"The course of love" by Alain de Botton is the best book on relationships I've read.
There, I've said it.
I would have loved to have written it - it is spot-on, extremely well written, and most importantly eminently readable.
It is the story of two people, who meet fairly early on in the book, get married and have children and navigate the vicissitudes of relationships over something like 20 years.
So far, so banal.
What makes this book so brilliant, is that every few pages Alain de Botton describes in italics what goes on for each protagonist on a psychological level.
How they act or rather react out of their own emotional baggage. And, more importantly, what they are trying to get (love, reassurance, attention) and how their ways of going about it (nagging, fighting, isolating) are not successful. How the way they were parented creates automatic responses that don't serve them well.
Although there is only that one couple in the book, what he describes is so universal that I challenge you not to feel like he's describing some of what you have experienced or felt before...
This book depressed me and reassured me in equal measure: depressed me because if it's this universal, what chance do we have to do it differently; and reassured me because hey, I'm not alone in needing help!
I recommended this book to all my friends and some of my clients - because it not only explains why we do what we do, but offers ways of doing things differently; it raises our awareness on how we relate, and shows us alternatives.
This book shows us how we can love better, by becoming aware of our own unprocessed shit and how it impacts on our relationships.
So, if this feels like something you'd like to do, feel free to start psychotherapy or just read Alain de Botton's "The course of love" and do the work on your own ;)