Your Significant Other

 

Recently I’ve been watching back episodes of The Amazing Race and The Amazing Race Asia, a reality game show where teams of two race around the world for the hopes of winning the grand monetary prize.  The two team members of each team already have an established relationship and many of the couples on the show are in a romantic relationship.  This prompted me to introduce out-of-the-ordinary words to describe one’s significant other in this post.

 It is boring to introduce your significant other to others with a “This is my husband…” or “This is my wife…”  How about using more colorful words? 

Well, let’s start at the beginning. If you have just started a relationship, other than “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”, try using the following. 

“He has been my beau for the last three months as we have been dating.” (Beau is used only to describe men, thus, a substitute for boyfriend.)

Or, you could refer to your new special someone as your baby, angel, sweetheart, honey, honeybunch, or darling when talking to a friend, which might give your friend some goose bumps.  You could even use these terms when calling on your special someone.  It will definitely melt his or her heart!  

What happens if your relationship progresses to the next level?  Well, maybe he or she becomes your fiancée (to describe females) or fiancé (to describe males).  Getting engaged before marriage is very common in Western countries.   

 

Many people nowadays like to talk about their significant other as the word does not carry any gender connotation or indicate whether the two people have gotten married.  Also, the world has become more liberal and accepting of same sex relationships and non-married couples living together. Thus, rather than using the more conventional terms, you could also talk about your soul mate or your companion to mean your life-long partner and tell your friends that he or she is your better half or your one and only.  If the two of you live together, you could refer to your domestic partner.  And if you do tie the knot, he or she becomes your spouse in a more formal sense!  

 

Well, in modern society we are also more open to break-ups as who could guarantee a life-long relationship, right?  Although, it is definitely sad that divorce rates continue to climb.  If the break-up was civil, there is no big deal about that but if you still have a grudge over a previous relationship, and you see the person again, you could talk about your bad luck at seeing your old flame or a blast from the past to talk about your ex to indicate that the two of you have separated.    

But what if the separation was not intentional?  What if he or she passed away?  To refer to a husband or wife who has passed away, the term is late husband/wife.   

If you are still single and have passed marriage age, beware when entertaining your mom and her friends as they may try to find you a suitor!