A flood of divorce announcements have hit the celebrity news wires recently. And with every announcement comes the analysis, the “why didn’t we see this coming” or the “it’s taken a long time for them to finally admit this.” Of course, the couples, who used their happy marriages to promote their movies and other projects now beg the public for “privacy during their difficult times.”

We’ve watched our favorite celebrity couples fall in love. We’ve watched their “denials” of any relationship. We’ve then seen their massive engagement rings. We’ve watched their wedding specials on television and marveled at what an unlimited budget can buy when you’re in love. And then of course, we’ve watched it all fall apart. The couple starts spending time apart. We see one half making a movie with someone else and then we see them at dinner with someone else and the next thing you know the tabloids start with the rumors of a split. Those rumors must be denied, of course. Not too long after the tabloids start with their drivel, we find out, it’s true, the fantasy couple is splitting. It was too good to be true after all.

I wonder why more celebrities don’t demand or at least seek privacy during the beginning of their relationships. Back in my dating days, the beginning of the relationship was the part you kept quiet because it takes time for people who are dating to become a couple and after you are part of a couple, so much of what happens in your life changes. How you split your time between your friends and your new partner. You begin to socialize with more couples and your single friends and nights out on the town are often exchanged for quiet nights at home. The details of the relationship are usually kept fairly private. Later, for some couples, come the big engagement announcements and then the excitement of a wedding or ceremony.

When real people split, that’s when we turn to friends for help. That’s when we say “I think that he’s cheating” or “I think that she isn’t the person I fell in love with.” We don’t say “please give us our privacy as we work through a difficult time.” We say “please, my relationship is falling apart! Help me fix it.”

It’s pretty arrogant for the celebrities who broadcast every detail of their courtship and sometimes marriage to expect the paparazzi and magazine reading public to suddenly walk away when things get bad. When you’ve been on Dateline NBC to show how normal and everyday your seemingly celebrity life is at home, you should expect Dateline to want to do a follow up on “what went wrong” with them when they announce a sudden split – days before a much hyped wedding.

The celebrity couples I root for are the ones who keep their personal life to themselves. They don’t exploit their relationships for publicity. They do their Hollywood job and then go home to a family and the two rarely mix. Their pictures will occasionally pop up in People magazine – but not it’s clear that the paparazzi is stalking them and they’re not happy about being found on their way home from the grocery store.

To Hollywood’s newly divorcing couples, I say: “Sorry it didn’t work out.” How about next time – don’t do a reality show about how perfect your lives and marriages are. It’s nothing but trouble.