Read ten different books on relationships and you’ll get ten different opinions about how to improve yours. However, what each relationship book will have in common is that it will focus on the goal of making your relationship better in one of the following four areas:

1. Affection and intimacy. Whether it’s about recognizing each other’s feelings or about how to have better sex, relationship books regularly seek to improve this area of a couple’s life.
2. Commitment and ongoing support. From the basic level of cheating to the more complex commitment to a relationship within the context of an artistic life, books will help you find ways to get the security of a commitment.
3. Emotional health. Basically, you two need to learn to be nicer to each other and care for each other’s emotional wellbeing.
4. Harmony. These books teach you how to live with another person in harmony despite your different needs. These are usually based on communication advice.

Because these four areas of the relationship are consistently the areas addressed, a conclusion can be drawn about what makes a happy relationship. The happy relationship is one which includes affection and intimacy, commitment, care for both partners’ emotional health and the achievement of harmony between two people. If you strive to achieve these four things, you should find yourself within a fairly content relationship.