5 Books for a Healthier Love Life
By: Sophie Leane
Tags: Self Improvement, Dating, Book Recommendations, Relationships, Beyourself

Love, we are taught, is meant to be hard.

Exhilarating, addictive, mesmerising but, ultimately, difficult.

It’s meant to take your breath away. Leave you helpless. Give you butterflies (which, coincidentally, register exactly the same way, body-wise, as anxiety).

Like most things we are told before the age of 25, this is completely wrong. Love is meant to feel easy. Effortless, nourishing and, above all, simple.

The confusion is understandable. Many of us don’t experience this kind of effortless, nourishing love from our primary caregivers so, when it comes to choosing our romantic partners, our love radars are way off. We pick people who love us conditionally, selfishly, erratically, because this is what we know as love.

It’s much easier to accept the wrong kind of love, than to accept that you have never been loved right.

Photo by Akshar Dave on Unsplash

Luckily, as adults, we can re-shape our patterns and re-parent ourselves. Here are a few of the best books to help you with this (links in headings):

The holy grail of relationship self-help. I hand copies out to my friends like party favours and subtly slip in the quiz questions on the second date.

According to Attached, there are three main relationship types. Anxious, Avoidant and Secure.

Anxious people want more love in a relationship than they tend to get. They feel insecure in relationships, worry about them constantly and tend to assume the worst. When their partner doesn’t call back, for example, the Anxious person will assume that they’re not interested anymore.

Avoidant people tend to want space in relationships. Relationships make them feel suffocated, and they are constantly battling to assert their independence. Sadly, however, they’re often drawn to Anxious types, and together they birth the traditional push-pull relationship. No one is happy.

Secure people are objectively the best. They are the ideal partners for all three relationship types, because they are just as comfortable with providing closeness in a relationship as they are with giving space. They are naturally reassuring and emotionally mature. Better still, both Anxious and Avoidant types will, over time, become more Secure in a relationship with a Secure person.

This book is great for figuring out which type you are (you can also do that HERE), which type your partner is, what your behavioural patterns and triggers are, and how to avoid them. It’ll also help you become more Secure yourself, and know a Secure partner when you finally find one (Hint: They’re probably not the one sending you dick pics on Tinder).

Who’s it for? Everyone. Genuinely every single person who wants to be in a happy, healthy, fulfilling relationship with another human being, romantic or otherwise.

This one is a classic. If you’re already in a relationship, it will help you figure out how both of you can to do better. If you’re single, it will help you figure out where you’ve been going wrong.

It also introduces the following idea: the things that you find most aggravating in your partner, are the things that have been suppressed within you.

The books also explains why you are attracted to certain people but not others (it has to do with how your parents screwed you up, obviously) and how you can change this. Basically, it’ll help you choose the kinds of people you want to be attracted to.

Who’s it for? People who are finally in the right relationship and don’t want to screw it up. People who are going through a rough patch in their relationship. People who suspect that their parents fucked them up, and want to pin-point exactly how they did it.

This is a brilliant but fairly obscure book. However, you can get it second hand on Amazon. It’s about self-awareness, who you become when you are in a relationship, as well as noticing the stories that you tell yourself and the demands you make in a relationship.

If you find that your relationships tend to be turbulent and painful then this is the book for you. If you notice that your relationships follow a certain pattern (of failure), then this is also the book for you. It will teach you about where you go wrong, how to break out of your patterns and will generally help you become a better version of yourself, both inside a relationship and out.

Who’s it for? Anyone who wants to lead a more peaceful and drama-free life.

I am fairly biased when it comes to Alain de Botton (or bald zen guys in general), but this book is extremely excellent. It’s written like a story, which is really nice when you’re looking for something that teaches you a lesson, but isn’t overtly didactic or preachy about it.

The facts are these — A couple meet on an airplane and begin a relationship. The book follows them through the highs and lows of this relationship, and teaches you useful lessons along the way. Lessons like: romantic relationships are not meant to fulfil all your needs or provide you with a life purpose; your partner is just as messed up as you are, so be kind; and sometimes we can’t help behaving badly, but this is not an excuse to carry on doing so.

My favourite part of the book is a lesson involving a shoe. Basically the male protagonist gets really embarrassed by the ugly shoes that his partner has chosen to wear. They fight. The male protagonist then reflects on the fight in a deep, meaningful and philosophical way, because he’s really Alain de Botton under a pseudonym.

What he discovers is this: We bizarrely hold the people that we love the most to much higher standards than anyone else. By doing this, we end up treating the people that we love the most much worse, and much more unreasonably, than anyone else in our lives.

How does he discover this? By going down to the local shop, and not being mortally insulted by the shopkeeper’s choice of ugly footwear. Ah, philosophy…

Who’s it for? People who don’t like self-help books, but still need help.

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

This book taught me everything that I know about how to fight. I am now great at arguments, because I use words like “feel” and “trigger” instead of “asshole” and “break up”.

The central premise of the book is that we, as human beings with emotions and other complexities, suck at communicating in an effective way. We believe our emotions too much, get riled up by them, and then take it out on other people. Non-violent communication, as a book and a technique, is based on empathy. By empathising with the person that we are speaking to, we are much less likely to see arguments as a win-lose situation.

The book also teaches you how to express your needs clearly, in a way that means a) you won’t trigger the other person and b) you get your needs met.

Who’s it for? Anyone who has ever had an argument. People who fight a lot in relationships. People who experience a lot of anger.