Relationship Maintenance
Theory, Process, and Context
Advances in Personal Relationships Series

Relationship maintenance encompasses a wide range of activities that partners use to preserve their relationships. Despite the importance of these efforts, considerably more empirical focus has been devoted to starting (i.e. initiation) and ending (i.e. dissolution) relationships than on maintaining them. In this volume, internationally renowned scholars from a variety of disciplines describe diverse sets of relationship maintenance efforts in order to show why some relationships endure, whereas others falter. By focusing on 'what to do' rather than 'what not to do' in relationships, this book paints a more comprehensive picture of the forms, functions, and contexts of relationship maintenance. It is essential reading for scholars and students in psychology, communication, human development and family science, sociology, and couple/marriage and family therapy.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Maintaining the literature on relationship maintenance Brian G. Ogolsky and J. Kale Monk; Part II. Theories of Relationship Maintenance: 2. Interdependence perspectives on relationship maintenance Laura E. VanderDrift and Christopher Agnew; 3. An evolutionary, life history theory perspective on relationship maintenance Ethan S. Young and Jeffry A. Simpson; 4. Relationship maintenance from an attachment perspective Juwon Lee, Gery C. Karantzas, Omri Gillath and R. Chris Fraley; 5. Uncertainty perspectives on relationship maintenance Jennifer A. Theiss; 6. The self-expansion model and relationship maintenance Xiaomeng Xu, Gary Lewandowski, Jr and Arthur Aron; Part III. Processes of Relationship Maintenance: 7. Communication and relationship maintenance Laura Stafford; 8. Attributions, forgiveness, and gratitude as relationship maintenance processes James K. McNulty and Alexander Dugas; 9. Social networks and relationship maintenance Susan Sprecher, Diane Felmlee, Jeffrey E. Stokes and Brandon McDaniel; 10. Dyadic coping as relationship maintenance Ashley K. Randall and Shelby Messerschmitt-Coen; 11. Conflict management and problem solving as relationship maintenance Karena Leo, Feea R. Leifker, Donald H. Baucom and Brian R. W. Baucom; 12. Sex as relationship maintenance Emily A. Impett, Amy Muise and Natalie O. Rosen; 13. Accuracy and bias in relationship maintenance Edward P. Lemay, Jr and Nadya Teneva; Part IV. The Social Context of Relationship Maintenance: 14. Gender and race perspectives on relationship maintenance Katherine Fiori and Amy Rauer; 15. Relationship maintenance across cultural groups Stanley O. Gaines, Jr and Nelli Ferenczi; 16. Relationship maintenance in the age of technology John P. Caughlin and Ningxin Wang; 17. Relationship maintenance across the life course Amy Rauer and Christine Proulx; 18. Relationship maintenance in couple therapy and relationship education Amber Vennum, Jeremy Kanter and Joyce Baptist; Part V. Conclusion: 19. Relationship maintenance reprise and reflections: past, present and future Daniel Perlman; Index.

Brian G. Ogolsky is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has won the International Association for Relationship Research's Book Award and several teaching awards for his mentorship and classroom teaching of statistics, methods, and intimate relationships.
J. Kale Monk is a fellow of the Center for Family Policy and Research and Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri. He has received awards for scholarship from the International Association for Relationship Research, the National Council on Family Relations, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.