When you move in with a partner, you can no longer hide the embarrassing or unattractive parts of yourself. Your dirty laundry is metaphorically and literally aired – and so are your bad habits.

Six months ago, cohabiting with my partner for the first time meant coming face to face with my addiction: I cannot stop watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

In less than a year, I have watched all 15 seasons of the Bravo franchise, equating to about 250 hours of reality television. I have done this while also completing normal tasks like work, seeing friends and walking my dog.

When I reached the end of season 15 this week, I felt a strange mixture of relief and fear. I was no longer captive to the show but I also depended on it.

How would I pass a day without checking in on the curated lives of extremely rich women I have never met? The only time I had previously gone without my Real Housewives girlies was when I was on holidays and without access to my laptop.

There is something about these toxic minor celebrities and their melodramatic arguments that is both extremely engaging and weirdly soothing.

Each season ticks by in largely the same format, even as the cast evolves (one tall blond woman replaced by another tall blond woman).

At the start of every episode, you are introduced to each housewife with a short montage and sexy tagline. “Throw me to the wolves and I shall return leading the pack,” Lisa Vanderpump purrs. “I’m an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, and cash,” Erika Girardi declares.

Then the housewives will get a facial together, or go shopping, or sit in each other’s houses with untouched canapés. Someone will host a dinner, where an argument will inevitably transpire and a housewife will leave in a huff.

At some point in the season, they will all go on holiday together in a private plane and stay at a fancy hotel or a villa. Almost every holiday will include a day when they board a luxury boat in caftans. Another argument will take place, some tears.

Every season ends with a three-part reunion, led by the host and executive producer of the franchise, Andy Cohen, who will be holding cue cards and trying to act as the voice of reason while reading out catty questions from viewers to the cast.

The women will yell at each other more before taking a group photo and toasting with a glass of champagne.

This is what is so relaxing about it. It isn’t even that the stakes are low – in 15 seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills there have been divorces, fraud allegations, legal troubles, health difficulties, family deaths and struggles with sobriety.

It’s that whatever happens, the housewives simply dust themselves off and keep going, even if someone has just called them a “slut pig”.

They will scream the most offensive things at each other while in public at an expensive restaurant: “I’ve had enough of you, you beast” or, “You’re such a fucking liar, Camille.”

They will haul glasses of wine at each other, accuse another castmate of being a drug addict or an alcoholic, or pointedly pry into the state of their marriages. Then the next event they attend together they’ll be perfectly civil, apologise and agree to work on their friendships.

If only life were that simple. If only you could be feeling a bit sad and decide to self-soothe by spending $20,000 on a ring and getting botox in your face.

I am not alone in this obsession.

The British comedian John Oliver also watches the housewives to wind down. Appearing on Stephen Colbert, he described the housewives of Salt Lake City (another brilliant cast) as “the most magnificent monsters on television” and “human hand grenades who will wilfully pull their own and each other’s pins out for your entertainment”.

Rihanna is a fan. Jennifer Lawrence is a fan. Even Michelle Obama is a fan. There are whole internet threads dedicated to people musing why they find the franchise is so good at alleviating their anxiety and helping them switch off, and countless viral memes of the most wild moments.

To me, there’s a sense of escapism in being able to laugh about a ridiculous argument centred around where someone was assigned to sit at a dinner party while the world burns around us. On a deeper level, watching people live their lives, even through a screen, for more than a decade makes you feel a strange sense of affinity with them. You’ve seen them at their best and their worst. Pre- and post-facelift.

Luckily, there are 11 Real Housewives franchises in the US, and more than 20 international spin-offs, from The Real Housewives of Auckland to Dubai, Cape Town and Naples.

Since each franchise ranges from one to 19 seasons, even if they stop producing new content right now, I should be fine for at least the next 30 years. Until then, bring on season 16.