Relational maintenance provides a rallying point for those seeking to discover the behaviors that individuals utilize to sustain their personal relationships. Theoretical models, research programs, and specific studies have examined how people in a variety of close relationships choose to define and maintain those relationships. In addition, relational maintenance turns our attention to communicative processes that help people sustain their close relationships.
In this collection, editors Daniel J. Canary and Marianne Dainton focus on the communicative processes critical to the...

This volume examines maintaining relationships through communications through relational, contextual, and cultural variations. Topics covered include: family relationships; romantic relationships; repair after transgression; long-distance relationships; relational maintenance in organizational settings; gay/lesbian relationships; culturally-mixed couples; marriage in Russia and the United States; and maintaining relationships in Korea.

Maintaining Black Marriage: Individual, Interpersonal, and Contextual Dynamics moves beyond the usual demographics in the study of Black marriage to focus on the communication that sustains it. Using original data and secondary research, Marianne Dainton provides the story of Black marriage success and the contexts and communication that contribute to that success. A central feature of this book is the inclusion of Black voices; that is, in addition to original quantitative research on the topic, qualitative data draws on the experiences and opinions of a group of married Black women and...