Can we work on our relationship without therapy?
Not every couple is ready—or able—to go to couples counseling. Sometimes schedules don’t align, one partner feels hesitant about therapy, or the cost simply isn’t realistic right now. The good news is that meaningful relationship growth doesn’t have to start in a therapist’s office. There are many powerful resources—books, videos, and personal development tools—that can help couples communicate better, understand each other more deeply, and strengthen their connection. In this article, you’ll discover practical resources couples can use to improve their relationship even if couples counseling isn’t currently an option.
couple holding hands and drinking coffee
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A Common question
Many of my individual clients discuss their relationship issues with their partners. Sometimes, they are frustrated that they can’t go to couples counseling so they can both get support to work directly on their relationship. Whether this limitation is due to not being able to get in to see a competent therapist or because their partner is resistant to participating in couples counseling, my clients often ask what they can do to work on their relationship even before they get into formal couples counseling.
the good news!
It’s totally possible to improve your relationship even when you’re not actively participating in couples counseling. In fact, even when couples are attending sessions with a provider, a lot of the improvement they get in their relationship has to do with what they are doing outside the sessions. Now, I’m not saying you can ditch therapy and achieve all the things you would get from a provider through self-exploration. An experienced provider can often give you extremely valuable results because they get to work with both of you at the same time. I am saying that you can get very satisfying improvement in your relationship even when you’re not working with a therapist (as long as you both are making some effort).
When I work with couples, I often ask them to use the resources I’ll cover below to support their relationship goals. All of them are books that are written in styles that anyone can easily understand and implement the material. If you’re wanting to improve yourself and your relationship, consider reading these books or suggesting that your partner read one. Maybe read one together and work on building new skills in tandem. I’ll share books on emotional regulation, anger management, communication, and improving the quality of your relationship.
If your relationship is going to improve, each of you will have to make some changes. At this point, you have already tried things. Maybe some have worked. But, you might be stuck in a place of no new ideas about what to try to get more traction on your personal and relationship goals. The books below offer expert guidance to gain new perspective and learn new skills to unlock new progress toward your goals.
emotional regulation & anger management
Every one of us—you, me, your partner—is in a lifelong project of getting better at emotional regulation. You’re also aware that emotions are not only sometimes miserable to feel, they get in the way of dealing effectively with communication and conflicts. Relationship issues stir up powerful emotions—frustration, sadness, anger—and are challenging even if you don’t have any special problem dealing with those qualities of feeling. But, if you or your partner have particular issues with an emotion (for example, anger), then this emotional dysregulation can derail any attempt to deal with the issues. For some couples, one partner’s emotional dysregulation is one of the main issues they need to address. Here are three books that I most commonly recommend to my clients for improving emotional regulation:
Emotional agility by Susan David
Susan David was a clinical psychologist for most of her career until she became a corporate trainer. In her book, Emotional Agility, she explains how to understand the ways that our emotions can quickly cascade into a negative reaction. Her book explains how we get hooked (I call it triggered) and go through a rapid internal process that results in a negative emotional response. She points out that that process is very fast and often something we aren’t very aware of. Therefore, it seems that it’s out of our control. The book offers practical guidance to learn about your hooks and how you can rework the ways that you respond so that you can more consistently generate more positive and effective emotional responses.
David’s book is especially good at looking at those emotional situations that you find yourself cycling through repeatedly. Your partner does something and you immediately find yourself in a miserable emotional state. Then, you two get into a conflict about the thing that doesn’t lead anywhere productive. You might find that if you explore your reactions with the concepts David explains in her book that you can create better options for yourself.
The Cow in the Parking Lot by leonard scheff & Susan edmiston
This book—and the next two—are the anger management books I most often recommend to clients. Each approaches anger management from a different angle. The Cow in the Parking Lot is written by a long-term meditator and includes some Buddhist approaches to emotional regulation. However, it’s a wonderful book even if you have zero interest in Buddhism or meditation. The reader gains helpful insight to actually employ more resilient perspective about the things that cause us to get angry. Many of my clients have found ways to neutralize their anger by shifting their relationship with the things that trigger them.
Letting Go of Anger by Potter-efron
One of the great things about Letting Go of Anger: The 11 Most Common Anger Styles is that you don’t actually have to read the entire book. It’s already a somewhat thin book. But, if you’re suggesting your partner read something and they generally don’t like reading, you can tell them that you really only have to read the first part along with the chapters that are relevant to your particular style.
The book starts off with a short quiz. Based on the answers you give, it indicates what your styles are among the eleven that they describe in the book. Different people handle anger differently. Part of the utility of the book is that you only need to learn the strategies that are associated with your type of anger mismanagement in order to improve your emotional regulation. The book is written by two very experienced therapists who specialize in working with people around anger issues.
Angry All the Time by Potter-Efron
Angry All the Time is by the same authors as the book above though it’s aimed at improving how you deal with anger no matter what your particular style is. Written by two anger experts, the authors give very practical advice about how to understand your anger mismanagement and ways to improve your emotional regulation. It covers the material in a different way from Letting Go of Anger. You would benefit from reading both. I made a video on these three books here.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson
You might not have thought a lot about the emotional aspect of your relationship with your parents other than to acknowledge that it could have been better. I like this book for two reasons. First, it offers a much more clear way to think about the particular emotional deficits that our parents might have had when we were young. Different emotional issues produce different results. The book does a good job of unpacking these differences so we can more effectively work through our own past baggage and grow beyond whatever trauma we might have experienced in our family of origin. The second benefit of this book has to do with your current relationship with your partner and your future relationships with your children (if you have any). Even if your own parents were reasonably healthy, you probably want to be in an optimally healthy relationship with your partners and your children. The book provides a clear framework for judging the emotional health of your relationships. I have a video on this book here.
communication & conflict resolution
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
This is one of the top five books that I have suggested to clients more than any other. But, don’t get stopped by the name. Some people think that it’s a book about preventing interpersonal violence. But, Rosenberg titled it as such because he thought that good communication must be predicated on a commitment of not doing harm (even when communication falls apart). One reason I recommend this book so often is that people who read it always come away feeling more competent and confident about having challenging conversations—including those we have with our partners over sensitive and triggering issues. It’s a must-read if you want to get better at being heard and getting what you want while also creatively manifesting win-win solutions.
The book is another short read. So, people who are avid readers can usually get through it with no problems. You might get it for yourself, then suggest your partner read it if you find some of Rosenberg’s strategies helpful. One thing you could say to your partner would be: I’m reading this book and trying to communicate better. If you read it, too, the ways I’m trying to communicate better will make more sense to you.
Know your conflict style
Each of us has a preferred style for responding to situations of conflict. You have yours just as your partner has theirs. If you want to get better at responding effectively when you and your partner are negotiating issues, it’s extremely valuable to learn more about your style, theirs, and how they work together.
Check out a very interesting discussion of conflict styles here.
There’s another helpful discussion of this material here.
If you’re working on your relationship and interested in self-help books, you surely will encounter John Gottman’s work. One of his most popular books, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, has a lot of really good things to say about how to have a healthy relationship. Many couples read this book—chapter by chapter—together and work on implementing his ideas. Check his other books, too.
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