In our relationship, there IS a primary and secondary role, I am married to a man, then we have a girlfriend, so she is currently secondary, since we have not been with her long and are still entangling ourselves with her.
However, we don’t use those terms in conversation. We know her as our girlfriend, as things grow and progress we would say “lover”. We don’t even use those terms with one another, we simply realize that we will more than likely never fall in love with anyone as much as we have with one another, though we do believe we can and will fall in love with another woman, if that makes sense?
Then again we aren’t going huge with how many relationships we have, so maybe in larger poly groups those terms are easier to use and easier to make connections between the people.

I don’t use terms like that. I have a boyfriend(my other half) and normally a girlfriend. They are my partners. Each has an importance in my life and they know they both have to respect each other. Honestly we label to much now adays. Love is love 🙂

Both Zenocrate and TomatoBoobs have a similar vein of thought to mine. The partners I have dedicated to for life have decided, on their own, how they want to be introduced by me to others. Even though I have had a ceremony with both individuals, the person I am married to on paper is my “spouse”. My other partner is my “significant other”. I can’t label one as more primary than the other because we make decisions as a family; not two couples.

I have a wife of 20+ years, a girlfriend of 10+ years, and have had several girlfriends/lovers over the last 30+ years. I can only remember a ~6 month period in my dating life when I was NOT poly, and that’s a story for another day/thread.

I love my wife and girlfriend equally. My offspring (Through wife) are in adulthood now, and have enjoyed seeing my girlfriend as well as her (recent) husband when she or they came by. It was an honor to be a member of their wedding party.

I’m not a fan of these labels either. I don’t believe that my girlfriend uses them either. At least, I haven’t heard her or her husband do so. After such a long time together, perhaps we don’t need to? She has always been my girlfriend and I her boyfriend. And our spice (Plural of spouse?) are either husband or wife accordingly.

What I would love to read, however, are stories from others about reactions and how introductions have been given to friends and family? (Obviously, from those who are already “Out” to these people.)

In my case, we are not out only with one set of family out of the four. It is a little tough on the one whose family is “In the dark”, but unfortunately, necessary. 🙁 Everyone else has had their own reactions to the news when it came, but all have seem to come to except it. Many have openly praised it.

I’ve been finding that I do use the term “primary” sometimes to refer to my girlfriend, who I’ve been with for longer, used to be monogamous with, and with whom I’m raising a child. What I like about the term is that it lets others know she’s not my only partner, and since we’re not actually married it’s more technically accurate than calling her my wife. But I don’t refer to my boyfriend as my “secondary” partner; I just call him my partner or my boyfriend. I don’t like the hierarchy that the terms primary/secondary imply, and I try not to invite that level of categorization into our lives.

I hate the term primary and secondary and i do my best not to use them. I find it easier to either call them by there names or by there hair color when im talking about them to another person.