Spirited Woman Blogger Team

Guest Blogger - Marilyn Brant - My Love Life is a Book—or Not

Are romance novels good or bad relationship models? Uplifting stories or potential reminders of relationship failures? Do we as spirited women need to challenge the fairy tale?

I had an interesting discussion with a married mom not long ago. She knew I was a member of the Romance Writers of America and that my books, while labeled “fiction” on the spine and shelved in the Literature section of the bookstore, did—in fact—deal significantly with romantic relationships. My friend and I were chatting about stories we’d enjoyed and, after hearing me rave about a few romantic comedies, she confided that she was afraid to read romance novels.

“Afraid?” I asked, wondering at first if she was referring to books in the romantic-suspense subgenre.

“Yes,” she said. “Because I find my own life a little disappointing after I do.”

I didn’t know what to say to this because I usually feel uplifted after reading a romance. To me, they tell the tale of the emotional, physical and intellectual attraction of a couple, but they also show the hero and heroine dealing with various internal and external conflicts often unconnected to their relationship. Longstanding issues with parents, siblings or children, for instance. Juggling a job, a house, a hobby and a family. Trying to face a sudden illness, loss of income or crisis of faith, etc. These are often very difficult issues and, even in a romantic comedy, the characters have to juggle some problems alongside all the usual highs and lows that crop up when meeting someone and falling in love.

All romances do have happy endings, though, while real life provides no such assurance. That's an often-cited criticism of the genre, but I believe ANY fictional relationship (whether the genre is romance, women's fiction, cozy mystery or alien paranormal, etc.) is going to differ from those you find in real life, even if it's not obvious, for one very big reason: Characters in a novel are, by definition, part of a story. They’re not real, although, as novelists, we try so hard to breathe life into them... My goal is to try to craft my characters to appear on the page as human as possible—but I know the insider's game on this. Writers are always exaggerating story elements, depending on whether our narrative intention is to make the reader laugh or cry or be afraid or feel inspired.

Guest Blogger - Marilyn Brant - Know Thyself, Ms. Grasshopper

To make a good relationship choice, a woman has to know who she is, what she needs or -- at the very least -- what she doesn't want.

I’ve learned a critical lesson about long-term relationships, whether they’re friendships, business partnerships or romantic connections: If you hope to make any relationship last, start first by knowing yourself…really well.

I believe—wholeheartedly and without apology—that no one can fully commit to a relationship unless they know WHY they’re there. What is it about this other person that draws you to him or her? What qualities does he bring out in you that make you feel like you’re blooming (rather than wilting) in his company? What essential values do you possess…and which ones do the two of you share?

Do the most important ones overlap? What elements in your life must line up for you to feel happy, successful, fulfilled? What are your non-negotiable principles? The ones you just cannot compromise on? I believe you need to take time to learn these things about yourself and, when you do, you need to honor them.

But how can you know for sure what they are? For some of us, especially those who value analytic skills and place great weight on pure logic (::sheepishly raising a hand here::), I think we have a challenge before us because, sometimes, we put too much trust in reasoning.

“What?!” you say. “How can that be bad?”

It’s not—as long as it’s not in isolation. We need to give logic its due, yes, and figure out what we can, based upon careful analysis, but I also think we need to learn when to put our brains on pause—particularly if we know we have a tendency to rationalize things—and reacquaint ourselves with an important little signal called “our gut reaction.”

This can be a daunting skill to acquire for some of us… As children, for whatever reason, we may have convinced ourselves or were convinced by others that a pit-of-the-stomach icky sensation wasn’t valid enough proof to distance ourselves from somebody who wasn’t good for us. We may have been told we needed to wait and give them a chance. We should gather empirical data first. We weren’t allowed to believe our instincts.

Guest Blogger - Marilyn Brant - Riding the Rails of the Marriage-Coaster

In the amusement park of life, a long-term marriage is like a rollercoaster with ups, downs, frightening twists, and exhilarating thrills.

It wasn’t until I was about three and a half months pregnant that my husband of five years finally admitted to me that he’d never held a baby.

“What?!” I practically screeched, my soaring hormonal levels making it difficult for me to keep an even tone on any subject, let alone one of such primal important to me. I stared at him much like I might if I’d just discovered he was, say, an undercover CIA agent who’d only been *pretending* to be a high-school world history teacher but was really jetting off to fight international crime—though only during the hours of the school day. I pointed emphatically at his briefcase. “Are there really exams on the Reformation in there?”

“Uh, yeah.” He shot me a worried look. “Why?”

“Because I’ve known you for almost eight years…but I don’t really know you!”

Granted, I was an exhausted, irrational mess at the end of my first trimester (as my very patient husband could certainly attest), but I wasn’t exactly wrong in my accusation either. Truth was, in that precise situation—that of becoming first-time parents—my husband and I didn’t know each other. There were a thousand tidbits of knowledge we’d accumulated, of course, but it came as a shock to me that I could still be surprised with unknowns.

My husband and I had, after all, dated exclusively for a couple of years before getting married. We’d traveled together for months at a time and talked A LOT. We’d never been apart for more than a few days in our entire acquaintance, and we prided ourselves on how much care we’d taken in getting to know each other’s backgrounds, goals, dreams. Yet, much like that feeling you get when the rollercoaster you’re on plummets down a scary incline, my stomach dropped to my toenails at this latest disclosure, and I could barely catch my breath well enough to get in a good scream.

Guest Blogger - Marilyn Brant - The Secrets We Keep

What women fantasize about (and sometimes share but are often afraid to) about crushes on men outside of their committed relationships.

There's often a sense of relief (as well as joy) in being part of a serious, committed relationship. Take marriage, for instance. How nice, we think, that we’ve finally gotten hitched to this person we spent countless months dating. How delightful we can now make life plans together and go out and purchase furniture or the random piece of art that your mother squints at and says looks “very strange.” You don’t care. You’re in love! You’re too busy rejoicing that you’re no longer subject to the slings and arrows of courtship and can finally settle down and stop having to worry about sucky first...or fifth...dates with strangers.

It’s utopian for a while. Then reality sets in.

You realize you’re never, ever going to kiss (or sleep with) another man again. You might be 25 when you make this lifetime commitment to another. Or 32. Or 47. But there will most likely be a moment of panic when you think, “Oh, crap. Unless I become an actress and get cast in a film opposite Johnny Depp or Daniel Craig, I’m never again going to make out with someone really hot that isn’t my husband!”

So, in idle moments, you begin to wonder what if? What if you made a mistake and should really be with someone else? What if you followed through on your fantasy of kissing that cute handyman who comes in once a year to check the furnace? What if your boyfriend from high school, the teen you thought you loved with all of your adolescent heart, wrote to you and finally explained why he broke up with you…and said he was sorry?

The big secret is that most women fantasize about these things at some point or other. It’s a normal, natural part of coming to understand our relationship boundaries and the seriousness of ourcommitment to someone else. But we tend to be afraid to admit to our friends that we’ve imagined such scenarios (sometimes in surprisingly vivid detail) because we don’t want our morality or our loyalty called into question. Because we don’t want to be seen as doubting, fickle, unfaithful—and, yet, we feel dishonest when we try to hide our real feelings, too.

Guest Blogger - Marilyn Brant - Women of the Round Table

Meeting at a coffee shop with friends is the elixir of many of life's problems -- anything can get solved over hazelnut brew and a bear claw pastry.

King Arthur may have had his knights, but I have much more powerful and very carefully chosen warriors by my side: my friends. Meeting with them for coffee once a week (or whenever we can) is, in my suburban-mom world, the classic elixir of many of life’s problems. I sincerely believe that just about any crisis can be solved over a hot cup of hazelnut brew and a bear claw pastry. The mood-altering properties of the caffeine and sugar might be well documented, but the attitude-improving, day-brightening effect of time spent with true friends shouldn’t be discounted either.

But perhaps you’re an independent sort or an introvert (I’m both.) You can handle your problems yourself. You don’t need a regular Round Table. I won’t argue with you, but I will say there was a time I thought that was true for me, too…and I found I was wrong. Before I had a Round Table, I worried whether what I was thinking or feeling about a marital, parenthood or family situation was normal. Now, of course, I know I’m not remotely normal (*grin*), but neither is anyone else. And my friends are the ones who routinely help me gauge what should be included in any accepted range of “normalcy.” If the four of us get together and I share a troubling situation with them and any one of them has experienced it before or knows someone that’s dealt with it, too—well, then I know I’m not so odd. That whatever it is I’m struggling with is something that can be worked through. There’s a lot of comfort in that.

So, who might you want to invite to your Round Table? In my opinion, they’re the people with whom you feel most like yourself. In the case of my good friends, they’re smart, compassionate women who know me and my life and have shown over time their kindheartedness, sincerity and support. They know what it’s like to be worried about a child with a fever, a parent with memory issues, a pet that leaves stinky messes, a husband who’s incapable of loading (or unloading) a dishwasher or a house that strangely doesn’t come with self-cleaning capabilities. They know how tough it is to try to juggle a job, family commitments, exercise, yard work and bills in the course of one day. How a phone call from the school office can halt you in your tracks. Or how, every so often, remembering something from your past can leave you feeling sniffly or giggly or sentimental…