"Communication and Relational Maintenance" addresses the question, "How do people maintain their personal relationships?" Unlike the published works in this field that focus on relationship initiation or dissolution, this volume discusses the everyday processes used to maintain an on-going relationship. It discusses interpersonal communication, social-psychological factors relevant to maintenance, and the resolution of conflict. It focuses on everyday processes used to sustain personal relationships. It analyzes how communication skills affect relationship function. It discusses factors...

This thought-provoking volume offers an innovative and intriguing approach to the study of long-distance relationships. Author Laura Stafford examines romantic long-distance relationships and then expands the conception of long-distance relationships to include other relational types. She summarizes literature across the social sciences on various types of long-distance relationships and extracts themes and patterns across the relational types. In so doing, she reconsiders approaches to and offers an expanded vision of relational maintenance.
By expanding her scope beyond romantic...