When I tell someone I’m a romance writer, their reaction is often a pause or a change of subject. The romance genre has a reputation as a distraction for people who can’t be bothered to think. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This genre gives us important information about how to achieve better relationships.

For a story to be included in the romance genre, it must have a love story as the main plot and a happy ending in which the lovebirds are together. The conflicts in a romance story consist of the main characters’ impediments to their happily ever after.

How does this play out over the course of the story?

The characters have to get their crap together. On the personal, collective, internal, and external levels, the lovebirds must respond to the conflicts with truth. For this to result in a positive outcome, we’re talking doing some major personal growth on the self and in the relationship.

If you’re in a relationship that’s not working, what are the impediments?

Boredom? Miscommunication? Infidelity? Incompatible sexual preferences? Unclear expectations? Whatever it is, you can bet there’s a romance novel character who’s confronted that challenge and worked it out. There is a solution to your relationship challenge.

Romance novels offer a particular type of assist: They give us lessons in differentiation.

I define differentiation as the art of being yourself, even when confronted with pressure to be otherwise. Differentiation is a practice, not a place to reach and be done. The more important someone is to you (like, say, a lover or spouse), the more likely you are to value their opinion. What happens when you want to go east and they want to go west? How do you keep hold of yourself in the face of disagreement with someone you love?

Romance novels are full of these conflicts. I love romance novels in which the main characters have to really dig deep to confront and understand the places where they’ve been lying to themselves or pretending to be someone they’re not. This process is necessary in order for them to become truly available for healthy love. But those deep hurt places often originated in childhood, making excavation difficult, painful, and confusing.

Enter the enzyme.

Main characters in romance novels spark with one another because they operate like enzymes, causing a reaction. I see the wound you can’t see. Or you’re poking at the dark part of me I don’t want to look at. This enzymatic action is the crux of the romance story. But it’s also the crux of relating in real life. My loved one’s disagreement makes me confront the thing that hurts.

Practicing differentiation means first telling ourselves the truth, even if we don’t tell anyone else. Just knowing what is true within can be an enormous step toward greater health in a relationship. What am I afraid to tell myself? Why am I afraid?

The role-modeling that occurs in the romance novels I like best—the stories that change me and help me in real life—comes from the author’s ability to portray the strong emotions that arise when we change below the surface, at the level where change lasts. I want to feel along with the character who discovers a betrayal and looks within to realize the clues were there all along. I want to know how it feels to live up to my potential, to gain courage from my truth, to practice and succeed at standing up for myself.

Losing myself in a romance novel that affects me strongly at an emotional level teaches me the feeling of differentiation. Readers of romance novels engage in the practice of finding themselves. This carries over into real life. Not by giving us a fake-rosy view of an unexpected lover solving all our problems so we don’t have to take responsibility for ourselves (that’s the romance genre stereotype talking), but by instilling a felt memory of being strong in our own truth, whatever that may be.

Not strong once, not only strong when it’s easy. The practice of differentiation builds a muscle of willingness to stand up for truth, then stand up again, to lean into the benefits and clarity of living real. This practice strengthens not only our truth, but the truth, such that we become better at supporting others to own their truth, whether we agree with them or not.

With reality on the table, even if the journey to get there is hard, the deeper solutions stand a better chance of popping into view.

What’s your challenge in your relationship?

Look online for a romance novel that explores that theme. Google that issue plus romance novel. Search the Goodreads lists. And try to find a quality read, a story written so well you forget you’re reading. This better helps you practice the feelings around differentiation that the characters go through to reach the happy ending. You can also use this method of romance-genre reading for help with challenges in non-romantic relationships, because differentiation works the same in all relationships.

Be you. Keep being you as often as you can. Find ways to practice being as you as you can be. This means learning to be you as you connect with someone special, or with anyone, or with everyone.

Who knows? You might even become a role model.

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Alice Archer is the author of the literary romance novels Everyday History and The Infinite Onion. You can subscribe to her newsletter to receive a free story, notification of new articles and books, and more.

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