I have a husband, yet I still cannot say it.

I am hoping my Valentins Day card is a good start.

Don’t get me wrong I love being married and having a husband (and a kid and a dog...I’m all grown up!) But when I’m talking to someone and my newly made husband crops up in conversation, I literally feel a knob saying, ‘Yeah, so me and my husband were just discussing this...’

I must look insane because just as I get to the word, I change it to something else, ‘I do the morning dog walk and my...Simon...does the evening one.’

MY SIMON!! I’m struggling to say the word husband for whatever mental reason, but I find it perfectly acceptable to say my Simon. For the love of God!

I honestly don’t know what the mental block is, whether it is I feel silly, embarrassed, bit of a dick or because I have spent the last 41 years not having a husband and it is a big adjustment.

It is the old argument that when you get married nothing changes for the man and everything changes for the woman, but it is true. I have spent my whole life, over 40 years, with the same name and within 20 minutes my name completely changed to something else. That is a big deal.

I was very happy to see the back of my old surname, Farrow, as that name brings a string of very unlucky women and shit man that gave us all that name, so shredding it was rather lovely and freeing. And, as you can tell from my Substack I quite like the name Bolt.

This Valentine’s Day it is our first one as husband and wife so I thought I would go all out and find a card to mark this special occasion and I am rather chuffed with this one…

It covers all bases; it will pump his ego up a bit more, it has the word Hubby on it, and he loves biscuits! What more do you need?

Look I think I just need time. Time to realise that I now answer to Sophie Bolt and not ignore the poor people that are calling my name and time to practice a new signature (as recently we went to the bank to change my name and I got through nearly a pad of paper trying to make up a new signature, to just get pissed off and write my old one!)

My self-confidence isn’t great at the best of times, I am great at self-sabotaging when things are getting too good to be true and I suppose a part of me can’t believe I made it here. I have a family, I have a husband, I have friends and I am happy.

And just by writing that it has clicked that by me saying to people I have husband may come across smug and that makes me feel uncomfortable, I hate making people any certain way.

That is bonkers, right?

People won’t even notice if I say, Simon, husband, partner, boyfriend or that twat I live with so this is very much my issue, and I will work on that.

Anyway, I will leave you to enjoy your Valentine’s Day with your loved one (whatever you may call them) and I am off to give my HUSBAND his spectacular card and cook a cheap homemade (chicken and a jar) curry because we are still skint from getting married this Christmas.

If you are single then lots of love to you, you girls rock and you don’t need a title to show how amazing you are.

And, if any guys are reading this that are single then your girl is coming and if you are lucky then she might be able to say the word, husband, with no trouble at all and you’ll be laughing!

Lots of love x

Photo by Ryan 'O' Niel on Unsplash