My W read romance novels for years.Now I think she's living in one.Just wondered if any of you think reading these all the time is hard on a marriage? You know,high expectations,lots of passion,thinking your H should be like the men in the books,e.g.-Heathcliff on the marshes.I know they're an escape,like movies,or video games,but I just wonder if they're too much of a good thing and make an average marriage seem dull by comparison. --Murph

I think it depends on the person and the marriage. It's easy to start fantasizing about how love is in the first stages. Those books and soap operas certainly play that up. What they don't show is the horrible pain when things go wrong. Maybe you could "spice" up things some w/ your W so she will feel that romance again. Flowers, candy, a night out? I understand craving that affection. <BR>

BLECH YUK PUKE ICK <P>Yes, reading that crap and watching soap operas and movies like "The Horse Whisperer" KILL marriages. Nobody can live up to that stuff in real life!<P>------------------<BR>~Sheryl<P>Marriage: the most important contract you'll ever enter into, and the most sacred.<P><BR>

Before my H's affair, I would read romance novels (which I didn't do before). I guess I was just wishing for the affection and love that those novels tell stories about.<P>I don't know if it made me have high expectations of my marriage. Reading the stories just made me feel good and happy for the main characters in the story. Aren't these novels usually fictional anyway?<P>I can, however tell you that I have a difficult time watching any movies which contain affairs and infidelity. It is very painful for me. Don't know if I will ever be able to sit through one again.<P><p>[This message has been edited by NoTrust (edited October 15, 1999).]

My Wife read a ton of ‘em. Think it may have influenced her to some degree.<P>------------------<BR>Prayers & God Bless!<BR>Chris<BR>For relationship info check out <A HREF="http://www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html" TARGET=_blank>www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html</A>

Murphy--<P>There's not only romance novels, but childhoods of fairy tales, i.e. DISNEY!! How many of us women thought growing up WOULD have the happy endings of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty? The knight in shining armor is supposed to whisk us off our feet and save us from our personal dragons, right? All in technicolor with beautiful music playing in the background. Movies like Pretty Woman continue our fantasies--no more castles but gobs of MONEY at our disposal, great bonus in addition to that good lookin' man! <P>I like romance novels a lot myself. I have, however, noticed I'm not reading them as much any more and stay away from them entirely if there's more conflict than usual in my marriage. I'm still a sucker for movies though.

Ok, I heard it on a talk show... Dobson I think...<P>The Romance novels can be to a woman what porn is to a man... We women are emotionally /mentally enamoured by these mind pictures just as men get a jolt out of the visualed <SP> garbage...<P>IMHO its correct in most situations where there is insecurities... I know H's OW was very into Romance novels... figured it out one day while in a book store looking for books with H, he pointed at the Romance shelves and said.. Why don't you read those..I said cuz they are unrealistic junk..H just frowned... I myself would rather read "The Hobbit" for the 100th time <P>cozy

Used2bCozy:<P>Bingo! You are right on the money. Romance novels are women's porn.<P>The thing that bothers me most about romance novels is not even that it depicts men in a completely unrealistic way, but that so much of the dynamic is sort of sadomasochistic. The men are somehow cruel, but because they make the woman swoon with desire, the women put up with it.<P>U2B, you cited WUTHERING HEIGHTS -- the ultimate sadomasochistic love story. (Sorry, Hummingbird, but it's true.) Cathy and Heathcliff destroy each other. Love is supposed to ENRICH, not destroy.<P>Romance novels are about passion; they're about justifying women's erotic feelings by couching them in "love" feelings that are often just lust. Lust is fine, even in women. When it's just lust, you can say, "Well, it's lust," and not necessarily act on it, just as men don't make a pass at every woman they find attractive (well, most don't ). So instead, because women aren't allowed to have "those feelings", they "fall in love" with people they're only sexually attracted to, because blind lust is not "appropriate" for women. If you can't acknowledge sexual feelings, you have to turn it into something else, and once you call it "love", it has to be acted upon, right? <P>I have this dilemma about fiction/romance myself, because I write historical fiction with a romantic component, and I DON'T want to write like this. When you're a woman, and you write male characters, you have the opportunity to create the man of your dreams. And it tells you a lot about yourself when you write these guys. An interesting pattern in my work so far is that it's full of passionate, flawed women and sweet, saintly men. My main male character is loving, patient, understanding, not possessive, and has a libido like a moose. I try to make my characters REAL, and maybe they're less interesting that way, I don't know.<P>But in the one subplot I have that DOES involve that sort of romance novel passion, the woman returns to her husband four years, two miscarriages, a body full of bruises, and a dead baby later. In how many swoony romance novels does THAT happen.<P>There is no difference between a woman thinking her husband should act like a romance novel hero and a man thinking his wife should look like a Playboy centerfold. None whatsoever.<P>Romance is a segment of life; a piece of it. It's not the whole thing. As one of my male characters says, "life isn't about eating dessert all the time. Pie doesn't taste as good when you eat it all the time, and too much pie makes you fat besides."<P>I think that a "romantic" gesture helps every now and then -- sending an E-mail greeting card for no reason, buying the person a little something, whatever. If I go out with a friend, I like to bring my H something -- some fudge, a pretzel, something so he knows I was thinking about him. <P>But even romantic gestures get old if they're done all the time. Roses are romantic, but if you get roses every holiday, they're not romantic anymore. Remember...what you read in romance is a slice of time -- not an entire lifespan.

I think you have a good point. I've actually stopped watching soap opera type shows that I used to be addicted to because I tend to get envious of the intense romance that goes on in these peoples lives...it really depresses me.<P>However, I think it depends on the persons state of mind...mine is very fragile at the moment.

I am a romantic and yes it is an escape. I'm unhappy in my marriage and have wish for my husband over the years to be that "romantic" type I see in movies or read about. I compared my husband to them and found myself saying "he can't love me as much because he doesn't do those things or live up to the fantasy I've created in my mind".<P>Then I met the OM who fueled all those romantic fantasies and I fell head over heels.

Hum, I know you're among those here most seriously affected by romance novels, so let me ask you a question.<P>Extrapolate out the lives of the characters in a romantic story you read recently. Do you think their lives are like that all the time? Do you think they are completely untouched by money problems, in-law problems, health problems, kid problems, job problems? Do you think that Ashley and Bradford (they're always named Ashley and Bradford) are never angry with each other? Do you think that Bradford never leaves his underwear on the floor? Never farts in bed? Never forgets to pick up milk on the way home? Well, maybe not that, because Ashley and Bradford always have servants. <P> Do you truly, in your heart of hearts believe that in the parts of their lives that are between the parts you see in these chapters, their lives are one nonstop round of romantic passion?<P>I think not. My H and I go on a Caribbean vacation every year. We walk along the beach, we dine on the beach by candlelight, we watch the sun set over the sea. Real romantic stuff. If that was the only week in our year that you saw, you'd think we live this wonderful, romantic life. Then we come home and I do four loads of laundry because he can't figure out how to sort it. Then I fold it all because he can't figure out how to fold it. Then I put it away because he'd just leave it in a pile on the floor. Then, on Monday, we go back to work, and by the end of that day, it's as if we were never on vacation. We come home and watch TV till he goes to bed at 9.<P>So remember...even in romance novels, there's a whole side of life that you don't see.

I guess it never occurred to me that people took the characters in romance novels seriously, anymore than that men really expected their middle aged wives to look like the Playboy centerfold. My teenagers read them all the time, mainly historical romance, and I was a bit shocked to find out how graphic they are the first time my daughter gave me one to read on the plane. I agree that they are women's porn - but they are good for keeping my mind off the fear of the plane falling out of the sky.

Romance novels are soft-core pornography, aimed at a non-visually-oriented audience.<P>"Passionate Heights" / "Playboy"<P>Same message, different medium.