Ever After

Sometimes I read romance novels. Come on: I'm a housewife; I'm supposed to. 

I've noticed a pattern that evolves as I read them, however: first, as the characters develop, I'm sucked into the novel. Then, somewhere around the middle, I start laughing at the ridiculous situations and the over-the-top emotions. I snort at the melodramatic conditions that are supposed to add emotion to the stories, but that would never happen in anything outside of fiction. By the end of the book, I am invariably disgusted as the male professes unshakable love to the female at the resolution of their first (and only) spectacular controversy. And, apparently, they live happily ever after.

No romance novel ever shows you the marriage. Apparently, we must conclude, the thrill of love is its conquest, and not the keeping of it. This housewife has read dozens of these books (while eating chocolate bon-bons as the Jell-O salad sets up), and I have yet to come across a novel with a different message.

Tonight I re-watched When A Man Loves A Woman, which – despite the cloying title – is (in my opinion) a really great love story. Anyone who's ever watched it with me disagrees, though. They find the story to be one of depression and anger, which I can't deny; it is, after all, about the ups and downs of a marriage when one of the partners is an alcoholic. So, not exactly the lightest of topics.

But I see more than just the hurt and loneliness. I see the couple take one step forward and two back and I cringe with them as they make mistakes and unintentionally (and intentionally) hurt each other. I feel their frustration and helplessness and I marvel at how they keep trying anyway. Their story may not always be pretty, but it is real. And isn't that the best kind of love story? One that shows you that love can never be perfect: that it isn't supposed to be?

I'm not a very intellectual person. I read and watch movies for pleasure, so don't try to actually teach me something, buddy. But it's a fantastic bonus when I find I'm still thinking about a story days after I've read or watched it. Things that are inconsequential to others may stick to my psyche, and I'll be touched by a phrase used or a look given. So when I watch that afore-mentioned horribly-titled film, I see past the anger and hurt to the love; and it reignites my faith in what it takes, and what it really means, to live happily ever after.