A Correct Word, Even For This
Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I have been separated for a year and a half and are engaged in a miserable legal battle. I want a divorce.
He says I will never succeed in divorcing him. He says I will fail in my attempt to end our marriage. He says he wants to stay married forever, because he needs to take care of me. And he does not want a divorce on his record, which I think is the main issue - his record.
My question is not whether to shoot him or not - I figured that out for myself. My question is what to call him when I describe him to people. I can’t call him my husband without explaining that we don’t actually live as man and wife. I can’t call him my former, or my ex-husband, because we are, in fact, married.
I’m reduced to calling him “my erstwhile husband,” “my sometime husband” to people who know me. Still, I don’t know how to describe him to people like business associates or potential landlords.
Can I call him “my aggressively clinging-on husband,” or “my semi-separated barnacle person”? Occasionally, I have reached the end of my patience and referred to him as “the one who stalks me.”
I don’t like being forced to say husband when I should have been legally entitled to be without him months ago. Any formal etiquette solution to this problem might make me more patient with the legalities.
Gentle Reader: The term that popped into Miss Manners’ head is “My Insignificant Other.” She really must get a grip on herself.
That momentary lapse was an unfortunate result of spending too much time fussing over a far more usual question, which is the very opposite of yours. When a society’s living arrangements have gotten so complicated that it needs specialized terms both for those who hold the legal position but not the social one, and those who hold the social position of a spouse without the legal position, no wonder a poor etiquette adviser’s head is spinning.
On second thought, how about “my estranged husband”? It is just factual and neutral enough to pass muster, and Miss Manners figures that it should satisfy you because of its similarity to the word “strange.”
Dear Miss Manners: Is there a polite way to inform young salesclerks and other service people that acceptable business etiquette is other than their current practices? I refer specifically to calling a customer by his or her first name, and neglecting to say “Thank you” at the conclusion of a transaction.
I know you’ve said that there is no polite way to tell someone that he or she is rude, but it seems to be that a whole generation is uninformed about such basic matters as these. I’ve thought of speaking to the offender directly, as going to his or her supervisor seems heavy-handed, inconvenient and largely futile.
Gentle Reader: When Miss Manners has to decline assistance on the regrettable but unassailable grounds that it is rude to go around barking at people, she would like to remind volunteers that there are other methods available to do the job.
Manners are taught not just by instruction, but by example.
In this situation, you can show clerks how pleasant politeness is by smiling brightly and saying, “Thank you for helping me.” You can also say unapologetically, “I prefer to be called Mr. Witherspoon,” if you do so without rancor. Miss Manners, who loathes being addressed familiarly by strangers, has perfected the ability to say this as if she were conferring a great privilege.
The example of politeness is more effective in the long-run than the counter attack. Miss Manners only regrets that it is less immediately satisfying to those bristling with indignation over the rudeness of others.