How do you address your spouse in your family?

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Allegra

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I was having a conversation with someone who mentioned that they thought it was weird that her sister refers to her own husband as “Daddy”. She implied that she thought it was “creepy”. I explained that lots of couples get in the habit of addressing their spouse however they want their children to address them, once they have children. She said that she still thought it was weird and “her parents never did that.” So, I was just curious, and I’ve never made a poll before. So here’s my first poll! How do you address your spouse when you speak to them? If you aren’t married, how did your parents address one another?
    1. By their first name.
    1. By “Mother” or “Dad”, or cultural equivalent.
    1. By a cutsy nick-name. (Darling, Sweetheart, Hotlips, Babe)
    1. By “Husband” or “Wife”.
    1. By “Mr” or “Mrs.”
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I refer to my husband to friends as “Firstname” or in formal situations as “Mr Lastname”. When I talk to him, it could be first name or “babe”.

My mom refers to my dad by his lastname, but, that is how all of his friends refer to him.

I am in the “calling my husband daddy is creepy” camp, as is my mom.
 
I usually call my husband “daddy” now that we have kids. Before that, I called him “Babe”. I don’t understand why the first is “creepy” but the second is cool. It’s creepy for me to be his “parent”, but totally fine for me to be his? Anyway, I just got into the habit of calling him “Daddy” when my kids were little and it stuck. My mother called my dad “Daddy”. (Among other things.) My daddy called her “Schotzi”. I have no idea why.
 
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When I talk to him, I usually call him “Dear.” When I refer to him, I use his name. When I’m talking to him in the presence of the kids, on a subject that involves the kids, I call him “Daddy.”

So, it’s-- “Dear, would you give me a hand with this?” when it’s the two of us, versus “Daddy, have you seen DS1’s report card?” at the kitchen table with all of us at dinner.
 
Mm, I think we tend to talk to people differently in private than we do in public. When we are in a more public situation, a lot of our conversation is structured for the benefit of other people who are present. A lot of what we do for our kids is modeling behavior, and we fall into those patterns without thinking about it. So when I address DH as “Daddy”, it’s me sending a signal to my kids, “I’m-talking-to-your-father-about-you”, more than it is me sending a signal to my husband that “I’m-talking-to-you-in-the-capacity-of-being-a-dad.”

But the fun part was the first time my kids called me “Dear”, because they hear us using that term more frequently than us calling each other “Mommy” or “Daddy”, and so they figured it was the best word for them to use to address me as well. 🙂 It doesn’t happen often, though, but occasionally, it slips out when addressing me— but to them, Daddy is always Daddy.
 
Yeah, my husband wasn’t at all amused the first time my daughter tried to call him by his first name!
 
Mr. TWF and Mrs. TWF exclusively. In fact, I’ve completely forgotten my wife’s Christian name.

Yes, I live in Victorian England.

Yes, I may be kidding. … was surprised that last poll option was on there!
 
I put it on there because I have actually know people who do that. There was this couple in the retirement home where my mom worked that addressed one another that way. My paternal grandpa used to call my grandma “Mrs. ______”. My mom always talks about how cute it was. Now that she and my stepdad are seniors, she calls him “Mr. ____” sometimes. Or “Pappy”. Or “Mr. Happy”. She has alot of names for him, many of which should not be repeated here. My aunt also calls her husband “Mr. _____”. So, its a thing.
 
I generally call my husband “daddy”. I didn’t know it was weird- I thought most people with kids did that. Does this woman you were talking to have any kids of her own?

Occasionally if by some miracle the kids are both sleeping and we are alone, I might say his name or “hon”. But generally it’s “Daddy”.
 
I called my husband by his name or by the nickname I had used for him since early in our relationship. We did not have kids so I did not think of calling him “Daddy”. However, it is not uncommon for someone with kids to refer to their spouse as “Daddy” or “Mommy” or equivalent when speaking to their children. My father-in-law sometimes referred to my mother-in-law as “Mother”; his family was English, and it seemed like a typical old-school English thing to do, not odd.

“Daddy” or “Mama” might also fall in the category of “cutesy nickname”.


If someone complained that their sister calling sister’s husband “Daddy” was “creepy”, I would seriously wonder what went on in that family. It might not be my choice to call my husband “Daddy” but it’s not “creepy”.
 
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It’s a combination here. My kids are young, so there is a lot of Mommy and Daddy because they’re always here. If they’re for some reason not around we use first names. It sort of feels like it depends on the situation or why we need eachother’s attention. I tend to need a name more when I’m talking about someone than talking to them. I know it can be habbit forming because my inlaws call eachother mommy and daddy and it used to give me the creeps.
 
I use the title “dad” when referring in the 3rd person “give the stick to your dad” or “Your dad and I are going over to the store”.

I think it is creepy when parents call each other by “dad” or “mom” directly. When I roll over in the morning, I don’t say “good morning, daddy!” or I don’t call out “Dad, the pizza delivery is here”. In those times I use his first name or if jokey a pet name like “babe” or “boo”.

When I text my (now adult son), it is “will you pick up FirstName’s prescription today” or “FirstName’s cardiologist visit is next Wednesday”.
 
When I text my children and refer to their father, I use the man :man:t2: emoji because he sort of resembles my husband (the iOS version).
 
My parents did call each other Mother and Father when we were very young. I did think there was anything weird about it, but then again it was what I knew, what I was familiar with.

Between The Husband and me, depending upon context it could be anything from “Darling” to “Hey you” (followed by “Did you hear what I just said?” :woman_shrugging:t2:) It’s important to note that we don’t have children.
 
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My parents call each other by their first names (although, actually, the name Mom uses is not her legal given name but a shortened Anglicized version of it - she was given a Latin name). I call my husband Honey or Lovey. He calls me Snuggles or Wifie. When I’m talking about him to someone else, I usually say “my husband” or “Hubby”.
 
When I was a kid, it was common for my grandparents generation to call each other Mother and Father.
I never thought it was creepy, just old-fashioned.
 
I remember in the 70s and 80s it was not uncommon for young men to call their girlfriends or wives “Mama”, which came from biker slang if I remember right. Sometimes the women would call their guys stuff like big daddy, papa, mi papi. Some couples still do this and there are songs with that lingo in it.

What I would find creepy would be if, when I became an adult, my parents suddenly wanted me to call them by their firstnames. I could never imagine calling them anything other than Mom or Mama, and Dad or Daddy, even when I was fully grown. I would have called a step-parent by their first name but that situation never came up in my life.
 
My hippie auntie had her kids call her by her first name.
I still find it disconcerting 🙂
 
I’ve known parents who made a big point of wanting to be their children’s friend rather than parent, who pushed the first name thing really hard. It was weird.
 
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