Make Love Work A Practical Guide to Relationship Success

Proven, practical strategies to help your relationship and make it flourish

'Insightful, practical and inspiring . . . required reading for anyone in or venturing into a relationship.'  - Jennifer Ward-Lealand, actor and intimacy coordinator


We all want to make the most of our relationship. We hope it will be the centre of joy and satisfaction in our life. Yet so often we end up hurt, frustrated or resentful.

If you've wondered why your relationship has stalled or why you find intimate partnerships so hard; why you behave the way you do or why you can't make sense of what your partner does, Make Love Work explains it all. It gives you the tools you need to be successful in love - from preventing your insecurities and neurobiology from wrecking your relationship to being a team player and handling conflict well.


There are practical strategies for handling common areas of stress: fairness, sex and intimacy, parenting, money and setting boundaries. Plus, excellent advice on the really tough issues: infidelity, abuse, major stresses, loss and grief.


Make Love Work is your essential bible for making your relationship the best it can be.

Nic Beets is a clinical psychologist and family therapist who has specialised in relationship and sex therapy throughout his three decades of practice. He has been with the same partner since he was 17, fellow psychologist Verity Thom. They have two children who have taught them much about love and priorities. Another joint project is a fortnightly column for The New Zealand Herald called 'Intimacy, Actually', which answers readers' questions on love, sex and relationships.

As well as seeing clients, Nic provides training and supervision in relationship therapy and the Developmental Model in particular. In addition, he is the coordinator and host of the Sex Therapy Interest Group, an Australasian peer-support network for sex therapists that has been running for more than 20 years.

A keen waterman, Nic loves anything related to the sea. His current passions are SUP surfing and long-distance waka ama (outrigger canoe) racing.