Whose Happily Ever After?
To begin with I understand that in romance stories it is common for one or both of the characters to be going through some sort of transition period. After all there has to be some catalyst that changes the status quo and creates an environment for a new relationship.
These catalysts into a transition period can be both physical and mental in nature. For example a character may move towns to start a new job, alternatively they may have just experienced a life altering event such as the death of a family member or a divorce and are re-examining their lives.
Sometimes, as in real life, in addition to these transition periods that the characters are working through, they may also find there are other obstacles that hinder a new relationship. It may be logistical, such as living in different places, or it may be ethical or moral, such as a boss/employer or a client/representative relationship.
As a married woman, and someone going through a life transition period of my own I can’t help but notice that the majority of ‘heroines’ in my contemporary romance books seem to have to sacrifice some major part of themselves at the end of the transition period to fit into their new ‘partnered’ life with the hero. These most often include the heroine moving either house or town, quitting or changing their job, or completely changing their current lifestyle.
Of course there is some effort by many authors to make sure it comes across as either the heroines choice or at the very least in the heroines best interest. But to tell the truth I don’t believe it most of the time. A line or two at the start of the book about how she doesn’t really want to be a ‘insert job title’ here or live ‘insert current homes town’ here. Isn’t a good enough justification for her to give it all up just to be with the hero in the end.
Even more disturbing is when the hero tells the heroine what her actual dream job is (and it just so happens to fit perfectly into a life together) and the heroine is so happy to be saved by the hero and given the courage to follow her, up till then unknown, true passion that how can a reader not but want to go along with it.
In real life we all know how this would probably end though. A year or two down the road, perhaps more, the heroine would find that actually this dream job of hers turned out to be just another job and when bad days pile up, so does her resentment towards the person who steered her there.
I want to read MORE contemporary romance books where the heroine doesn’t sacrifice her career/beautiful house/lifestyle for the relationship, whilst the hero keeps going on as usual. Perhaps though what I read in these books is a more accurate, even though I don’t like it, depiction of what actually has to happens in relationships. Sacrifices have to be made and they won’t always be fair and evenly distributed. And yes the woman is more likely to make those sorts of sacrifices because well that is just how it seems to turn out. What do you think?
