11 Books About Relationships to Read ASAP
From singleness to dating to marriage to family dynamics, our certified counselors have put together a list of books about relationships that are some must-reads!
Relationships, whether with yourself or others, are always changing. The world is changing, and we are forced to move with it. Understanding needs, wants, desires, and communicating are just the start of strong, healthy relationships.
We have a variety of relationship books with different topics. Find books like the ever-so-popular book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Or find hidden gems like The Relationship Cure by John Gottman. You are sure to discover a book that’s worth reading and will give you a new perspective on relationships or help you save a relationship!
1. Becoming Us: Using the Enneagram to Create a Thriving Gospel-Centered Marriage
By Beth McCord & Jeff McCord
Do you ever feel puzzled by the person sleeping beside you? What if your spouse came with an instruction manual? Beth and Jeff McCord, founders of Your Enneagram Coach, have helped over 250,000 people discover their unique personality type and apply that knowledge to their relationships.
Becoming Us pulls back the curtain on marriage. It weaves the Enneagram through the lens of the Gospel to reveal why you and your spouse behave in different ways. Beth and Jeff will explain how you can:
- Answer the question, “What is my spouse thinking?”
- Defuse conflict before it starts, especially the same old arguments.
- Stop assuming each other’s motives and make communication work.
- Affirm each other in meaningful ways that matter.
- Enjoy your spouse all over again, even if you’ve loved each other for years.
2. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
By Gary Chapman
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?
In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today.
The 5 Love Languages is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work.
Includes the Couple’s Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.
3. The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships
By John Gottman
Gottman provides the tools you need to make your relationships thrive. In The Relationship Cure, Dr. Gottman:
– Reveals the key elements of healthy relationships, emphasizing the importance of what he calls “emotional connection.”
– Introduces the powerful new concept of the emotional “bid,” the fundamental unit of emotional connection.
– Provides remarkably empowering tools for improving the way you bid for emotional connection and how you respond to others’ bids.
– And more!
This book is packed with fascinating questionnaires and exercises developed in his therapy. The Relationship Cure offers a simple but profound program that will fundamentally transform the quality of all of the relationships in your life.
4. Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?
By Gary Thomas
In Sacred Marriage, bestselling author Gary Thomas uncovers the ways that your marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God and with each other. Join over one million others who have already uncovered Thomas’s tips for fostering a sacred marriage.
Within the pages of Sacred Marriage, Thomas invites you to see how God can use your relationship with your spouse as a discipline and a motivation to love God more and reflect more on the character of his Son.
You’ll discover life-changing insights from Scripture, church history, and time-tested wisdom from Christian classics. Also, you’ll find practical advice and techniques to make your marriage happier by becoming holier husbands and wives.
5. Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples
By Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D. & Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.
Getting the Love You Want has helped millions of people experience more satisfying relationships. It is recommended every day by professional therapists and happy couples around the world. Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt explain how to revive romance and remove negativity from daily interactions to help you:
- Discover why you chose your partner.
- Resolve the power struggle that prevents greater intimacy.
- Learn to listen – really listen – to your partner.
- Increase fun and laughter in your relationship.
- Begin healing early childhood experiences by stretching into new behaviors.
- Become passionate friends with your partner.
- Achieve a common vision of your dream relationship.
6. The Great Sex Rescue
By Sheila Wray Gregoire
The Great Sex Rescue pulls back the curtain on what is happening in Christian bedrooms and exposes the problematic teachings that wreck sex for so many couples–and the good teachings that leave others breathless. Based on a groundbreaking in-depth survey of 22,000 Christian women. Generations of women have grown up with messages about sex that make them feel dirty, used, or invisible, while men have been sold such a cheapened version of sex, they don’t know what they’re missing. The Great Sex Rescue hopes to turn all of that around, developing a truly biblical view of sex where mutuality, intimacy, and passion reign. Not only is this book a long overdue corrective to church culture, it is poised to free thousands of couples from repressive and dissatisfying sex lives so that they can experience the kind of intimacy and wholeness God intended.
