We Invest in Our Careers. Why Not Our Relationships?
Most of us put a significant amount of time and energy into getting better at our work.
We take courses. We read. We ask for feedback. We reflect on what’s not working and try to do something about it. The idea that professional skills need to be developed — that you don’t just arrive knowing how to do your job well — feels completely obvious.
And yet when it comes to being a partner, most of us operate on the assumption that it should just come naturally.
It’s a strange double standard when you think about it. Relationships are at least as complex as any professional skill. They involve communication, emotional regulation, conflict navigation, attunement, repair — none of which most of us were formally taught. And yet we expect ourselves to be good at them by default, and feel vaguely ashamed when we’re not.
The truth is that building healthy, lasting relationships is a genuine skill set. It can be learned, developed, and improved. And the people who do it well are usually not the ones who found it easy — they’re the ones who got curious about what they didn’t know and did something about it.
Where to start
One of the most common things I hear from people who want to improve their relationships is that they don’t know where to begin. There’s a lot of information out there, and not all of it is equally useful.
So here are three resources I return to regularly — writers and researchers whose work is grounded in solid evidence and genuinely useful in practice.
The Gottman Institute
John and Julie Gottman have spent decades studying what actually distinguishes couples who stay together and stay happy from those who don’t. Their research is unusually rigorous — they famously observed couples in a lab setting and were able to predict divorce with striking accuracy based on specific patterns of interaction.
What makes their work particularly useful is that it translates directly into practical tools. Not abstract principles, but concrete things you can actually do differently.
Their blog covers everything from communication and conflict to intimacy, trust, and repair. It’s one of the most consistently useful resources available for anyone wanting to understand relationships more clearly.
The Couples Institute
Ellyn Bader and Pete Pearson developed what’s called the Developmental Model of couples therapy — a framework for understanding the natural stages of relationship and the places couples commonly get stuck.
One of the things I find most valuable about their work is the way it normalises difficulty. The premise isn’t that struggle means something is wrong — it’s that relationships go through predictable developmental stages, and that getting stuck at certain points is common and understandable rather than evidence of incompatibility.
Their blog offers articles and practical exercises grounded in this framework — useful for couples at any stage, and particularly helpful for understanding why certain dynamics keep repeating.
Sue Johnson
Sue Johnson is the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy — one of the most well-researched approaches to couples therapy available. Her work draws heavily on attachment theory, and her central argument is that most relationship conflict is fundamentally about attachment needs — the deep human need to feel safe, seen, and secure with the people we love most.
Her writing bridges research and the lived experience of relationships in a way that’s relatively rare — it’s intellectually grounded but also genuinely warm. Her book Hold Me Tight is probably the single most accessible introduction to what EFT is and how attachment shapes adult relationships.
Her blog covers attachment, love, neuroscience, and the science of connection — worth reading whether you’re in a relationship that’s struggling or one that’s going well and you want to keep it that way.
Sue Johnson’s website and blog
One more thing
Reading about relationships is a genuinely useful starting point. Understanding the research, getting familiar with the concepts, recognising your own patterns in what you read — all of that matters.
But there’s a gap between knowing something and being able to use it under pressure — in the middle of an argument, when your nervous system is activated and your best intentions have temporarily gone offline.
That gap is where practice comes in. And sometimes where support comes in.
If you’d like something more structured and interactive than reading alone, the 11 Conversations Every Couple Needs to Have course is a self-paced option that guides couples through the foundational conversations most relationships need — including a proper relationship assessment.
And if you’d like to work on this with some support alongside you, relationship counselling is available in Squamish and online across BC.
