According to 0.29 seconds of extensive Google research, the appropriate gifts for a couple celebrating their six-year anniversary are candy, iron and wood.

You'll note that two of these items can be used as weapons.

What could possibly be romantic about iron? I say that with certainty that someone will e-mail me offering a branding iron with my wife's initials. But I honestly doubt that even the most brilliant metallurgist could work a heavy and unattractive metal in such a way that it says: "Thank you for tolerating me for six years. I have no idea what sort of mental illness has come over you, but for my sake, I hope you never snap out of it."

What I want, what my wife deserves, is an anniversary that resembles one of those diamond commercials. Have you ever seen that one where the couple is in London? They're standing and laughing in Piccadilly Circus as if they have been running (because that's what you do when you are in love, you run everywhere; always laughing, never sweating). And then the guy suddenly goes all serious and Piccadilly has somehow become Trafalgar Square, and on the steps of the National Gallery are the woman's parents and some friends.

That's what I wanted for my wife. But when June 12 came, what did she get? Clean dishes. Oh, and I made the bed.

All this time my wife and I have been together, and I still haven't manufactured a perfectly timed "spontaneous" event that costs thousands of dollars and defies London's geography. I must be the worst husband in the world.

In fairness, I warned her. She knew what she was getting into. When I got down on one knee and proposed to her six years ago, amid bushes of yellow roses, I looked her in the eye and said: "A journalist's salary isn't much. I don't know how much I can offer you ... "

At the time, though, I thought I was lying. I'm not sure how I expected this to happen, but I was pretty sure that by this point in our marriage anniversaries would be multi-day festivals. There would be diamonds and gold and silver and balloons and flowers and that laughing-running thing and maybe even some dancing bears.

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Nothing says "I love you" like a dancing bear. Dancing bears are a girl's best friend. Dancing bears are forever.

I want to give her a dancing bear, or even one of those stupid branding irons. But all I can muster are an empty sink and a straightened comforter.

Here's the weird part: After six years she still loves me, and she tells me so every day. Every morning before she heads off to work, while my head is still buried in a pillow, I hear her voice: "I love you. Have a good day."

She still defuses my poor moods with kisses and touch, or by using tag lines from professional wrestlers ("You think you had a tough day at work? Try wrestling in the Olympics with a broken freaking neck").

She still builds me up and believes in my stupid little dreams. She helps me to believe in them and not feel that they are so stupid after all. More and more, I find myself doing things I have always wanted to do. I'm able to push myself and focus because I have someone who makes me feel like living. She helps me to see the future and I know that I want to be there with her.

And she still makes it easy to be truthful. As she sat there surrounded by yellow roses, the Southern Utah sun shining in her face, I could feel the desert heat rising up in my shirt. I felt nervous and stupid and self-conscious, already feeling that I was not offering her enough. But I carried on with my proposal:

"I don't know how much I can offer you," I said, "but I know that I will love you forever. I will love you every day until there are no more days, and then more beyond that."

Happy anniversary, Rachel.

Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.