thing and skip the wedding, but then I have to explain that to everyone.
If I decided that starting tomorrow I will start referring to my girlfriend as my “wife” and mention to a coworker how my “wife” and are going to the beach this weekend, I am suddenly going to have to explain that, no I did not get married last night, no I did not have a wedding and not tell anyone, no I did not get engaged, etc.
The point of the OP is that it would be nice if there was a common english word that described a person in which you are in a serious long term committed relationship with, that you did not and are not going to marry. Again, something in between “girlfriend” and “wife” or even “Fiance”.
And by the way, your first paragraph is just another reason for me not to get married - to stick it to people like you who can’t see outside thier own point of view 
As for your 2nd paragraph - I mentioned in my OP we are buying a home together, so I would think there is a guite a large level of serious consequence in walking away from our relationship. Not to mention I have forgotten who’s DVDs are who’s 
I’ve used the term “Pelvic Affiliate” for years. It’s non-gender specific, and can be used for any level of relationship from f—buddy to wife/husband of 75 years.
I prefer it because at 38 years old, having a “girlfriend” seems a little juvenile, and referring to my P.A. as “fiancee” seems a bit odd, considering how long we’ve been engaged (and un-engaged, and re-engaged).
I guess I don’t understand the reluctance to call the person you live with, are committed to, own a house with, share finances with, have children with, and want to spend the rest of your life with, your husband or wife. You aren’t married by the government or by some priest or because it’s written down on a piece of paper or because you had a party and wore a fancy dress, you marry each other. Your public commitment to each other is what makes you married. Now, if you DON’T have that commitment to each other, then you’re correct not to call each other husband or wife. But if your committment to each other is just as serious as a married couple then guess what, you are married, albeit informally.
Good luck with that, given that languages do change maybe it’ll happen. Why not just modify a word that isn’t commonly used these days? You and your girlfriend could refer to one another as consorts. “Hello Mr. Henderson, have you met my consort Jill?” Sure, consort is suppose to refer to the spouse of a reigning monarch, but that’s no reason not to use a perfectly good word. Then there’s the ever popular concubine though the closest male equivalent I can think of would be stud. “Hello mother, let me introduce you to my stud, Jack!”
One of the reasons for not getting married with a JP in a courthouse was having to explain it to people. Aren’t you going to have to constantly explain to people just whatever new term you pick to describe your relationship is?
Marc
My understanding of the historical provision for common-law marriage was to protect those individuals who established or wanted to establish what were meant to be long-term relationships exactly like marriage in every way-except that they didn’t live close enough to an area of significant population to avail themselves of public solemnization.
Hence the statutory retirement of said institution in most states given that the “don’t live near enough to avail self of public solemnization” no longer applies.
These days I think people avail themselves of common law marriage when they didn’t “need” the paper during the relationship, but find themselves somewhat lacking in the rights department during dissolution-and then wanting everything that goes along with that useless piece of paper. I clearly remember the casenotes to West’s Family law text stating that judges will go over residence with a fine tooth comb to see if the couple were anywhere near a common law state to help them along.
Of course, my personal view is that the Marvin doctrine was a judicial reinstatement of of CL marriage (to protect every person who claims they don’t need the paper till they do) but it’s not in every state. At least as of my 2nd year of law school, I was still reading cases to the effect that IL doesn’t recognise it*.
*A discussion of historical legal trends, not legal advice.
Why not “husband” and “wife”? You two certainly embody what that word is supposed to mean, outside of its legal and religious implications. To use a very different example: “nuisance” has a meaning in civil law that’s part of its broader, general meaning. But there are lots of people you might call a “nuisance” even though you don’t have grounds to sue them. That doesn’t make them any less of a “nuisance”.
Isn’t that pretty much the same thing as a divorce? Edit: The difference being that if they get “that piece of paper”, they’ll be basically forced to sue each other if they split up, whereas this way they don’t have to get the legal system involved if they can reach a consensus first.
That’s the point. Try going to school on under 4k–and still not getting financial aid, thanks to loopholes in the state law. (Being legally married helps if you’re under 24, though.)
We have a one size fits all term for this in Australia: defacto. It’s used for either sex, and sometimes in same-sex couples. As the link shows, it has different legal connotations depending on which state you live.
I really dislike it.
I introduce her as my Landlord* and apparently I’m some kind of “House Man”.
*as she bought the appartment before I moved in and I rent with an option to marry into it…plus 1/2 of whatever it cost her
First time I remember seeing that was in a Doonesbury strip, decades ago. Conversation between Rick and Joanie before they decided to get married, so that would have been in the early 1980s?
SWMBO and I are in our 15th year of non-married bliss. We each refer to the other as our partner and let it go at that.
Add me in to the intense dislike column on this one. Said with a broad Australian accent it sounds terrible, and it has acquired connotations of trailer trash. IMHO only necessary when one is obliged to be strictly accurate about the nature of a relationship, and then only as a last resort. Tends to be one of those expressions that are used about others, and with an audible sneer (“The defendant’s de facto partner was arrested for smashing the house up while drunk”), rather than about one’s self.
I like this one. I’m going to start using it.
I have bought quite a bit of jewelry over the years, Diamond Solution ProviderTM Has a nice ring to it.
My SO and I have been living together for almost 15 years now. Here he’s my SO. In conversations with people who know us, I use his name. For people I don’t know, and don’t want to spend 10 minutes explaining things to, he’s my husband.
I actually prefer not to use the word husband. We aren’t legally married. If I tried to use the word husband in any official way, I could be in trouble. But there are a whole lot of people out there that I don’t want to take the time to explain things to in small words. I also don’t want to have to have a conversation over WHY we aren’t married.
Checking out a thesaurus, maybe I’ll start using inamorato, swain and beau.
That is the point of not really wanting or caring to get married. I don’t hid my committment or relationship from anyone, but also don’t feel any need to have it “public” or “official” Its for me and her, not anyone else. I pretty much do consider her my “wife” in everything but legality and normal usage.
Well, thats not the one reason we don’t get married - just to avoid explanation. I was just pointing out how even if we did do that with our society we would have to explain to everyone.
And as for a term, I was wishing there was such a term, and thought it would be fun to come up with creative ideas. Do I think I could just pick something and not have to explain? Of course not!
I just wanted to say that I’m very happy Spanish uses the same term for all the stages from “going steady” to “bride/groom”… saves us a lot of trouble. The difference is in the tone of voice (and no, Spanish is not supposed to be a tonal language).
And of course when A is flirting with B and B says “well, I live with the* gf and don’t think she’d like that,” it’s quite evidently a case where A needs to butt out or get her eyes handed back to her on a platter.
(* the, literal translation from Spanish… we also say “the head is hurting me” instead of “my head hurts”, ok? It’s not like you’re going to live with somebody else’s gf or somebody else’s head will hurt you!)