You say boyfriend, I say . . .

I have a word dilemma. And being one who likes to write, a word dilemma is quite bothersome. In today's society we have endless labels and nicknames for everything. 'Man-bag', 'Gold Digger', 'She-Male', 'Fashionista', 'Cougar', the list goes on. (Although my personal favorite is 'Mandals' = man sandals. hehe)

Anyway, I am at a loss as to how to assign a label to one of the most important areas in my life: my man. Those who know me know my love is older than I, and me being out of my twenties now, I'm no spring chicken myself. We are not married and so we seem to be stuck with the 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' labels. Well, I'm sorry but 'boyfriend' does not begin to cover the depths of what this person is to me. Further, we live together, have made a life together, and you know - it's serious! So what does one call their love when we are past the high-school sounding 'boyfriend' stage? And I must say, I'm not particularly a fan of labels for the people in our lives, but it seems that you always come across it in everyday conversation and end up needing to assign one.

So I ask you - what are some other words instead of boyfriend that make sense for this stage in life?