Open marriages are fine until your wife runs off with Brad Pitt, says VANESSA FELTZ
Do you admit to a pang of envy at the thought of Brad Pitt's stunning new girlfriend's "open marriage"? Does a tiny part of you think how liberating it must be to have the security of a ring upon your finger and simultaneous carte blanche to cavort carnally with anyone who takes your fancy?
Do you believe in the best of both worlds... in having your cake and eating it too? Maybe you think marriage vows are unrealistically confining? We mostly live to be ancient so how can we be expected to cleave only unto each other when there are so many irresistible folk promenading the planet?
Pitt, 56, has fallen for 27-year-old model Nicole Poturalski, below.
Don't worry, the existence of her 68-year-old restaurateur husband is emphatically no obstacle to the relationship and the two even locked eyes for the first time at his eaterie.
Apparently Mr and Mrs Poturalski have what used to be called "an arrangement" and he's said to be "philosophical" about the frolic.
So that's all right then.
Only, of course, nothing in life is ever quite that simple.
During the course of a career which has allowed me to ask the frankly nosey and often impertinent questions I'd never dream of posing in real life, I've had the chance to quiz more than a few aficionados about the nuts and bolts of open marriage.
High profile individuals, speaking off the record, admitted the idea of hall passes and sexual freedom is intoxicating but the reality is heartbreakingly different.
One recalled the crunching noise made by her husband's tyres as he sped off in his sports car for an amorous assignation.
She spoke of her jealousy, loneliness and misery.
She recalled feeling pressure to orchestrate affairs of her own in order not to exclude herself from the experience.
She remembered the token fumblings as soulless.
A gentleman who appears regularly on our TV screens said with regret that human beings aren't programmed "to share".
He spoke of the "impossibility of compartmentalising" and the inevitable consequence of open marriage – that one spouse ends up in love with someone else.
If that someone else happens to be Brad Pitt, I wouldn't bank on Mrs Poturalski packing her overnight bag and dashing back home to hubby.
Would you?
Marriage is exclusive.
That's the whole point.
There can and should be no exceptions – not even for Brad Pitt.