With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I think it’s about time to talk about the best relationship books to read around this time of the year.

The thing with relationship books is that they can be really good or totally rubbish. I used to be (and I quite still am) a hater when it came about relationship books. Mainly because dating and love drama was never my thing and secondly because I found it absurd to have a stranger tell me how to act in my relationship.

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While I would lie if I said my mindset totally switched, I came across some really interesting relationship books that I think are ground 0 to relationships.

What I’ve learnt from these books is that men and women are genetically built to think and understand things in different ways. Also, they helped me better understand myself and why I act in a certain way.

Here are my top 3 best relationship books to read around Vanlentine’s day!

Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus

I think this is a classic. I heard of this book long before reading it and to be honest, I thought it was something like Bridget Jones Diary. Not sure why I thought that – probably because of the title. Fun fanct – this sbook is older than me.

Anyway, fast forward a few years later when I got it as a ‘gift’ from my partner (I still believe it was part of the induction process) and when I actually read it.

I read this books twice until now because it’s so insightful that you have to go back to certain things every now and then.

John Gray was a relationship counsellor before becoming famous for his ‘Mars and Venus’ book series. Because of his background he got the chance to analyse and interpret both sexes feelings and behaviour.

The book explains how fundamentally different, yet complementary men and women are. It’s really nice that it gives you millions of explanations based on history, social development, medicine, psychology and so on. In this way, you get the big picture and you get to understand yourself and your partner without any guilt or remorse. All this wrapped up in John Gray’s catchy writing style.

If your not looking for the relationship advice, you at least have to read it for the humour and ‘oh, this is true’ moments.

Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus

A insightful book analysing the evolution of humankind and how this affected our relationships. All wrapped up in a humorous way.

Read the Book

The 5 Love Languages

You know when you haven’t read a book, but you heard people talking about it so much and you watched and read reviews about and your brain starts to think that you actually read it?

That happened to me with ‘The 5 Love Languages’. I haven’t read the full book, but I read a sample (for some reason I haven’t bought it then) and after that I started to hear about it constantly.

I think I first heard about it from Sadia Badiei from Pick Up Limes and then I took the test, read samples reviews and so on.

Right now I’m reading it, but I only got thought the first few pages. But because of my thorough research, I already know the big idea behind the book.

Gary Chapman identifies five different love ‘languages’, as it follows:

• words of affirmation
• acts of service
• receiving gifts
• quality time
• physical touch

We have one or two major love languages that dominates us. Identifying them can help us understand us better and also tell our partner what it dominant for us.

Just because you are in a relationship it doesn’t mean you have to ‘speak’ the same love languages. But knowing which ones you do ‘speak’ can be extremely helpful when it comes to understand one another.

This book is meant to be read by couples, together. You both need to know which love language is dominant for each other and act upon it. Last, but not least, if you’re really that busy and you don’t have time to read the whole book, there’s also The 5 Love Languages Quiz which is short and quick. If you submit to get the results via e-mail, you get a detailed result.

Oh, and of course there is an entire book series covering love languages for men, single people, kids and teenagers. So you can literally have what to choose from.

The 5 Love Languages

Discover which one the 5 love languages is dominant for you and for your partner.

Read the Book

Mars and Venus In the Bedroom

This is another book by John Gray, but he’s quite good at this.

Side note: these are the only two books in the series I truly recommend. The other ones (like Mars and Venus Together Forever) are pretty much a rephrase of what’s said in the original book, from my point of view.

Going back… when it comes to the intimate (sexual) side of a relationship, we’re quite shy, even with out partner. It might be too soon to talk about certain thing or we’re simply not that open. I mean, let’s face it, no one talks openly about it and we somehow believe we shouldn’t talk about it with our partners too. Which is stupid.

So, yes, this is basically a book about sex. Starting from the very basic anatomy of men and women up to how to talk to your partner about certain aspects of your sex life.

The idea of reading a book about intimacy, might found funny to you because you think all the good things should come naturally. I assumed that too. But the truth is that our minds and bodies work differently and it’s important to understand the other partner’s point of view.

Mars and Venus In the Bedroom

Understand how the differences between men and women affect your intimacy as a couple.

Read the Book

Being in a relationship, especially a long-term one can be challenging. But I think that’s the beauty of it afterall.

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These books are a great individual read, but also perfect to read with your partner as well. They can help you understand yourself better at a deeper level but they will also help you understand your partner better and relationships in general.

Also, last but not least you can read them and you can also gift them yo your partner as a Valentine’s Day gift.

Have you read any of these books, do you have any other good relationship books recommendations? Leave them in the comment’s section!