SUMMARY
This week, I discuss the importance of nurturing your relationship. Then, I tell you about five books and a card game that can help you do just that…care for your relationship with your significant other.
SPECIAL NOTE:
The images of the books and game included below do include valid links to the Amazon.com website. At this time, I do not earn commissions on the sale of these items, but I have included the links for your convenience. However, I encourage you to support your local booksellers wherever possible.
The book recommendations are:
1. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
2. The Art of Loving, by Eric Fromm
3. Attached, by Dr. Amir Levine & Rachel S.F. Heller, M.A.
4. Getting the Love You Want, by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. & Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D.
5. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John M. Gottman, Ph.D. and Nan Silver
The conversation starter card game is “Intimacy: A Tool For Deeper Connection and Communication With Your Partner”, by BestSelf.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SPECIAL NOTE:
The images of the books and game included below do include valid links to the Amazon.com website. At this time, I do not earn commissions on the sale of these items, but I have included the links for your convenience. However, I encourage you to support your local booksellers wherever possible.
Hi, I’m Doyle Banks. I’m coming to you in this video in the month of April and if you’ve seen any of the previous videos from the last couple of weeks, you know that April is “Couples Appreciation” month. So continuing on that theme this week, I’m going to share with you five books that are recommended by experts for couples to read, to help enhance their relationships and a card game, a fun card game, that’s recommended by the experts.
Now, before I go into those, let’s pause for a moment and just ask an obvious question of why, why do things like reading relationship books or getting card games to help with conversations with your partner?
Well, the main thing is that the relationship itself is a living entity, if you will. And just like how we human beings need nurturing and care, well, so do our relationships. The relationships themselves need nurture and care and by doing activities like reading books together, and that kind of thing, where we’re focusing on the relationship itself, it can really enhance and nourish and nurture our relationships and keep them healthy. Or, if we’re kind of getting lazy in our relationships or the relationship is starting to feel kind of lifeless, it can breathe some fresh air into the relationship and really remind us of why we fell in love with each other in the first place and remind us us to keep that love alive. Right? Keep the fires burning, as the saying goes.
I also wanted to share with you some of the benefits of doing these kinds of activities that care for and nurture the relationship.
The first benefit that I can think of is that by reading books, listening to audio recordings about relationships and so on, we gain perspectives and learn things that we might not already know.
And second to that is learning skills that we might not have already developed.
Or thirdly, we can learn some fresh takes on skills that we already have. Maybe learn how to tweak them a little bit, to enrich them, make the skill even better.
Another benefit is that we can potentially save the cost of, or some of the cost of therapy. Now that’s not disrespecting therapists and couple’s therapy. In fact, as a life coach, I often refer couples to therapy or therapists for therapy, work.
Reading books and so on can enhance our work, if we’re doing couple’s therapy work. Sometimes, many times, the therapists I know will often assign homework, which might be a book. or multiple books. for couples to read together, to help them understand different principles and perspectives about relationships.
So those are just a few of the benefits that we can get by taking on reading and studying and working on the relationships themselves.
All right, now, I want to share with you the five books. Two of these I have read and three are in a stack of books to be read. So, full transparency. I have not read all of them yet.
The first book and the one I work with the most when I work with couples is Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s book, “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life”. Now that might not sound at all like a relationship book and yet it is the most profound book I’ve ever read myself and has had the greatest impact for me across the board in all of my relationships, because it deals with how to communicate.
The second book I recommend is “The Art of Loving”, by Eric Fromm. Now, this book has been around since I was a young guy, so you can tell by looking at me, it’s been around for a while! But it’s a great book. It’s not very long. I think it’s right around a hundred pages if I remember right. But it’s just a classic and it’s one that you’ll find, if you keep a copy around, you’ll go back to it over and over again, to read sections or just reread the whole thing. It’s just a wonderful book about the art of loving.
The third book I recommend and is recommended by the experts is called “Attached”, and it’s written by Dr. Amir Levine, (I’m not sure which way the doctor pronounces their name) and Rachel Heller. The book deals with Attachment Theory and talks about our different attachment styles, if you will, and how we often will attract partners who have the opposite attachment style, that is, the opposite of ours and how that can both create conflict and pain at times, but it can also present great opportunities for healing and for deepening our self-awareness and deepening our relationships as well.
The fourth book is one you may have heard of. It’s been around for a while, and it’s just a classic in terms of relationship books. It’s called “Getting the Love You Want”, by Dr. Harville Hendrix and Helen LA Kelly Hunt. This is one that’s on my “to read” list, so I can’t tell you too much about it yet. But, I’ve had several friends who have read it with their partners. Also, every time you search for the best books on relationships, this book shows up in every list. So. “Getting the Love You Want”, by Dr. Harville Hendricks and Helen LA Kelly Hunt.
Fifthly, and last in the book list is “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”, by the famous Dr. John Gottman, also co-written by an Nan silver. Again, this is on my “to read” list, but if you haven’t heard the name, John Gottman yet, just do a search on, on his name, G-O-T-T-M-A-N.
He has an Institute up in Seattle, Washington, that is world famous and he has done decades of extensive research on couples’ relationships. So this is the book that every therapist I know or have ever read, this is the book that they recommend. So get it, get it in your stack of books to read and sit down and maybe get two copies, one for yourself, and one for your partner and read through it together. I am absolutely sure that you will greatly benefit from doing that.
Lastly, I mentioned I would recommend a card game and the card game that showed up in my research as one of the best, is called “Intimacy: A Tool for Deeper Connection and Conversation With Your Partner”. It’s created by a company called BestSelf. Now, I’ve not used this particular card game myself or with my partner, but I have others that I’ve used. I recommend anything like this that can help stimulate or help spark deeper conversation which, in my book is a win for everybody.
Often we find ourselves talking about the same things or not talking much at all and that becomes one of the issues. So having something like this, when you have a date night, or you can set aside a night a week or every other week to just sit and talk about your relationship, talk about the relationship itself and use something like this tool that has prompts, (conversation prompts) questions that we can ask and answer to each other to help us learn more about each other.
All right, those were the books and the card game I wanted to recommend. If you want to check any of those out, I’ll provide links in the blog post or Facebook page or on YouTube, wherever you might be watching this. I hope you’ll check out at least one of the books, maybe grab a copy of the card game and put them to good use to nurture, nourish, and enhance your relationship with your partner.
Thank you for watching.
I wish you Peace and Joy.
I will see you again soon in another video.