I have a theory, based on fourteen seconds of email conversation with a writing friend. We are both happily married and have lots of imaginary boyfriends. I know that there are people out there who think that reading romance sets us up for unreasonable expectations from real relationships, but I read somewhere that married women who read romance "get lucky" twice as often as women who don't (which makes sense to me. I've read Tom Clancy, Stephen King and Dan Brown, and rarely have those writers put me "in the mood").
I wonder if the same romance-reading women are twice as likely to stay faithful? Are we more likely to stay married? I mean, if we can crawl into a fictional Happily Ever After, every now and then, does it take the edge off of the "O. M. G. What was I thinking when I said yes?"?
As of yesterday, The Big Guy and I have been married 20 years. O. M. G. We are working our way through our Happily Ever After--sometimes it's a walk in the park, many other times it's a labor of, well, LOVE. I suspect that making it this long without killing each other (and only occassionally wanting to) is due in equal parts to Love, Hope, Faith and plain old Unwillingness to Quit; but I am willing to give the Romance Writers of America their percentage, too. Sure hasn't hurt things any!
Congratulations on 20 years! That is an amazing accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteI will say, my husband is fully supportive of my romance writing/reading addiction. I showed him some of the books I got at a recent signing and earned the "You read for a while, I'll put the kids to bed" smile.
Congratulations on 20 years of marriage! I think you may be onto to something about romance readers -- we get all our wanderLUST out of our systems vicariously. ;)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on 20 years! And I think you're theory is a great one. I've been married for ten years and have been with the hubs since I was 19. I am doggedly faithful to him (though a total whore for reading and sexy fictional heroes).
ReplyDeleteI think the reading habit strengthens things on a few levels. One, it gives us a fantasy outlet--which can feel like sexual variety. And two, it gets us hot and bothered so the husbands reap the rewards of that. Happy people on both sides.
Also, most of us are smart enough to know that real life stuff rarely lives up to fantasy. So cheating would just end up being lame.