Looking for an advice book to improve your relationship with your partner? Or maybe you’re looking for a book to help you find a boyfriend/girlfriend? Or perhaps you’re looking for a book about how to get over a relationship and finally let go and move on. This guide to the best relationship books out there has you covered — no matter your romantic situation.
So dive on with us and find a new book, all about those complex and beautiful things known as human relationships.
Everything You Need To Know If You Want Love That Lasts
We all have found ourselves scouring the web for article after article hoping to tell us how to hold onto love and make it last. Sabrina is no stranger to this topic, as she’s written countless pieces covering topics that range from “what makes a guy lose interest?” to “why do your relationships always fall apart?” This book is a collection of some of the best work Sabrina has to offer, as she answers essentially every question you might have to offer in regards to what makes real love last, and how you can have it for yourself.
This book has consistently topped book sales and is often recommended to people in all aspects of their love lives- single, dating, or married- and for good reason. The Five Love Languages explores the reality that while we all crave love in this world, we also don’t always express it in the same ways. Chapman breaks down love into five different categories: Words Of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Acts Of Service, Gifts, and Quality Time and explains how each of these different expressions of love are important to understand, for yourself and your partner, in order for your relationship to thrive. This is a great relationship book for couples.
Relationships absolutely thrive on communication between partners, yet oftentimes we don’t always talk about the things we really should because we’re afraid of being open and honest, with ourselves and our partners. We oftentimes wait until an argument comes up before we address these things. In this book, Davenport takes you through a list of 201 questions that will cause both of you to really open up about areas in your life you may not normally talk about- like things that cause you pain, things that hurt your feelings, the things you desire to feel sexy- and gives you the opportunity to bond intimately with your partner and understand them better. It’s perfect for forming trust, open communication, and a healthier relationship all around.
It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way
Although we often hope for the best, sometimes relationships truly let us down and damage us beyond imagination. We can feel incredibly alone and betrayed, as if no one could possibly understand us. In this book TerKeurst describes her emotional pain as she dealt with a radically wounding divorce from the man she believed she would spend her life with, and asks the hard questions that those who usually cling to faith would ask- “Why did God allow this to happen?” and even “How can I trust God, or anyone else, again?” Though she doesn’t shy away from the deep hurt divorce and adultery can cause, Lysa still offers hope and encouragement to those who feel they can never find love, or God, again.
It can be easy for us to try and find books about how to hold onto and work on our relationships, but what about whenever the reality is that we actually need to move on? In this incredible books of essays, Heidi Priebe thoroughly explores what it’s like to try and move on from a love that feels impossible to do so, while also showing how there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, and you will in fact become stronger in the end. It’s probably one of the best breakup books out there and has incredible reviews on Amazon.
Though we might find ourselves constantly searching self-help books and articles telling us exactly what to do, sometimes it helps to take things in a different approach. In this collection of poems, Campbell takes all the emotion, heartache, and love of a relationship and condenses it down to one full day with poems detailing heartbreak and sadness, yet also providing hope that eventually, the sun will rise and you’ll heal from the relationship that left you devastated.
While we’re often taught that love is about doing anything and everything to make our partner happy, that mindset can become dangerous, especially when we come across manipulative people in our dating lives. This book highlights an important aspect of healthy love and relationships setting boundaries. In this book, Cloud and Townsend walk you through understanding and setting boundaries why they’re important, necessary, and the only way you’ll truly be able to thrive in any relationship you enter into.
Oftentimes when it comes to relationships, we spend a lot of time fixating on the exact things we need to do to make a romantic relationship work. Yet we lose sight of one of the more important aspects of any healthy relationship: learning to love and work on our own selves. Here in this great relationship book, Hollis dives into several of the lies women are told throughout their lives that they easily believe as well as the ways to work through them and embrace a more confident, joyful life. Though the book may not focus explicitly on romantic relationships, it does inspire women to truly embrace and love the person they are, which radically improves the relationships they may have or may step into eventually.
“You Always Change The Love Of Your Life (For Another Love Or Another Life)”
Though heartbreaks can feel devastating (especially from a person you believed you would be with forever), we always try to hold out some kind of hope that it isn’t the end. In this book, Andrade walks you through a guide she created in the midst of her own overwhelming heartbreak that is both equally encouraging and amusing, reminding us that just because a relationship ends doesn’t mean it is the end of everything for you. That the end of a relationship can lead you to another opportunity- whether it’s another chance at love, or a whole new kind of life altogether.
Sometimes we tend to settle for the relationships that we think we deserve, rather than trying to cultivate the ones we really want. In this book, Arylo doesn’t hold back as she pushes women to ask themselves the tough question of what they truly want in a relationship, and challenging them to cultivate that instead of just remaining stagnant in the types of relationships that usually resign themselves to.
Oftentimes, poetry speaks to us in ways that other forms can’t- it resonates with our souls and allow us to embrace all our emotions full force. In this collection, Peppernell writes about love and heartbreak in a raw and intense way, that’s divided up into sections such as “if you’re missing someone” or “if you need encouragement”, so that you know you’re not alone in whatever it is you’re feeling.
The Highly Sensitive Person In Love
Relationships can be difficult to navigate for anyone, but it can even tougher if you have a tendency towards being highly sensitive. In a world that is constantly demanding sensitive people to “toughen up” and “just deal with” the things that hurt them, this book takes a different approach, allowing you to understand your sensitivity, how to communicate about it with your partner, and ultimately how to use it as an asset in your relationship rather than allowing yourself to close off from love altogether.
A picture is worth a thousand words and the amount of humor, love, and reality these comics convey are absolutely priceless. Catana comics have been popular for years online due to their adorable depiction of relationships: all the ups, downs, and even slightly mundane aspects of being in love and a relationship. This collection will shed some light into your day as you flip through the story Catana weaves about herself and her real life partner, John that is incredibly relatable to anyone in a relationship.
Though it’s helpful to read books about relationships and how to navigate them, one of the best ways to learn about your relationship (and your partner) is the way you describe your own relationship in your own words. This journal has prompts, questions, and plenty of space to allow you to either fill in and give to your partner as a gift, or explore and document the memories together, allowing you to reminisce and see the way your partner views your relationship as well as how you see it yourself. This journal also makes a great Valentine’s Day gift or for anniversary.
What are your favorite relationship books? What are the best relationship books you’ve read? Share them with at hello@shopcatalog.com and we’ll feature the best stuff here on the Shop Catalog blog.