SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Increasingly Significant Issue

[Joanne M. Despres]

>From the Department of Elegant Variation:  for relationships of long
duration, gay or straight, there's the ever-popular "ball and chain."
(But I don't think that tends to show up on insurance forms or in
newspaper stories.)

But seriously:  I believe "lover" is still used by GBTs, especially
those in the above-40 age bracket, though less automatically than
it used to be.  (I also once heard it applied by a heterosexual
woman to her live-in boyfriend.)

Joanne Despres