Don’t believe what your pounding heart tells you in the moment. Conflict is actually a healthy and important part of any meaningful relationship.
Through disagreements, you have the opportunity to open up about your feelings and learn more about your loved one’s needs and perspectives. If you manage them with honesty, respect, and a little tact, conflicts allow you to get closer to someone, and map out ways to handle problems better in the future.
But this is all easier said than done.
Conflict is also scary, painful, and can make you feel stuck. When strong emotions are involved, it can be difficult to communicate effectively.
Thankfully, conflict resolution is a thriving area of research, and today there’s a ton of literature on the subject. Here are our favorite books about how to resolve conflicts in your intimate relationship, with family, and at work.
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Best conflict resolution books for couples
All people have a different experience of love. The conflicts you have with your partner may be related to relationships you both witnessed or were part of growing up. These five books can help you navigate your differences with compassion.
1. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
This classic still sets the standard. Psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD first developed the Nonviolent Communication method in the 1960s, then shared his training methods around the world. His bestselling book explains the tenets of this method in highly practical terms so you can practice it yourself in everyday life.
Go deep on principles like how to listen and communicate in a nonjudgmental way, identify and express your feelings, empathize with others, and work through conflicts so both sides benefit.
Be prepared to learn Rosenberg’s vocabulary for the Nonviolent Communication method, which he uses throughout his teachings.
You can buy Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg on Amazon.
2. After the Fight: Using Your Disagreements to Build a Stronger Relationship
This book, by Daniel B. Wile, has an interesting format. It explores conflict resolution through the lens of one couple on one night.
As conflicts unfold, the author explores the self-talk of both people, the origins of fights, and what repressed feelings might be fueling the fire.
3. Making Great Relationships: Simple Practices for Solving Conflicts, Building Connection, and Fostering Love
This book was written by Rick Hanson, a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and best-selling author on the neuroscience of happiness and other topics. In it, Hanson lays out 50 practices for better relationships, based on neuroscience, positive psychology, and the study of mindfulness.
A few of our favorite topics covered in the book are how to communicate effectively in different environments, how to stay centered during moments of high intensity conflict, and how to see the good in others.
4. Help for High-Conflict Couples: Using Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Science of Attachment to Build Lasting Connection
This book by Jennine Estes Powell LMFT and Jacqueline Wielick LMFT is a favorite because it addresses “high-conflict” couples from a place of hope, instead of suggesting that a lot of conflict in a relationship is inherently bad.
The authors focus on uncovering systemic relationship patterns in relationships using attachment theory and evidence-based emotionally focused therapy (EFT).
You can buy Help for High-Conflict Couples by Jennine Estes Powell and Jacqueline Wielick on Amazon.
5. Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection
This New York Times bestseller was published in 2024 by couples therapy heavyweights Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, founders of the Gottman Institute that conducts research on relationships and offers training to therapists.
For them, conflict resolution is not about avoiding conflicts. It’s about doing them well.
At its core, the book helps you frame conflict with your partner as an opportunity to learn how to love them better. According to the authors, partners in a relationship actually need conflict as they continue to grow as people, so they can learn together, growing closer and more intimate as a couple.
The book highlights myths about conflict in couples and outlines “the 5 fights everyone has,” pulling out common harmful behaviors people have toward each other in conflict situations. For each harmful behavior, they provide clear, practical examples of a better way to approach the situation.
You can buy Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection on Amazon.
Best conflict resolution books for families
A lot of books about conflict resolution discuss romantic relationships, but research on conflict in families is newer, because of traditional — often cultural — beliefs like, “Families never need to apologize,” and “Families stick together no matter what.”
In recent years, a growing body of literature on conflict resolution within the family unit explores through the lens of a new, more therapy-oriented generation.
6. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
Parents have feelings, too, and it’s important to communicate them to provide a model of communication for their child.
This 2012 bestseller, written by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, teaches how to express yourself to your child in an empathetic way, set limits and boundaries, and establish alternatives to punishment that encourage self-discipline.
7. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
This bestselling business book, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project, offers step-by-step methods for navigating challenging discussions between people in any type of relationship.
The authors emphasize speaking without defensiveness, listening for the meaning of what is being said to you, staying balanced under fire, and determining what the underlying structure and goal of a disagreement really is.
8. Family Talk: How to Organize Family Meetings to Solve Problems and Strengthen Relationships
Author Christy Monson, a former family counselor, offers advice for getting started with your own “family council” meeting, discussing the benefits and strategies for success.
We chose this book because it offers a proactive solution to conflict resolution that helps prevent it in the first place, instead of just a reactive deescalation strategy for when the conflict comes to a head.
Best conflict resolution books for kids
The day always comes, often in childhood, when we realize things don’t always go our way.
This is a difficult reality for anyone, but especially children, to process. Books for young readers can help break down the concept of conflict into something more easily digestible. Here are a few of our recommendations:
9. Enemy Pie
This book by Derek Munson tells the story of a child who learns to turn an enemy into a best friend.
It shares the important and timely lesson that taking the time to get to know someone, instead of jumping to conclusions about them, can help you see that “enemies” can actually be friends.
LeVar Burton featured this book on Reading Rainbow, so you know it’s good.
You can buy Enemy Pie by Derek Munson on Amazon.
10. Real Friends
This emotionally nuanced graphic novel by Shannon Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, explores how bewildering it can be when your childhood best friend leaves you for the “popular” group in school, and how to deal with it.
You can buy Real Friends on Amazon.
11. How to Apologize
Apologizing is a skill many adults haven’t mastered. They should read this book, too. The cute animal characters take you through it step-by-step. They show situations when it’s right to apologize, how to do it, and how not to do it. (E.g. Don’t make excuses.)
Saying sorry can be hard, especially if you don’t like the person, they’re mad at you, or they also owe you an apology. How to Apologize by David LaRochelle helps kids navigate these truths with compassion for themselves and the other person. Because in the end, apologizing helps everyone feel better.
You can buy How to Apologize by David LaRochelle on Amazon.
Best books for conflict at work
Many of us spend the majority of our week at work, and our work relationships can profoundly affect our well-being. Here are the best books to help manage and resolve professional conflicts:
12. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
This book, by Roger Fisher and William Ury, is based on work by the Harvard Negotiation Project, with suggestions for negotiation that focus on coming to a mutually satisfying agreement, which you can apply across a wide variety of situations.
It’s a handbook for navigating work relationships whether you’re leading a team or managing up.
13. Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate
Another Roger Fisher classic, this book, cowritten by Daniel Shapiro, focuses on the importance of recognizing the emotional reality of the person with whom you’re negotiating.
It walks readers through how bringing that recognition to the negotiating table can help you come to more satisfying agreements.
14. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It ― Unlock Your Persuasion Potential in Professional and Personal Life
Author Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator. With the help of journalist coauthor Tahl Raz, Voss highlights the nine key principles of negotiation he’s honed in his career that apply to relationships far beyond hostage situations.
These tactical guidelines, like body language analysis and how to create “the illusion of control,” may be written for an audience that appreciates military metaphors, but Voss’s core message is anything but aggressive.
He teaches readers how to use empathy to understand the other person’s needs, and to get creative to find win-win solutions so everyone walks away from the negotiation with what they needed.
You can buy Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss on Amazon.
The final word
There’s simply no way to avoid conflict our entire lives. It shows up at home, at work, and even between different parts of ourselves.
Conflict is inherently uncomfortable, but with practice and some research-backed guidance, navigating disagreements can help you and your loved ones forge closer relationships.
For more on navigating conflict in your relationships, you might like these Relationship Smart articles:
- 6 Tips for a Healthy Relationship: Manage Conflict and More
- What Is Emotional Safety and How to Create It in Your Relationships
- Why Taking Time Outs is the Most Important Skill for Couples
Ruby Anderson
Ruby Anderson (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based health writer and collaborator on projects related to prison abolition and reform. She studied English and Psychology, so she's also, unfortunately, a poet.