For quite some while, one of England's A-list celebrity couples was pop-star and X Factor judge Cheryl Cole and her husband, English footballer/socccer star Ashley Cole. Cheryl loved to veg out at home with tea, biscuits, a soap opera, and her chihuahuas. Ashley, it turned out sadly, loved to sneak around and cheat on his wife, and in Spring of 2010 Cheryl started divorce proceedings.

The Coles in splitting up pretty much argued who "had" to keep some of their stuff. There were few arguments about the division of their thirty-five-million-pounds-sterling empire.

Neither one wanted to fight over anything so much as the chihuahuas, Buster age three and Coco age four.

Ashley loved and lavished gifts upon the dogs just about as much as did Cheryl, and did not want to face the possibility of no longer hanging with the dogs.

Ashley was full of real regret, promises, and apologies, hoping to recover his family life. But he could never make amends for the philandering.

He'd already been forgiven when his cheating became known in 2007, and this new round of revelations just showed he would never be a faithful husband.

The only thing Ashley waged a fight over was disposition of the beloved dogs. Would they be divided one dog each and forever miss their lifelong friend? Would they share custody? Could Ashley have at least visitation rights or weekends?

The sincerity of husbands who fight for custody of kids or dogs can sometimes be questioned. Cheryl was the sort of doggy-mom who would call home to talk to her dogs on the phone. But Ashley complained that her insistance on letting them sleep in their bed got in the way of marital intimacy. Still, despite different boundaries for their pets, his affection for the dogs cannot be seriously questioned, and the blowback of cheating on one's spouse inevitably has a myriad of other tragedies attached.