How can it be a myth to want romance?

I'm talking here about expecting unrealistic, Hollywood romance. Believe me, your life with your partner should included plenty of romance. There are many times when you and your partner need to make an effort to be romantic, to go out on real dates as you did when you first met, to fill your life with candlelight dinners and weekends away from the kids.

But don't kid yourself. As jarring as this sounds, the truth is that being in love is not like falling in love.

This is what I mean when I say most people don't know how to measure success in a relationship. Most people have a distorted view of what love is. Just because feelings change doesn't mean that those feelings have to be less rewarding. What once was dizzying and exciting and thus very positive can very well become deep and secure - which is also very positive.

The infatuation stage is, I admit, an addictive experience. Falling in love not only brings out a surging sense of desire, it makes you believe you can surmount all your limitations.

The myth too many people believe is that the ecstatic emotion that one feels when first falling for someone new is real love. It is only the first stage of love, and it is humanly impossible to remain in that stage. Inevitably, with all couples, that initial wild passion transmutes into a deep and abiding commitment - still exciting, still rewarding, but not always so dizzying. The answer is learning how to move to the next stage of love. When you do that, you will discover a deeper, richer experience with your partner than you ever could have imagined. Emotions change, but that doesn't mean that they are less intense or less meaningful than the tingling excitement of the early days.

Unlike the characters in the soaps, you have to go to work, you do gain weight, you do get tired, and you do have to pump your own gas, while your partner feeds the dog.

You're living in the real world here. Great romance can be caring and checking on where your partner is if it's getting a little late. Great romance can be as simple as sharing the newspaper in the morning, sharing a biggie fry at the Burger Doodle, and making love a couple of times a week. Great relationships and great romance? It's all in the yardstick that you use to measure. It's all in defining what "great" means in the real world.