Romantic heroes and heroines are a bit different from the sort of people we run into every day.

In a romance novel, the core story is the developing relationship between a man and a woman. The other events in the story line, though important, are secondary to that relationship.

Modern romance novels tell a young woman that she can be successful, useful, and valuable on her own; that there are men who will respect her and treat her well; and that such men are worth waiting for.

If significant amounts of time go by without suspenseful action - which is often most powerfully motivated by backstory - the story loses momentum, and readers lose interest.

The bottom line is, you love your wife, you do your best with that.

I know that the odds are against a marriage lasting 60 years.

I have a series of splintered relationships. Why should I get married again? It's a miserable compromise at best. But I believe in marriage and still have fantasies about it.

Romantic love can be terrifying. We experience another human being as enormously important to us. So there is surrender - not a surrender to the other person so much as to our feeling for the other person. What is the obstacle? The possibility of loss.