I'll Be There For You [until I'm not]

You might want to get a black armband and begin the official mourning period: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are separating. After seven years together and over four years of marriage, they've decided to move on- without each other.

On Good Morning America today, Charlie Gibson asked, "if two people like Pitt and Aniston, who have everything going fo them, can't make it work, what hope does that leave for anyone else?" Using a celebrity relationship as a basis for "regular people's" marriage is like using my golf game as a teaching tool for PGA Tour professionals- pointless. Let's work through Charlie's thought process. the power couple had everything: good looks, lots of money, fame . . . just about anything anyone could want in this life. Why wouldn't a loving relationship be able to flourish under these circumstances? The undiscussed variable is the added tention these celebrity marriages undergo because of their professions.

Both Pitt and Aniston's jobs put them in sexual situations with other people. I've heard celebrities talk about love scenes with other actors saying things like, "It's totally professional. It's all just acting." I just don't buy it. Humans are emotional creatures, not animals. The rumor is [and I'm not into tabloid gossip, so understand that this is all National Enquirer type stuff] that Pitt became attracted to Angelina Jolie while filming "Mr and Mrs Smith." I saw the somewhat racy trailer to this movie and my impression is that the two probably had to spend a lot of time together in compromising situations all for the sake of working. Spending long periods of time together with someone who is not your spouse isn't a good idea.

This might sound basic, but it's something to remember everytime you hear one of these celebrity marriages in ending: it doesn't matter how much you have going for you- fidelity is fundamental to a long-lasting marriage. That's not to say marriages can't survive an affair and couples need to try to work through it as much as possible. But with these celebs, even if both sides say they're cool with it, the mutual trust of the relationship is eroded and this is the result.