10 really worthwhile nonfiction books about relationships and love

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A scientific approach will help you better understand your loved one and make your relationship more harmonious.

Scientists make new discoveries almost every month, and sometimes they revolutionize our ideas about a person, his feelings, desires and aspirations. And of course, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and psychologists study love. On Valentine's Day, we offer a selection of popular science books about love, relationships and sex that you can definitely trust.

1. "Hold Me Tight" by Sue Johnson

Family therapists sometimes view relationships as rational deals in which you want to give less and get more. While the union of two people is much more. It manifests the inner need of each person for safe emotional attachment.

This approach is taken by psychotherapist Sue Johnson, the creator of EFT - emotionally focused therapy. In Hold Me Tight, she lays out principles to help build and strengthen the closeness you need with your partner, find and overcome dead-end patterns in couples (such as finding the culprit), and open up to each other. There are practical exercises at the end of the chapters.

2. "The Feeling of Love" by Sue Johnson

Love is an essential element of our survival. And despite the fact that the cult of emotional independence reigns in society, people need each other more than ever.

Sue Johnson's second book continues the conversation about emotionally focused therapy. In it, the researcher examines the causes of discord in relationships and suggests ways to overcome discord. She is sure that the differences between men and women are exaggerated and that each of us is able to take a step towards each other. Ideal partners are not born, but become when people honestly and openly talk about their desires and feelings.

3. "Always Wanted" by Esther Perel

It is believed that mutual desire in a long-term relationship gradually fades away. Daily stress and routine matters lead to the fact that sex becomes rare and not as passionate as it was at the beginning of the relationship. An expert on sexual intelligence, an experienced psychotherapist Esther Perel offers a broader view of the situation.

Couples in romantic relationships are constantly balancing the need for security and craving for novelty. On the one hand, over time, life together becomes more predictable, and the relationship becomes deep and trusting. On the other hand, the novelty disappears, and with it the necessary sexual tension. Perel examines the nature of the sexual desire that we experience when we love and want someone. The book, while not providing definitive answers, is a good opportunity to talk to your partner and calibrate your own beliefs about love and sex.

4. "Right to Left", Esther Perel

In this book, Perel dissects the topic of betrayal. Why are people wrong? What makes them start second families, secret bank accounts, develop complex schemes for leading a double life? Quite a lot has been written about preventing betrayals and recovering from them, almost nothing has been written about the meanings, motives and causes of occurrence.

Esther Perel's research is based on ten years of working with hundreds of couples who have faced infidelity. The therapist is not afraid to raise provocative topics: according to Perel, cheating can teach something and even help deepen the relationship. At a minimum - to look at modern marriage from a new perspective, honestly and without shame to talk about your beliefs and get to know your partner better.

5. "Happiness Together" by Belinda Luscombe

Journalist Belinda Luscombe has been writing about marriage and relationships for the Times magazine for 20 years. Having accumulated her own decent experience and analyzed data from the latest scientific research, she identified the main sources of problems that modern couples face. Among them - inability to quarrel, excessive intimacy (when it seems as if you know your partner like the back of your hand), financial disagreements, sexual problems, children and close relatives, and refusal to help.

In his book, Luscombe examines each of the problems in detail and invites couples to undergo a kind of "technical inspection": perhaps what seems to you a disaster and evidence that you are not suitable for each other can be solved quite simply. Happiness together, she is sure, is achievable.

6. "Fit For Each Other" by Amir Levin and Rachel Heller

You may already be familiar with attachment theory. According to her, there are four types of attachment: reliable, avoidant, anxious and rare anxious-avoidant type. Most often, the theory is considered in the context of child-parent interaction. Dr. Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel Heller applied it to romantic relationships between adults.

The authors of the book explain how people with different types of attachment behave in pairs, why they act in a certain way and practically cannot do otherwise, how this knowledge can be used to build a strong connection. Levin and Heller also offer to find out your type and type of partner and give practical recommendations on how to harmonize relations, quarrel less and stop throwing complaints at each other.

7. Made for Love by Stan Tatkin

The better we understand our partner, his desires, needs and motivation, the easier it is for us to build trusting relationships. Psychotherapist Stan Tatkin is absolutely convinced of this. He offers a psychobiological approach to couples therapy.

By synthesizing knowledge from the field of neuroscience, using the theory of attachment and regulation of emotions, Tatkin creates a kind of roadmap of relationships. With its help, you can create a space for a couple, in which both partners will feel safe, which means they will be able to show their best qualities and not be afraid of their vulnerability.

8. "Why We Love" by Helen Fisher

In 1996, anthropologist Helen Fisher began a multidimensional study of love. What does it mean to love? How does love arise? What is it like? And can we somehow control this unpredictable feeling? Fischer summarized the answers to these questions in a book. During the research, 40 volunteers who were madly in love were not without MRI. And here's what turned out to be the most important: like hunger, thirst and maternal affection, love is one of the main motivators for action.

9. "7 principles of a happy marriage" by John Gottman

Perhaps the most famous long-term study of pairing relationships was conducted by John Gottman. At the end of the last century, he created the "Laboratory of Love" - an experimental space where a scientist and colleagues observed and recorded everything that happened in couples who lived in an apartment behind a one-sided glass. Gottman analyzed what was happening in their relationship, made predictions about the future of their union, and a year later checked whether he was right. The accuracy of his predictions was 91%!

The research results are summarized in the book. Gottman identifies seven principles of a happy marriage, all of which are based on creating and strengthening an emotional bond in a couple, which helps to resolve conflicts, respect each other and admire a partner. Here they are: take an interest in each other's life, cultivate tenderness, be attentive to each other in small things, make joint decisions. You can read about the other three principles in the book.

10. "Proximity", Natalia Fomicheva

In domestic sexology, a normative approach has been adopted for many years: specialists mainly treated “deviations”. Recently, the focus has shifted towards the partner norm - what happens in the relationship of specific sexually mature people who have agreed that the interaction between them is carried out by mutual desire and gives them pleasure.

Natalia Fomicheva adheres to this approach and in her book examines different facets of intimate relationships. Sexual problems often turn out to be communication difficulties or arise from chronic fatigue and prolonged stress. The book will help you see differently about sex in your couple, reduce anxiety about the "normality" of your intimacy and strengthen the bond with your partner.

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