Making "spouse" and "partner" labels toggleable in CAS

@natalier98 

I particular dislike the word partner for Teens. I know of zero teens that would dream of using that instead of girlfriend boyfriend regardless of their sexual observation. Some of them will likely feel insulted by having to use partner.

agreed. I love that they have that option now for those who use neutral terms in their own relationships, however, it disregards those that actively refer to their loved ones as husband/wife/bf/gf/etc in their everyday lives. It was created to incorporate inclusivity, yet somehow became less inclusive by doing so. making this feature toggleable or so that it is atleast applied in cases where gender neutral terms ARE used would be great. until then, its not fair to completely revoke one groups preferences to give the others theirs. Instead, a good company would be able to include all, not limit to some.

I agree.

I think the best solution would be to include terms like this in the same panel as pronouns so that we can select how each sim wants to be referred to.

Even just a drop down with "boyfriend/girlfriend/partner" would be a massive improvement. I'd also like to see this added for Parent and Sibling terms, while they're at it.

Yeah it was kind of wierd when they used the word inclusive yet removed the other labels entirely. Thats not being very inclusive

I want to weigh in on this. I like the gender neutral alternatives, but why did the old ones need to be nuked to make way for that? It makes the game feel less inclusive by forcing a certain language, because as the OP stated, these labels are very important to some people. It was not too long ago when gay people couldn't be husband and wife, and there are still many countries where same sex marriage is forbidden and illegal. Those people deserve to be seen and represent themselves in the game too. Perhaps in a future update we could have the option to be husband/wife etc again, even if the gender neutral option would remain as default?

Edit: Obviously straight couples deserve to keep their labels too, I don't mean to erase them. It's just that I am lesbian and my mind went instantly to "NO MA WIFE!"

I liked it saying husband and wife and I understand spouse is essentially the same thing, but I preferred it to say husband and wife. 

But why did they change boyfriend and girlfiend to partner? What even is partner supposed to mean? I always thought partner was more serious than girlfriend and boyfriend, but not married. My Sims are currently boyfriend and girlfriend. I had the guy ask her to be his girlfriend. They haven't moved in together. But now that option will be ask to be partner? I'm not moving them in together yet, so they're not partners. They're girlfriend and boyfriend. Why is that option been taken away? I don't want to have to use terminology that doesn't apply to my Sim's situation just to progress their relationship. Ask to begin relationship would make more sense than ask to be partner.

Sims have been husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend for almost ten years now. Why take that away?

Does anyone know of a mod that brings it back to what it was? Preferably a small non script mod that only brings it back and doesn't add anything extra. 

Hello Sims 4 developers! It’s nice to meet you!

Your wonderful game has become a big part of my life’s digital aspects. It has helped me a lot with my depression. Creating my own worlds and characters has given me a slow paced and safe place to go to when I need it and has given me a few good smiles and laughs as well. For me it’s less a game about life simulation and more about socialization and building relationships and that’s what I love about it. In fact I hope Sims 5 doesn’t ever come out because this is already perfect and its millions upon millions of fans are testament to that.

I know you very much appreciate feedback so I would like to make a small suggestion regarding your recent July 23rd update. I like what you did a lot. I have nothing but support and love for the LGBT community and all expressions of pride so I think your changing relationship terms in the game and now using the terms spouse, engaged and partner was very progressive and sensitive. I like what you did a lot. The only thing is that as someone who is heterosexual, I personally love the terms husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend and fiancée/fiancé. I think they have a much nicer ring to them and I’m sure plenty of not only other heterosexual people but members of the homosexual, bisexual and pansexual communities who also frequently use those words to describe their lovers like those traditional terms. Just like how many, many people are perfectly happy identifying as male or female and would rather called “he” or “she” instead of “they” even in this era of progressive identity. One of my favorite aspects of the Sims world is creating romantic relationships. Making people and households and introducing them and setting them up together and until the change it made me very happy and proud to hover over sim relationships and see husband/wife and to see the “ask to be girlfriend/boyfriend” interaction.

So here’s my suggestion. One thing I love about the game is all the ways you can tweak it to your liking, not only with mods but with base game features like disabling automatic aging, disabling automatic content downloads and so many other options. So how about creating another feature following the recent update for customizing relationship terms? It would be just as inclusive to everyone as what you just did but even more so in allowing players to show pride in whatever their individual sexuality is in their own way. How about the option to select existing sim relationships or make a default setting for future relationships where you can choose from pre-existing terms “partner,” “spouse,” “engaged and also the traditional “husband/wife,” boyfriend/girlfriend,” “fiancé/fiancée” or even type in your own custom terminology and whatever you select or type in is what shows for those particular relationships. I think this would make people of all sexualities happier than just automatically changing their content to show those new terms. After all, you already have numerous options in place for similar things under the “identity” section of “Create a Sim.” Thanks! It would mean a lot to see such features implemented in future!

I can't understand how excluding words and erasing genders is "inclusion". Feels very homophobic and misoginist. Why not simply add new options. As a gay man, having fought so hard for gay marriage, I'm apalled that the word husband, that I fought so hard to be able to use in real life, has been excluded. Erasing genders isn't inclusive. Let's add. Not take away;

I'm a software developer for a living... and I'm kind of scratching my head at this because it seems... lazy. The UI dropdown element for custom pronouns already exists. Changes and adaptations to it can be made. It would have made more sense for "custom relationship titles" to be added below "custom pronouns", and for them to be filled in by default for each she/he/they pronoun template like they already do... that way *all* gendered (like mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, etc) or neutral terms could eventually be included, and easily customizable at any time for each sim. Which is also so useful for personalization outside of gender too. What if you want some sims to be referred to by different names for mother like "mum", "mamma", "mater", "mama llama", etc? And considering they had to go update all the references anyway to be "romantic partners" or "engaged", it wouldn't add extra development time for it be a referenced string variable rather than static text. Want your sim to be both a "boyfriend" and a "wife"? Done. Use any terms you want. I do like that Lovestruck offers an option for custom relationship labels, but it's behind a paywall... so maybe that's the reason why it wasn't added as a simple addition to the dropdown, because that would've been free for everyone...

Just an odd choice because it's honestly a simple and obvious change to make, and it would've added so much more value and inclusion to everyone's game.