I've recently been doing a lot of reading about what makes the Romance Genreβ’ the Romance Genreβ’ and as it turns out the most important thing a story needs to be a romance is that the couple have to be unambiguously happily together in the end. That's it. Apparently, if this isn't true of your couple in the end then your story cannot be of the Romance Genreβ’, then it's just literary fiction. And this is actually such an insane revelation to me like I can't stop thinking about it because it explains why so often when I've attempted to read Romanceβ’ and 9 times outta 10 I'm annoyed because I feel like these characters get together and it costs them being interesting. I cannae get over that the reason so much romance sucks ass is because the only hard rule is basically "these people MUST be together even if it would be better if they weren't because god forbid the reader is confronted with the notion of impermanence" like....I can't really explain the depths of how silly I find this rule and how much it goes against what I find compelling to read/write about wrt to romance. It's akin to finding out that the Hayes Code is fully enforced in 2026 and everyone agreeing the Hayes Code is how movies should be made because otherwise it doesn't count as a movie. That's how this revelation of "you haven't written a romance storyβ’ unless your characters unambiguously live happily ever after" makes me feel. I personally prefer to think of romance as a method, as means, as a set of knives to cut characters open and go rummaging around for hidden treasure that can't be found any other way, if you will. Who cares if the characters will live "happily ever after"? Here's a better question, are they even yet living?
I understand your frustration, and I think what you are really annoyed at is books being written poorly, but I also understand why this genre requirement exists and I sympathize with it. When I reach for Romance, it's because I want to know that it will be okay in the end. There is something comforting in knowing that no matter what happens, what trials and tribulations come along on the way, these two people will come out okay, alive, and in love.
Sometimes you just need that? To relax. To have security in a world that feels like it's on fire. To believe in the possibility of true love against all odds, even if you don't believe it in real life. I think there is a beauty in that.
It's a bit like how the genre convention of a detective story is that the crime will be solved. It would be much more realistic if that wasn't the case (at least some of the time), but that's not what people are looking for when they reach for an Agatha Christie book!
