Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels (20 page)

Is the never-ending courtship present in romance novels? Well, it’s not exactly present in a single novel—but it is present in the entire genre, one happy courtship after another. Most romance novels end with the commitment. But if the details of a happily-ever-after aren’t always written out explicitly in the text, how does the reader know, and more importantly believe, that the happily-ever-after is going to be happy in the ever-after? Because both the hero and heroine have demonstrated that they know how to take care of the other person, and of their relationship.

It is really bothersome when you read a romance and you don’t believe the hero or heroine understands how to make a happy relationship work. With a romance where you don’t have confidence in the hero and heroine and suspect that when things get tough, the hero or heroine couldn’t find their own ass with both hands, much less help one another, it is easy to fear somehow that the happiness isn’t going to last.

There are some people who couldn’t spot and copy decent behavior if they were programmed to do nothing but feed other people’s parking meters. The hero who remains assiduously dedicated to his preference to jump to erroneous conclusions and never seems to realize his own mistakes is not going to reassure a reader of his eternal heroism. The heroine who is a selfish or clueless cloud-living goofball who needs a man to save her every third second because she will without fail investigate that strange noise in the kitchen when the serial killer is on the loose and the kitchen door is open—yeah, not so much with the confidence in that person’s ability to be an adult and care for an adult relationship. Idiocy and self-absorption are not heroic or inspiring.

Reading about couples who can successfully weather just about any horrible thing, from death, murder investigations, and blackmail to the possibility of interplanetary collision brought about by not enough kissing, gives readers confidence and the belief that those two characters can survive anything, and gives room for the possibility that any real problem can be solved too—with enough interplanetary gun battles, of course. Author Toni Blake says that reading romances helps her with her own real-life relationships because, “Reading books that all come with a ‘happily-ever-after’ generally keeps me working toward solutions in my own marriage, and seeing things in a more positive light. Cumulatively, they send the message that nothing is unsolvable.

“In my observation, sadly, in real life, most people don’t overcome truly huge relationship obstacles. But the point of a romance novel is to make you believe that you can, to help you see the possibility. Romance novels show people ultimately sacrificing their pride, putting their hearts at risk, exercising forgiveness, and exhibiting faith in the person they love—not stupidly or blindly, but with the belief that love is of great value and worth fighting for.”

There’s always another obstacle. Either that problem faces both parties, or an internal struggle exists on one side, but there’s always another crapful difficulty to deal with. That’s why happiness as a present and abiding element to a relationship is so important: without it, those obstacles are impossible. If people treated their relationships like an extended courtship, and made it a point to demonstrate that they care about the people they’re with, overwhelming problems may not seem so daunting because there’s someone there to help.

One way to demonstrate courtship as a matter of course in an established relationship is to remember that courtship is the act of trying to persuade someone to choose you—by demonstrating that you’ve chosen them. If you look at each day of your relationship as another opportunity to choose to be with the person you’re with, you’ll display those feelings of affection in your actions and your words—and you’ll refrain from taking that person’s presence for granted.

Author Courtney Milan says that another way to keep a relationship healthy is to feed it—but not in the way you might think: “In every romance novel I’ve written to date, there is a point when the hero feeds the heroine. Nothing elaborate (at least not so far)—but so far, my guys have made their women tea (in a novella) or bought oranges and bread (in a book) or brought her tea the morning after (tea is good; have you noticed?), or he’s made her a hot toddy (in another book).

“Sometimes the trick to surviving the mountains of external crap that the world throws at you is to make sure that you share the little stuff.”

Debbie Macomber says that communicating affection in romance is not that different from communicating affection in the real world: “In my mind, a hero is basically a decent, honorable man. She makes him a better man, and he plays the same role in her life—making her a better woman. In each case, the relationship brings balance to their lives. They come to rely on and encourage each other to be the best people they can be.

“In every romance novel, there’s a key transformation in both the hero and heroine as they learn the give-and-take of love, the importance of bending their wills to align with the will of the one they love. They need to believe in each other, to treasure their differences and appreciate what they have in common.”

Author Sarah MacLean sees romance as a requirement for real relationships, and points to romance novels as an excellent reminder of what romance is: “I…find that romances have always helped me navigate bad relationships. While there’s definitely a reason why romances end at the beginning of a relationship (dirty breeches on the bedchamber floor do not a sigh-inducing ending make), the idea that love and romance can and should be a part of a real-life relationship is not a bad one. And if we hold our relationships up to that standard—the one where love and romance come along with the dirty socks and Sunday afternoon football sessions—it can only be better for all of us.”

Christina Dodd says that characters “have to take responsibility for their actions, both romantic and in the course of the plot, and be brave enough not only to fix what they’ve broken but admit they were wrong. Since most of us would rather walk on hot coals than admit we’re wrong (at least I would), this is an agony that proves them worthy of love and their happiness.” Those same developed skills can be found in real people as well, according to Dodd: “I see it all the time in real life and in every romance—men and women overcome their basic, intrinsic inability to communicate and form a lasting relationship. When you think about the differences between the genders, it’s a freaking miracle.”

Dodd also recommends communication, though for her, communication in her marriage means her husband reads her books: “I’ve been married to my husband since the earth’s crust cooled. He was the one who supported and encouraged me through ten years of being unpublished, and he’s read a lot of my books, about thirty. Since, in my opinion, most men don’t have any ability (or see the need) to examine the way anyone else thinks (an aside—I don’t believe most men know how
they
think), for my husband, reading the female point of view is a sort of, ‘Here’s a roadmap to the way a woman’s mind, or at least Christina’s mind, works.’ It’s led to interesting discussions.”

Even with a roadmap, whether it’s staggeringly honest conversations or a collection of over thirty different romance novels written by your spouse (lucky Mr. Dodd), without the conflict, there’s no romance. Kresley Cole agrees: “Someone once asked me, ‘When you’re writing a romance, do you ever wish you could just have the hero and heroine meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after without all the heartache and hardships?’

“I answered that without all the heartache and hardships there would be no HEA, because at the outset of a book, my protagonists don’t ‘fit’ well enough to sustain a lasting relationship. There can be attraction between them, maybe even a grudging respect for each other—but without all the trials they endure over the course of the story, the characters would remain unfinished. Those trials do two things: force the characters to grow, so they will be better able to maintain a partnership, and teach them the value of the relationship, so they never take it for granted.

“One thing I think most outside the genre don’t realize is that romance protagonists earn their HEA. They have to work for it. I believe that above all things, romance novels teach us that HEAs don’t come easy. As in real life, these relationships take effort, dedication, and sacrifice.

“An entirely distorted view of adult relationships would be the scenario from above: meet, fall in love, live happily ever after without any heartache. If romance novels perpetuated that distorted view, they’d all be ten pages long.”

Author Anne Calhoun says that she sees the happily-ever-after as accepting imperfections, both in one’s self and in someone else: “A common misperception about romance characters is that they have to be perfect, that they’ve earned their HEA because they are already sane, stable, thin, beautiful, ripped, honest, loyal, rich, and/or willing to risk it all for the person they love, but just need a little nudge to get their HEA. While authors have begun to write physically ‘different’ characters—perhaps ‘curvy’ (as if curves are somehow indicative of a character flaw…like enjoying food), or ‘mousy’ or ‘librarian’—the characters that resonate most with me are the ones who are truly, deeply flawed and somehow manage to be loved for exactly who they are.

“Maybe that’s the key thing for me. For me, characters ‘earn’ an HEA less than they ‘accept’ the HEA. I don’t think we (or characters) earn love or happily-ever-afters. They/ we don’t start out unworthy and become worthy. They/we start out muddled and become less muddled. If we writers do our jobs well, they start out human and become
more
human. Sometimes that acceptance comes from the hero or heroine loving them just as they are, and sometimes it comes from the hero or heroine learning something about themselves they need to know in order to move past their pain and become more fully alive and in love. That’s what really makes romances great. The characters, after their trials and tribulations, are more fully alive, more fully engaged in the world, more fully human. They may live the exact same life, but inside they are changed.

“As a reader I want to see a character grow. I don’t really care where they start from, or even where they end up, as long as that character has grown through the conflict faced and their interaction with the hero or heroine.”

Sometimes, circumstances are tough and people are miserable, and big girl pants must be put on with aplomb so that the trouble can be dealt with, sword fighting optional. The effort and work to look at one’s own faults is onerous, but any amount of self-examination can make a definite difference when things are in the crapper. Debbie Macomber has examined relationship repair tools in many of her books, most notably
Hannah’s List
: “In my book, there’s a couple, Winter and Pierre, who have gotten into a routine of fighting, separating, and then breaking up again. It’s a pattern that’s continued for years. They’re in love, but they can’t seem to get along. Another character suggests that Winter make a list of everything Pierre does that irritates her and then write down her reaction to that behavior.

“When she sees how she’s nagged and pouted and exploded at him, she recognizes her own part in their troubled relationship. She persuades Pierre to do the same thing, and once they see what’s happening to them they’re able to resolve their problems and eventually marry. A reader wrote to tell me she’d used the same technique in dealing with a situation in her marriage, and it helped her and her husband tremendously.

“In addition, another character in
Hannah’s List
, Michael, has to learn how to have a relationship with Macy, despite the fact that a) he’s reluctant to have a relationship with anyone, and b) Macy is just so different from him—too different in his view. He’s still grieving for his wife, Hannah, who left him a letter encouraging him to remarry, even providing him with a list of candidates, which included Macy. So, what drives the story emotionally is Michael’s need to figure out how to see Macy on her own terms, not his, which means he has to see himself differently too. This was an interesting exploration for me, the author, as well as for Michael!”