Infidelity. When it comes to the Romance genre, that word starts the ground shaking as readers rush for opposite camps as to whether a book with an unfaithful partner can ever be called a Romance Novel. I believe a romance novel can have an unfaithful spouse and still be a believable and satisfying HEA. I confess I did not always feel this way, but that changed when I read LaureyBright’s 1995 Silhouette Intimate Moments romance----------A Perfect Marriage.
Max and Celine have been married for 12 years. To everyone on the outside, it looks as if they have the ideal marriage, but both Max and Celine married each other on the rebound of broken hearts. Max’s fiancée died and Celine found herself in love with a married man who eventually rejected her for his wife. In the aftermath of lost love both of them marry each other and the bargain is for companionship, trust and affection. Both know that they are not in love with each other. Celine feels they have a satisfactory marriage. She thinks they know each other well, as they are old childhood friends, and the companionship and support they have built over the years is something that she takes for granted will always be theirs. There is some regret that they have never had children but on the whole Celine feels they have a good life and a good marriage.
Max starts to feel differently, he feels there is something missing in his life and his marriage and eventually he comes to the conclusion that the passion he is missing can be found in a romantic relationship with Kate, a new young lawyer who works in his office and looks upon him as a mentor. Max starts an affair and eventually has to tell Celine he wants to leave her and begin a new life with Kate. Celine is in shock because she never saw it coming. She had vague warnings of Max’s restlessness but in 12 years they have never really talked about feelings or anything that might lie under the surface of their relationship. Celine is wounded, angry and betrayed but through this period of turmoil while Max leaves her, she realizes she really is in love with Max and never knew what she had until it was gone. When an unexpected encounter with Max leaves her pregnant, Celine pulls herself together and starts to build a new life for herself and the child she has always wanted.
Max wants love and he tries to tell Celine this, but he isn’t good with emotions and he isn’t able to relate his dissatisfaction with his life into words that Celine can understand. He wants to respect their marriage agreement but he is lonely and really wants more passion but he can’t figure out how to get it until his infatuation with Kate. When he does get what he thinks he wants with Kate, he realizes that what he threw away was more precious than he realized and this feeling compounds when he finds out that Celine is having a baby.
Max is by no means a shallow or selfish Hero. He is a good man trying to do the best he can with a marriage that he thinks has no love or passion but only friendship and he wants a second chance at happiness when it looks like romantic love has finally come back into his life. When he wakes up and realizes that his true love is actually his wife, Max is willing to do whatever it takes to get her back, baby or not. He knows he threw away the truest love he had. He knows redemption is difficult to attain and may never
happen. He accepts that Celine may never forgive him, but he has to try. This is where the true strength of the book becomes apparent, in the long slow process of Max and Celine trying to rebuild a marriage bond in the face of such devastating betrayal. Max and Celine finally learn to communicate and look deep into themselves and each other for meaning in their relationship.
I won’t lie, this book is emotional, messy and the ugly truths about infidelity hurt both the characters and the reader. However when Max decides to try to repair the damage he has caused and we read about how both of them come to affirm their deep commitment to each other, this book reaches into the heart and carves a special place there.
Celine is a strong heroine in rebuilding her life, drawing boundaries with Max and his family, and positively facing life on her own. Max is a very humble and empathetic hero trying to earn Celine’s forgiveness and to start a new romantic relationship with her. Max and Celine both learn to appreciate the years of friendship and emotional bonds that each has brought to their marriage and to really cherish and value the long term knowing that a true love needs to last.
This is a book of new beginnings, second chances and true love. It shows that HEA’s don’t always start at the wedding and it shows the value and beauty of a long-term relationship that manages to survive and overcome the challenges. This book totally
changed my ideas of infidelity in Romance and it made me appreciate the fact that true love really can conquer all with grace, understanding and forgiveness. In A Perfect Marriage, Laurey Bright has brilliantly demonstrated that the bonds of true love are strong and that a marriage can be rebuilt and renewed even after the most unforgivable betrayal of all.
Till next time, Vanessa aka boogenhagen
