Basic Trope: A loveless couple cannot split up for whatever reason, so they agree to keep up appearances of a happy marriage.
- Straight: Alice and Bob no longer love each other, but pretend to the outside world to be happily married, for social reasons - while getting on with their separate lives.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob are married and hate each other's guts. They pretend to be Sickening Sweethearts to others, while secretly plotting one another's murder.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob have some arguments in their marriage, which they don't share with anyone else.
- Alice and Bob's political marriage is relatively pleasant one, nonetheless the affection they show in public is faked for the cameras.
- Justified:
- Bob and/or Alice has/have wealthy and conservative relatives from whom they expect to inherit, and who do not approve of divorce.
- Bob and Alice live in a society where divorcees are social pariahs.
- Bob and Alice don't want to lose their "golden couple" reputation, even if that's not what they are on the inside.
- Bob and Alice don't want their kids to grow up in a broken home or be ostracized for being children of divorcees, so they're staying together "for the kids' sake".
- Bob and Alice are in a Citizenship Marriage. While their relationship is loveless, neither wants to risk the deportation of the immigrant spouse.
- Inverted: Bob and Alice are Happily Married, but stage arguments and so forth to pretend to the outside world that their marriage is failing.
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob's private life at first seems to be loveless, but then it turns out to be Slap-Slap-Kiss.
- Everyone thinks Alice and Bob have a sham marriage, and they do nothing to combat the slander. They are happy to let everyone else think that because it throws off their enemies. After all, a villain who thinks Bob won't care if Alice is kidnapped won't go after Alice.
- The charade of a happy marriage breaks down.
- Double Subverted:
- It isn't really love, it is unbalanced violent lust, and in the meantime they both hate each other's guts.
- Alice and Bob hush up the scene and pretend it was just a domestic argument.
- Parodied: Bob and Alice claim that they truly love each other, but it's Blatant Lies. When asked what they see in each other, they damn each other by faint praise.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob have a turbulent political marriage. At times they must present a united front when going through a rough patch. Other times they must fake fights to put their enemies off guard.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob make no attempt to show others that they love each other.
- Alice and Bob are happily married.
- Enforced: The writer is having a severe Creator Breakdown due to an ugly real life breakup and believes no couple is actually happy, so they make sure to portray every established couple as putting on an act.
- Lampshaded: "I hate you, Bob. I hate you and I pretended to love you for the last ten years."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Alice finally kills Bob, knowing that nobody will believe she did it. They were such a happy couple, after all...
- Defied:
- As soon as Alice and Bob realize they don't love each other, they divorce.
- They never married in the first place because they realized they weren't right for each other.
- Discussed: "I don't know, they look like Sickening Sweethearts but what if they hate each other's guts?"
- Conversed: "Remember that show where they looked like happiest couple on Earth on the outside, but plotted each other's murder when alone?"
- Deconstructed: Alice and Bob's children can tell that their parents are absolutely miserable with each other, which in turn leaves them feeling miserable. Worst case scenario, this teaches them that it's better to suffer for the sake of appearances and gives them no idea what an actual happy relationship/marriage is supposed to be like.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Bob realize that what they're doing isn't working and only making themselves miserable. They get some marriage counseling to try and figure out a way to either make things work or part on amicable terms.
- Implied: The couple is only seen during the parties, when they look as if they were Happily Married. However, sometimes camera shows them when other characters can't see them and they look at each other with murder in their eyes. It's never explained.
- Played For Laughs: Absolutely no one sees anything wrong with Alice and Bob's marriage, despite that there "smiles" look more like grimaces of pain.
- Played For Drama: Alice and Bob's marriage is just another sign that the world they live in is a Crapsaccharine World that emphasizes appearances over substance.
- Played For Horror: Bob is an abusive husband who forces Alice to pretend she's in a happy relationship.
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