Bernard O'Shea: I’ve decided to renew my marriage vows… here's my new list of promises

After 17 years together, I've finally worked out what my wife actually wants me to promise her

Instead of renewing your wedding vows after 15 or 20 years, couples should renew their promises.

The other day, I was thinking. Instead of renewing your wedding vows after 15 or 20 years, couples should renew their promises.

Not the romantic ones. We’ve all established by now that we’ll love each other forever and all that.

I’m talking about the promises that actually matter after nearly two decades of living together.

In fact, if I asked my wife what she wanted for our anniversary, I don’t think she’d ask for jewellery, a weekend away, or even a nice meal out. I think she’d look me dead in the eye and say: “I’d settle for you closing a few doors behind you.”

So, after 17 years of marriage:

I promise to stop leaving “every f**king light on in the house”.

I promise to stop leaving things on top of the dishwasher instead of in the dishwasher.

I promise never to leave a wet towel on the bed ever, ever again.

I promise to stop leaving empty milk cartons and reusable cheese packets back in the fridge.

I promise to stop leaving empty chicken dipper bags, pea bags, potato waffle boxes, and anything else that used to contain food back in the freezer.

I promise to stop leaving the kids’ pick-ups and drop-offs to the last minute, even though I’ve never been late for any of them and their accounts of possible lateness cannot be proved.

I promise to stop leaving out the ironing board after I’m finished with it (even though I’m doing this so I can let the iron cool down first and then put the two of them away together)

I promise to stop using the excuse of letting the iron cool down as a reason for not putting away the ironing board after I’m finished with it.

I promise to stop pulling up the window in the passenger seat while your elbow is resting on the door, even though I don’t do it on purpose and you think I do.

I promise to stop leaving half-empty cups of tea and coffee everywhere around the house.

I promise to stop leaving my clothes on the couch, on the banister in the hall, on the kitchen table, or anywhere where clothes don’t belong.

I promise to stop leaving clothes in the washing machine and the dryer for days on end.

I promise never again to dye my old clothes in the washing machine, even if I do it correctly this time, as I destroyed everything the last time and all our clothes turned khaki green.

I promise to stop using your yoga mat as cushioning for my knees when I’m doing DIY projects around the house.

I promise to stop doing DIY projects around the house.

I promise to stop using “but you’re better at it” for the following things:

• Maths homework with the kids.
• Booking accommodation, flights, insurance, or anything that requires an attention span of longer than 15 seconds.
• Giving very reluctant children medication. (Caveat: Bribing them works better than reasoning, I stand over this).

I promise to stop bribing the kids with ice cream, football cards, or money when I need them to do something they don’t want to do.

I promise to stop shouting at the television when I’m watching a match. I now know the players can’t hear me, it won’t make any difference to the outcome, and you think something bad has happened when I roar, “Ah for f**k sake”.

I promise to stop starting conversations with no context and then getting annoyed when you have no idea what I’m talking about.

I promise to stop talking about the time I met a four-fingered Kit-Kat that was entirely made of chocolate. It’s an embarrassing story for a man in his late 40s to be repeatedly telling people.

I promise to stop buying “shite” like ice-cream, sweets and crisps, and then complaining about eating them when I’m eating them.

I promise to stop leaving things at the bottom of the stairs because someone might trip and fall, or worse break their neck, when I now know it’s so much easier to bring the things upstairs.

I promise to clean the air fryer straightaway after using it for sausages.

I promise to stop taking your phone charger when I have loads of them, and if I can’t find mine, to go out and buy one.

I promise to stop shouting things from another room because I now fully understand you can’t hear me, due to you actually doing this in reverse to show me and giving me a small test to see if I could make out what you said.

I also promise to stop using these phrases.

• “If you’re tired, you should go to bed”.
• “I know you’re hungry, but I don’t know what you want to eat”.
• “It’s on the list, I’ll eventually get around to it”.
• “I don’t know who’s going; I didn’t ask”.

Or the term “relax” in any capacity.

And finally:

I promise to stop parking miles and miles and miles away from the entry to every shopping centre.