friend_from_the_gym

She introduced me as her friend after two years

I'm 42. She's 44. We've been together — or whatever the correct word is — for two years. I went to her sister's wedding with her. I knew I wasn't going as her official partner, because we've had that argument enough times. But when someone at the table asked how we knew each other, she said, "Oh, we're friends from the gym." I laughed because everyone else laughed. Then I went to the bathroom and cried like a teenager. I spend nearly every weekend at her flat. We speak every day. I've looked after her dog when she's away. I've met these people before. They just apparently don't know what I am. She says labels don't change how she feels about me and that I'm obsessed with how things look to other people. Maybe she's right. But I don't think I need a label for Instagram. I think I want the person I love to be able to say, in a room full of people she loves, that I matter differently from a friend from the gym. Am I making a word too important? Or is refusing the word after two years actually telling me something about the relationship?