I’M watching my husband very carefully.

I’m monitoring him for any changes, however subtle, and I’ve taken the precaution of packing an overnight bag in case I need to grab the children and flee. If they have any sense, other women across the country will be doing the same.

Why? Because, by all accounts, over the next month men – even the mildest among them – will change into monsters.

If pre-World Cup relationship waffle in the media is to be believed, blokes are about to turn into volatile, beer-swigging couch potatoes who pay attention to the telly and nothing else.

Newspapers and magazines are full of advice on how to manage this difficult time, how to pick up on good and bad vibes, when to steer clear of your man (when they lose a game – it doesn’t take rocket science to work that one out), and how to steer the situation to your advantage.

‘There are ways to minimise the feeling of being emotionally and physically abandoned and use this time to actually strengthen your relationship,’ says one piece of advice.

‘It will give you an opportunity to meet more of your partner’s friends’, says another, irresponsibly ignoring the dangers of sending a lone, fragile female into a den of loud, lager-fuelled louts.

‘You may have little interest in football, but ask your partner about the lows and highs of the match, to let him know you appreciate his passion’.

Yes, like my husband does with me when I’m watching Location, Location, Location. He hates it, and spends the hour chuntering about the likelihood of there being something better on another channel. He would never pander to me by feigning interest: “So did that couple like the add-on £15,000 conservatory?”

The bizarre thing about all these relationship survival tips is that they all assume that women have no interest in football, and men live and breathe it.

I’m sure that during the tournament pubs will be packed with as many women as men, yelling at the TV. And there are bound to be households in which women are the only football fans, and the men have to ‘suffer emotionally’.

That’s another thing – does anyone really suffer emotionally and physically because their partner has a few cans of beer and tunes in to a few hours of television? Surely that’s liveable with. I would be okay with it – unless it interfered with my preferred viewing, of course.

Thankfully, for me, I won’t have to ring relationship counselling services.

My husband doesn’t like football, so I’ve been spared the task of cleaning up post-match beer spillages and pizza crusts.

Although I’ll still have to do it after Gardeners’ World.