Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos Reveal the ‘Kiss of Death’ They’re Avoiding in Their Marriage

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos think there is one thing that can be a “kiss of death” for any marriage, and they’re avoiding it. During Thursday’s episode of their morning talk show, Live With Kelly and Mark, the pair revealed they are not interested in renewing their vows. “We are very superstitious about vow renewals,” Ripa explained, as reported by PEOPLE.

The former soap opera actress went on to refer to vow renewal as a “kiss of death,” and joked that marries couple who do it should just be given “divorce papers” as well. “I just feel like a vow renewal is a pre-divorce,” Ripa added. “It’s like, ‘We’re not getting along… I know what we should do!’” Echoing his wife’s sentiments, Consuelos said that he believes most couples renew their vows be the husband “messed up” somehow. “And I’m not talking about ‘leaved the toilet seat up,’” he explained, alluding to infidelity. “I’m talking about messed up!”

Ripa and Consuelos have been married for more than 25 years and they share three children. Earlier this year, the couple opened up about their marriage and and spoke candidly about the extreme jealousy that Consuelos experienced in the early years of their relationship. During the debut episode of Let’s Talk Off Camera, Ripa’s new SiriusXM podcast, the couple addressed the beginnings of their marriage and how “insanely jealous” Consuelos was prone to becoming.

“My biggest complaint about you over the course of our marriage, and this is not recent because it definitely changed… but you used to be insanely jealous and that was a hard pill to swallow,” Ripa said. “… It’s very hard being married to somebody who is jealous.” She then went on to detail an example of how Consuelos would oftentimes develop “a perception of a scenario,” which would lead him down a path of jealousy. 

“It was our first week of marriage, because we didn’t take our honeymoon until later. You were working and I went to visit you in Boston,” Ripa recalled. “We went to this Italian restaurant and the waiter was like a very cute old man, he’s definitely in his 70s, if not 80s. He leaned down and he said, ‘And for the principessa?’”

Consuelos recalled that he “got upset” at the time, with Ripa adding, “I thought it was so cute that this little old man called me a princess, and I looked at him and I gave him my order in a very smiley way. And he walked away and you picked a horrible fight.” Consuelos then admitted, “I remember that. Look at age 25, I was pretty insane. But that jealousy thing definitely followed me for a while. I’m not jealous anymore.”