If you’re looking to reconnect and strengthen your emotional bond with your partner, reading books together can be powerful. Reading books for couples allows you to have meaningful conversations, understand one another better, and deepen your emotional connection. Read on for 7 books you can read to increase emotional intimacy with your partner.
1. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Gary Chapman offers a practical guide for couples looking to deepen their emotional connection by understanding their partner’s unique love language. The five love languages are Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Once you discover each other’s love languages, couples can understand how to meet each other’s emotional needs in a meaningful way.
2. Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson
Sue Johnson’s book focuses on the science of attachment and how it impacts our relationships. This book is highly recommended for couples struggling with emotional intimacy. Johnson helps couples understand and navigate the complex emotions that can come with intimacy. Couples can learn how to build a foundation of trust and feel safe in their relationship.
3. The Relationship Cure by John Gottman
John Gottman offers practical advice for couples to build emotional intimacy. This book for couples presents the idea of “bids” and how responding positively to your partner’s bids strengthens the relationship. However, when a partner’s bids are consistently ignored or rejected, the emotional connection weakens.
4. How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love
In her relationship book for couples, Patricia Love explores how communication isn’t the only way to improve emotional intimacy. She encourages readers to pay attention to body language, tone of voice, and other nonverbal cues to better understand emotions. Couples can develop a deeper emotional connection and build greater trust while also improving physical intimacy.
5. Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix
Harville Hendrix’s book is based on the idea that people choose their partners based on unresolved issues from their past. The relationship can be used to heal wounds. Divided into three parts, the book focuses on understanding how you choose partners, the dynamics of relationships, and the healing process. Hendrix provides practical tools for improving communication and for constructively resolving conflicts.
6. The Sex-Starved Marriage by Michele Weiner-Davis
Marriage therapist Michele Weiner-Davis offers valuable insights and solutions for couples struggling to maintain a healthy sexual connection. Weiner-Davis identifies factors that lead to a sex-starved marriage, such as communication breakdowns, differing libidos, and unaddressed emotional issues. She offers practical advice for partners to communicate needs, understand each other’s perspectives, and find ways to improve sexual intimacy.
7. Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore’s book delves into the spiritual side of love and relationships. He helps couples reconnect with the deeper, more meaningful aspects of their relationship. This helps couples rediscover the love that they once shared. Moore shares practical advice for couples to deepen their long-term relationship through meditation, spiritual practices, and creating more intentional moments.
Making a commitment to improve your relationship can feel intimidating. By working together to strengthen each other to become emotionally intimate, you make a conscious choice to stand side-by-side. Relationships can be difficult and it takes courage to put in the work.
This article was written exclusively for Love What Matters by Kate Fann. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories.
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