You will sometimes hear people say the happily ever after or HEA is all romance really requires, as if that's easy.
This weekend they had the Oscars, and while I am watching movies less these days I had watched two that were nominated for things ("A Real Pain" and "Wicked") and neither of them has an ending. Okay, that's not entirely fair. They both end. So that is an ending of sorts. "Wicked" ends with a to be continued, which one could argue is an ending. I would argue it is an excuse for not ending. Sure it ends where intermission is in the play, and that is certainly a pause in action. I would argue that intermission is the equivalent of a very long commercial break. So your intention with the audience is to leave them intrigued, but in a way that only has to last a matter of minutes, not months.
And in the case of "A Real Pain" it is a slice of life style movie. So the movie lasts the length of the journey they go on, and then it ends. That's it.
And HEA generally, though not always, requires a little more. Yes, your characters should have fallen in love, or very deep like. Yes, they should have faced an obstacle together and overcome it, even if the obstacle was taxes. But also they should have figured something out about each other. They should have figured out not just how to like one another, but how to face the world as a team.
