This past week, my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We bought each other presents and planned a trip this fall to celebrate. Our twin 12-year-old daughters made us a very moving photo album of pictures showing the two of us through the years at each major junction in our lives together. Touchingly, at some point during the day, each of our three sons mumbled a half-hearted "Oh, yeah, happy anniversary."

All week, as we were marveling at the stamina of our marriage, the news was packed with stories about celebrity divorces. Supermodel Christie Brinkley and her husband, Peter Cook, took center stage with a divorce battle that, by week's end, cost Christie about $2.1 million. Each morning over coffee, the TV provided us with a new installment of depravity and deceit. It seems that Cook spent thousands and thousands of dollars doing things on the Internet that you probably shouldn't do anywhere, all while keeping an 18-year-old mistress on the side. He reportedly gave the young lady in question around $300,000 over the course of their illicit romance.

At the same time, Madonna and New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez spent all week denying that they are running around on their respective spouses, all while their respective spouses spent all week planning legal strategies with their attorneys. I believe them completely, but I still plan on getting a TIVO so I don't miss any of their respective upcoming divorce trials.

It made me think, though. My wife and I are just regular folks, and like most of you out there, we'll never get a chance to have the kind of lurid public divorce that celebrities and millionaires have.

First off, I can't afford an 18-year-old mistress, as I certainly don't have $300,000 to throw around. As a matter of fact, I just checked my pocket, and I don't have enough cash right now for lunch. There's very little chance, given my advanced age, soft middle and balding head, that I'd get an 18-year-old girl to take interest without flashing a platinum credit card. I'm sure that there are low-rent, discount mistresses out there, but you probably get what you pay for.

Secondly, I didn't marry my wife for money, and I'm pretty certain she didn't marry me for that reason, either. We were both poor as church mice when we decided to tie the knot 25 years ago, and all these years later, not much has changed. If we were to get into a battle over marital assets, I'll bet the judge would refuse to even empanel a jury. He'd probably just ask us to empty our pockets there in the courtroom, order us to split the change evenly, and then get out.

Third, I'm not sure that we could even get into a battle over custody of the children. Our older kids are off on their own, and even our younger children are now operating well into the teen zone, where all they seem to do is sit on the couch, eat snacks and watch TV. Having "custody" of the children at this point means being responsible for purchasing chips and soda and telling them "no" when they ask for expensive electronic gadgets.

Were we to get into a nasty public battle where we spilled all our secrets, the results would probably be pretty disappointing. Without a lavish lifestyle, your sins are pretty mundane. I can see the tawdry headlines: "McKay Claims Wife Leaves Shoes Out Instead of Putting Them in Closet Where They Belong" or "Columnist Denies Wife's Sensational Charge of Eating Last Piece of Key Lime Pie and Leaving Empty Pie Plate in Fridge."

No, perhaps the secret of a lasting happy marriage and avoiding divorce is not having all that much to fight over. It's hard to get worked up over who gets to keep the car when you both know it's going to need a new transmission before the year is out. Maybe, just maybe, having it all is the worst thing that can happen to you.

And even though I don't have a lot of tawdry secrets in my closet, I still don't want to be the center of public attention, lurid charges ricocheting around the community like a stray bullet, hurting everyone involved.

Especially because, let's face it, and despite my heated denials, I really did finish off that key lime pie.