We need a new word for our long-term boyfriends and girlfriends

Please don't suggest lover.

To hear the disgust in my voice when I say the word ‘lover’, listen to the audio version.

My seven-year-old son asked me a weird question the other day.

“Have you got a boyfriend, mum?”

“Yes,” I said, confused. “It’s your dad.”

His face filled with disdain.

“Urgh… pathetic,” he said.

And he’s right. My long-term partner and co-parent should not be my boyfriend. It is pathetic. It’s inadequate. It’s juvenile. It sounds too much like he should be giving me his high school ring to wear on my necklace to the prom.

I will never get married again. So I really need a new word.

There are a lot of us out there. Over thirty, long-term relationship, living together, possibly a child and/or a pet. I’d say about half of my parent friends are also cohabiting and unmarried. Do we all really need to say partner?

As this word is extremely unsatisfactory. I’m sure it’s nearly always clear from context that I don’t mean business partner. (Although it wasn’t clear to my son that his parents were romantically involved.) But partner makes me think of ring binders and ledger books and other dull things. And ignoring the fact that 80% of our relationship is asking each other for any money we believe is owed, I want a word a bit less dusty and formal.

But what else is there? There only seems to be nine other equally unsatisfactory options.

1. Other half/better half

Obviously, I can’t use these as this suggests I’m half a person, which I hate, as I feel most of the time like a quarter of a person, so I’d have to say, ‘my half, which makes us three-quarters’, which is way too wordy.

2. Lover

I can’t discuss any suggestion of the word lover as it disgusts me too much. This is just for deviants.

3. Significant other

This is only for people who stand with their arms folded behind their backs, not in front.

4. My man/my woman

Way too possessive. I don’t think a heterosexual man could say ‘my woman’ without also holding a club. And I don’t think I could say ‘my man’ without some heavy concealer covering up a black eye.

5. Her indoors, the missus, the ball and chain

And weirdly no negative phrases to describe male partners.

6. Bidey-in

I read somewhere that the Scots use this for a live-in partner, but I never heard that on Take the High Road, Taggart or The Krankies, so I’m not sure it’s true.

7. Only ever referring to a partner by their name

I once worked for a few weeks with a girl who only ever referred to her partner as George, even though I’d never met him. There was this assumption that I knew who she was talking about. By the end of the month, I felt like I did know him, and I also irrationally hated him. ‘Bloody George’, I would think, for no good reason. So this is not a solution.

8. The person I’m going steady with

I did once go through a phase, long after the arrival of the child and dog, of asking my ‘partner’ if we were going steady now. And even though it amused me, it’s a bit of a mouthful.

9. Common-law husband/wife

Common? Law? Husband? No, thank you.

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Whenever there is an English word missing, there is always one place to go. The missing word shop that is Germany. But after some light Googling, I just feel let down. They just have ‘Lebensgefährte’, which translates as life partner.

I hate ‘life partner’ as it’s all got all the problems of ‘partner’. And then I simultaneously feel two conflicting things: that the ‘life’ bit is suffocating and claustrophobic, and also annoyed that I’ll then be single in the afterlife. “Oh, just for life - great, thanks a lot. So I’ll have to go to the cinema on my own for my post-death eternity? Brilliant.”

The Swedes have had a go at it. They use ‘särbo’ for a long-term partner you don’t live with. This would have been great for Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton when they were partners and lived next door to each other. And the Swedish also have ‘sambo’ for the long-term partner you live with. This would have been great if there weren’t any very unpleasant associations with the word sambo.

So it really does feel like we’re stuck with boyfriend and girlfriend. Unless we make up a new word. Gathgo? Malchard? Luscope? Bradite? Fearnty? What will make me seem less pathetic in the eyes of my child? Probably nothing. I’m wondering if this is the main reason people get married.