Lesser women would have packed their bags long ago after their husband greeted a topless-model-turned-politician with the words: "Take a look at her! I'd marry her if I weren't married already."
But the long-suffering wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has finally filed for divorce from her husband, citing his flirtations with younger women.
Veronica Lario, 52, told Italy's press: "I have been forced to take this step, I don't want to add anything else."
The announcement comes just days after it was revealed the billionaire Prime Minister's People of Freedom party planned to enlist glamour girls including a ballerina, an actress, a singer and a beauty queen as candidates for the European Parliamentary elections.
Former actress Lario dubbed the move "shamelessly trashy".
She even wrote a letter to Italian news agency ANSA saying what she thought of her husband's latest antics.
She blasted: "The impudence and shamelessness of power offends the credibility of all (women), damages women in general and especially those who have always struggled to defend their rights.
"Some have written that it is all part of entertainment for the emperor. I agree."
Among the rumoured election candidates were Barbara Matera, a Miss Italy contestant and model, Angela Sozio, a busty redhead Big Brother contestant and Eleonora Gaggioli, a star in several made-for-TV movies.
Soap actress Camilla Ferranti, 30, and former Miss Venice Chiara Sgarbossa were also said to have been suggested.
Conservative Berlusconi, a 72-year-old media tycoon, told reporters he was sorry his wife had apparently believed "what she read in the papers", blaming a campaign against him by the leftist press but it seems that after 29 years together, Lario has finally had enough of her Berlusconi's behaviour.
In a radio interview Berlusconi once remarked: "I am pretty often faithful."
Most of his gaffes and flirtatious talk might have been dismissed as harmless until a photograph taken two years ago at his villa in Sardinia which showed him with two women on his lap.
It was printed in a magazine with the headline "Belusconi's Harem" and is said to have made him realise he had gone too far.
The couple have also recently argued about his attendance at the birthday bash of an 18-year-old woman, the daughter of a political acquaintance and an aspiring lingerie model.
Lario questioned why her husband was able to go to that party in Naples, but not the coming of age celebrations of their own children.
It's not the first time Berlusconi - who has been described as "the great seducer" - has seen his marital rows played out in public.
Two years ago Lario demanded a public apology for his comments over former model Mara Carfagna - now the country's minister for equal opportunities - at an awards dinner.
Lario - whose real name is Raffaela Miriam Bartolini - met her husband after he saw her she perform topless in a play in 1980. They had two daughters, Barbara and Eleonora and a son, Luigi, before marrying in 1990. But since he came to power in 1994 they have mostly lived apart, with her home being a luxury villa in Milan.
Friends have said Lario put up with his behaviour because of worries about her children's legacy and would only divorce him once that was settled.
Berlusconi has two children from his first marriage and is Italy's second-richest man with a fortune of £4bn, according to Forbes magazine.
His supporters have criticised Veronica for the clash over the election candidates and his party's website was inundated with messages attacking her.
An editorial in Il Giornale newspaper - owned by Berlusconi's brother - said she was harming not just her husband but the whole Italian government.
The prime minister issued a statement saying: "This is a personal matter that saddens me, that is private, and it seems appropriate not to talk about it." Berlusconi's gaffes WHEN on a tour of the camps set up after the earthquake in L'Aquilia last month which killed 290 people and made 17,00 homeless Berlusconi told a reporter: "They have everything they need, they have medical care, hot food... Of course their current lodgings are a bit temporary but they should see it like a weekend of camping." A few days later he told a female doctor working in the disaster area: "I wouldn't mind being resuscitated by you." After a series of rapes in Rome, Berlusconi pledged to increase the number of soldiers helping police patrol the streets. But he said it might not work because "we would need as many soldiers as there are beautiful girls in Italy". In 2003, at the European parliament, he said to German MEP Martin Schulz, who had been heckling him: "I know there is a man producing a film on the Nazi concentration camps. I shall put you forward for the role of capo (guard chosen for the prisoners) - you'd be perfect." While on a visit to Moscow last November he explained to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev why he thought President Obama would make a good ally: "He's young, handsome and even has a good tan." When criticised he called people offended by his comment "imbeciles" and said what he had said was meant to be a compliment. When later compared to Obama by a journalist for his response to the global economic crisis Berlusconi said: "I'm paler, because it's been so long since I've been in the sun." At the start of his 2006 election campaign, he said: "I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim. I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."
