‘Don’t Tell Me You Love Each Other – Tell Me About Love in Action’
Carmel Wynne on Getting Real About Relationships
Mercier Press | February 2026
Valentine’s Day has come and gone. The flowers are wilting, the chocolates are eaten, and normal life has resumed – which, for many couples, means back to the familiar script of who’s collecting the kids, who’s making the dinner, and conversations that rarely go deeper than the logistics of getting through the week.
Speaking to Patricia Messenger on Cork Today on C103, relationship expert and psychotherapist Carmel Wynne was refreshingly blunt about why so many long-term relationships lose their spark – and, crucially, how to get it back. Her new book, Get Real: The Courage to Be Wrong and the Power to Change (Mercier Press, 2 February), is already being hailed as essential reading for any couple who’s ever felt more like housemates than partners.
Love in Action, Not Just in Words
Drawing on more than two decades of working with couples, Carmel told Patricia that the core struggles she sees haven’t really changed – whether the couple is in Cork or California. The problem almost always comes down to communication, but not in the way most people think.
‘When I worked with couples, I would say, don’t tell me you love each other – tell me about love in action,’ Carmel explained. For one partner, love in action might be acts of service they perform without fanfare; for the other, it might be gift-giving. The trouble is that these expressions often go unrecognised, because couples haven’t taken the time to understand how the other person gives and receives love.
The Myth of Mind-Reading
Why do so many couples assume their partner should just know what they need? Because, as Carmel put it, we all do a version of mind-reading – assuming that because something is obvious to us, it must be obvious to everyone else.
Her practical advice? Simply ask: ‘What did you hear me say?’ or ‘Maybe I didn’t explain that very well.’ These small check-ins can prevent the kind of misunderstandings that, left unchecked, quietly corrode a relationship from the inside.
The Courage to Be Wrong
The book’s subtitle – The Courage to Be Wrong and the Power to Change – gets to the heart of Carmel’s approach. Getting real doesn’t mean proving you’re right. It means recognising that you’re seeing things from one perspective, and your partner is seeing them from another.
She used a brilliantly relatable example: being stuck behind a slow driver on the motorway. We’ve all muttered (or worse) at the car ahead. But the get-real moment is recognising that you are the one putting stress on yourself. The other driver can’t even hear you. The same dynamic plays out at home – we fume silently at our partners, building resentment we never actually voice.
How to Raise the Hard Stuff
So how do you bring up a difficult issue without triggering World War III? Carmel’s advice is disarmingly straightforward: start with ‘It’s not my intention to upset you, but this is bugging me.’ Then choose your moment, find a quiet space, and – in what she cheerfully calls ‘healthy manipulation’ – sit somewhere your partner can’t easily walk away.
Before you even begin the conversation, Carmel suggests asking yourself: why is this important to me? What will I gain from having this discussion? Often, she says, the real issue isn’t the one on the surface – it’s something deeper that you might not have been consciously aware of.
It’s Never Too Late to Reconnect
Patricia shared a heartbreaking letter she’d once received from a listener who described thirty years of a ‘silent marriage’ – her husband communicating through the children, and later through notes, but never directly to her. It was a stark reminder of where unspoken resentment can lead.
But Carmel’s message is one of hope. It’s never too late. Start small: say thank you for the things you’ve taken for granted. Pull out the old photographs. Ask your partner where in the world they’d go right now if they could. These aren’t grand gestures – they’re doorways back to the kind of conversation that made you fall for each other in the first place.
She also recommends setting aside just ten minutes a week – five minutes each, uninterrupted – to simply talk and listen. No contradictions, no veering off. ‘In the listening,’ Carmel says, ‘that’s where you reconnect at a heart level. That’s where you’re back to being a couple.’
One Word That Changes Everything
One of the most striking takeaways from the interview was Carmel’s insight into the power of a single word. Replace ‘I have to’ with ‘I want to’ and notice how differently you feel. ‘I have to make the dinner’ carries stress and obligation. ‘I want to make the dinner – because I make less of a mess than anyone else’ puts you back in control. It’s a small tweak, but it’s the kind of practical, real-world technique that makes Get Real such a valuable read.
And it’s clearly already making an impact. As Carmel told Patricia with a laugh, one of her neighbours reported that her husband has started responding to every question with: ‘Now, is that you – or is that Carmel Wynne?’
Get Real: The Courage to Be Wrong and the Power to Changeby Carmel Wynne is published by Mercier Press on 2 February.
Warm, wise and packed with practical tools you can use today, this is not a book about fixing what’s broken – it’s about rediscovering what was always there. If you’ve ever thought ‘we’re fine, but we used to be great’, this book is for you.
Available from all good bookshops and online. Order your copy today.