The lives of many couples and marriages have been changed or influenced by marriage counseling books.
As you know, a single book can help you take your life and marriage from good to great.
If you are contemplating getting a divorce, the best thing you should do is to attend marriage counseling or get marriage coaching.
However, you could also read one or two marriage counseling books; especially if you do not have money for marriage counseling right now.
Please note: We haven’t read all of these books but selected them based on the positive feedback of others.
Best marriage counseling books for couples
One of the best ways to rediscover the passion you once had in your marriage is to learn how to reconnect with your spouse.
So before you decide to end your marriage, read this book and apply what you learn to your marriage.
Also, this book will show you how to rekindle your marriage so you can achieve lasting intimacy with your spouse.
2. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert
If you want solid, studied marriage help based on years of research and experience, look no further.
John Gottman has devoted his life and work to discovering principles of healthy relationships that apply to any issue a couple may face, and this book is a straightforward presentation of that work.
For the couples willing to put in the emotional and intellectual investment, this book will provide a practical strategy for making a marriage work for the long haul.
3. The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple’s Guide by Michele Weiner Davis
Don’t be embarrassed. Apparently, one out of every three couples is struggling with sex. Whether it’s physical or emotional incompatibility (or both!)
This marriage book offers ways for both partners to understand one another, to communicate their needs, and to rebuild intimacy.
Combining anecdotal accounts with the author’s years of experience as a relationship communicator, this book is a great resource for couples hoping to rekindle their old spark.
4. After the Affair, Updated Second Edition: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful by Janis A. Spring
This is a book you hope you never have to read.
But if you find yourself in this situation – as nearly 70 percent of American couples do – this book is a safe place you can come not just for advice but for real help in working through the hurt and growing stronger together.
Updated for the 21st century, the 2nd edition has a new section on internet infidelity.
5. How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Steven Stosny and Patricia Edd Love
Here’s a shocker: men and women communicate differently! And according to the authors of this book, sometimes nonverbal communication goes a lot farther than using ALL THE WORDS.
If you find yourself stuck in the role of “nagging wife” role or “silent husband,” this book can help you break out of your communication rut and truly connect again.
6. The Love Dare by Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick
If you’re up for it, this book could change your marriage for the better: it challenges husbands and wives to love each other unconditionally for 40 days.
That’s a commitment of not just time but emotional and mental energy.
Is your marriage worth it? The authors say it is!
Give it a read and see if your marriage doesn’t become fireproof. The book, now in its 2nd edition, also includes a link to a free online marriage evaluation.
7. Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage: America’s Love Lab Experts Share Their Strategies for Strengthening Your Relationship by John Gottman.
The title of the book is Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage, but here’s something cool about it: the teachers of these lessons aren’t the authors.
The teachers are actual couples who’ve made it. All the authors have done – through years of research and analysis – is write it down.
Written with both healthy and troubled marriages in mind, this book tackles some of the most divorce-worthy problems and develops survival principles you can apply in your marriage today.
Discover the best marriage counseling books and workbooks that will help you improve and transform your marriage. Even if you don't know where to start. Click To Tweet
8. NOT “Just Friends”: Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity by Shirley Glass
Think your spouse is cheating? Yikes, we hope not.
But you know it’s a red flag when he or she insists, “We’re just friends!” What do you do?
Start with this book, which covers warnings signs and affair prevention as well as how to put your life – and hopefully your marriage – back together after infidelity.
9. The Couple’s Survival Workbook: What You Can Do To Reconnect With Your Partner and Make Your Marriage Work by David Olsen and Douglas Stephens
For some people, the word “workbook” makes them feel a little giddy inside. Ah, a workbook. Questions to answer, blanks to fill in, exercises to do! Others may feel a panic attack coming on.
Nonetheless, the truth about marriage is that it requires work, and a workbook like this one can help you navigate it better.
Designed for use by couples or by only one partner, this book can be a useful tool for strengthening and deepening your marriage.
10. Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Sue Johnson
Ever heard of Emotionally Focused Therapy? Apparently, it’s a thing, and it works.
That’s the crux of this book, which is based on the author’s experience and research as a clinical psychologist.
Couples willing to put in the work – to have these seven, specific healing conversations designed to reestablish partners’ attachment to one another – are likely to find this book helpful, practical, and illuminating.
Bonus:
Communication in Marriage: How to Communicate with Your Spouse Without Fighting by Marcus and Ashley Kusi. (We authored this communication in marriage book.)
Struggling to communicate effectively with each other? We have been there too.
We’ve worked through difficult communication problems by learning how to talk to each other, and now we want to help you learn how to do it, too!
Practical and relatable, this book will set you on your way to a healthier and happier relationship.
Marriage counseling books can transform your marriage
In addition, they can be an added bonus if you are already attending marriage counseling.
If you are not attending marriage counseling or want to, you will be well prepared by reading the marriage books above.
Even if you are struggling in your marriage, we strongly believe you and/or your spouse can improve your marriage by reading the books above. And practicing what you learn from them.
Final thoughts
Pick at least one of these marriage books and read it. Then apply what you learn in your marriage.
You can easily buy these books online at Amazon.com or at your local bookstore. You can also loan it from your local or online library.
We hope the marriage counseling books we have compiled in this article will help you improve your marriage today.
Your turn
Which of these books on marriage counseling have you read?
PS: If you are interested in reading more self-help marriage books, click here to check out more marriage books.
Image courtesy Patrick Slade
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