Can we stop comparing our marriages to celebrity marriages now? Not a level playing field. 

Brace yourself. You won’t be able to get on a waiting list for this one. But you’ll want it, really want it. And, more importantly, you will want others to think you’ve got it. Yes, a hot marriage is the status symbol du jour and the new impossible ideal against which, naturally, the majority of us will find ourselves horribly wanting. The Obamas are the world’s hottest couple of course. While the Camerons fly the flag on this side of the pond. An ark of celeb families trotting two by two down life’s red carpet, trailed by broods of photogenic children, includes Jamie n’ Jools Oliver, our own media-friendly version of The Waltons, Heidi Klum and Seal, parents of four – more kids, more kudos – and still unable to take their hands off each other, and the sublime fusion of beauty and breeding that is model Natalia Vodianova and Justin Portman. Perpetually post-coital parents-to-be Sam Taylor Wood and Aaron Johnson are camera-ready in the wings. As are Russell Brand and Katy Perry, who, like Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, have taken to Twitter to foghorn their bliss to the world. Lest we forget, Kutcher is the man who once Tweeted about ‘watching my wife steam my suit while wearing a bikini.’

You iron in your Heidi Klein too? I didn’t think so. When I wrote The Rise and Fall of The Yummy Mummy four years ago, berating in this magazine how hard it was to live up that ideal, little did I know how easy we had it. The bar has been raised again! It’s one thing dieting into skinny jeans, bagging a pair of Isabel Marant Cuban heel boots and hiring hot and cold running nannies. It’s quite another turning yourself into that slinky mother of four stealing a snog with her handsome high-achieving husband at the school quiz night, or the couple dancing cheek to cheek a la Barack and Michelle, then sneaking home for some steamy tenth wedding anniversary nookie. It’s like the last frame of a rom-com and it’s so much harder to make the grade. At a time when party girls look tired – sorry, Mossy – and career women are apologetic, the hot marriage is the new stamp of success. No wonder so many of us are beginning to look at our own paunchy marriages – not enough sex, or sleep, balding, beta husband – and feel a growing niggle of dissatisfaction.

It doesn’t help that the hot couples can’t keep their happiness to themselves. Their bedroom door is left firmly ajar. Nothing is deemed too intimate for public consumption: the idea that certain things are private and should remain so has gone the way of analogue. Now no detail is spared. No media platform is left untapped. And it’s all a bit too much information quite frankly. We can only cross our arms tightly when Jamie Oliver tells us about that time Jools put ‘nipple tassles on and did a dance.’ Surely beyond the call of duty, Jools? Nope. These wives work it. You do not see them pushing prams wearing baggy trackies with scrambled egg in their hair, shooting dark looks at their husbands. Their casual is never less than understated glamour: think classic shifts or fur gilets and yards of cashmere. And they never look like they’ve been rowing over who last unloaded the dishwasher, partly because they have a housekeeper but mostly because their are minds on higher things. Like each other. Indeed Sam n’ Dave Cameron have made The Look of Love - she adoring, him doting, straight off a Mills and Boon book cover - their very own. (And they’ve been married for fourteen years. Respect.) While we shout at our husbands to turn down their mid-life crisis Radiohead, Carla Bruni sexily croons about husband Sarkozy in songs such as L'Amoureuse (Woman in Love). Even Jay-Z admitted, rather sweetly, that he and Beyonce have regular ‘date nights’ to keep things fresh. And if a hip hop honcho doesn’t find the idea of married dates slightly toe-curling, neither should we. Self consciousness has no place at the top table.

Hot couples may go out of their way to persuade us they’re normal - Barack joking about leaving his socks around, Dave revealing his cluttered, middle class kitchen on WebCameron - but don’t believe it. They didn’t get this far by being normal. Especially not the wives. Would a hot wife moan to girlfriends about her husband’s hairy shoulders or reveal quite how annoying he’s being with swine flu? Never! That’s totally off message.

In American Glamour magazine Michelle - ‘How good looking is my wife?’ – Obama recently revealed the romantic dynamic of her own relationship when she offered advice to less fortunate single ladies. When searching for a mate women must ‘look at the soul,’ she advised, not the bankbook or title. ‘You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole,’ she added, disappointing those of us who rather hoped she was whole before she met her man. Still, the retro good wife spin is key to the stellar union. Even our own Sarah Brown incongruously exclaimed ‘Back my husband, my hero!’ last year. These women have the husband, the kids, the career. And they want you to know that they prize it all in that order. They’ve extracted every last drop of the madcap spirit of the singleton from their lives and wardrobes and congratulate themselves for leaving that party in the nick of time. In a world where the hot marriage reigns supreme the singleton is no longer cool. Jennifer Anniston is now poor old Jennifer: Angelina got the prize, and six children. While the ultimate SATC girl, Sarah Jessica Parker did the savvy zeitgeisty thing and got hitched, had a baby and adopted twins. They had a dream. Now they’re living it.

Really, it’s enough to make the rest of us admit defeat and start dividing up the DVD collection. It’s hopeless trying to keep up with the Obamas or the Olivers. For how can our chaotic credit-crunched family lives ever compete? No, to stay sane – and married – we have to rejoice in the flawed reality. We must squabble over the remote control, slouch around in trackie bottoms, confide in our girlfriends when it all feels a bit rubbish and remind ourselves that at least beta husbands have a sense of  humour. Besides, eventually reality bites the hottest couples. Let’s not forget that Madonna, possibly the world’s most determined woman, could not stomach playing ‘the missus’ forever: her inner singleton broke free! As did good old Mrs Robinson’s, at the age of 59. And Tiger Woods has hung out his perfect American marriage’s dirty linen for all to see. Personally I’m looking forward to the day when Ashton and Demi Tweet that they didn’t have sex last month either.