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The connections between variant paths to marital commitment and the degree of joint activity between partners were examined. Newlywed partners were interviewed in order to obtain graphs of changes in commitment to marriage throughout courtship. Data on the performance of affectional, instrumental, and leisure activities with the partner and others also were gathered for different premarital stages of involvement and for marriage. On the basis of diversity in the graphs, four courtship groups were identified: accelerated, accelerated-arrested, intermediate, and prolonged. Stage comparisons showed that partners become more active with each other but less with social others as courtships progress. This pattern held for the two accelerated types, although partners in the accelerated-arrested lype withdrew more and sooner from network activities. Couples in the prolonged group reported increased companionship to a lesser extent and remained more active with the network. The intermediate type was marked by more network activity and less companionship during courtship and marriage. The implication that increasing interdependence plays a differential role in the evolution of the types to marriage is discussed.According to contemporary thought about the development of heterosexual relationships, there are differences across couples in the ways and means by which commitment between partners changes over time (Huston, Surra, Fitzgerald, & Gate, 1981;Levinger, 1980). Levinger, for example, noted that some partners who break up may pass through a period of oscillating closeness before deterioration of the relationship while others may experience a stage of static involvement before dissolution. In discussing why partners in

Parental divorce is thought to affect the romantic relationships of young adults, especially with respect to their certainty about the relationship and perceptions of problems in it. We examined these connections with a random sample of 464 coupled partners. Compared with women from intact families, women from divorced families reported less trust and satisfaction, but more ambivalence and conflict. For men, perceptions of relationships were contingent on the marital status of their partners' parents, although men from intact and divorced families did differ on structural constraints that affect commitment. Young adults who were casually dating showed the strongest effects of parental divorce, suggesting that the repercussions of parental divorce may be in place before the young adults form their own romantic relationships.

Although relational research predominantly conceptualizes romantic relationships as either together or apart, some relationships break up and renew (i.e., on-again/off-again relationships). Partners’ accounts of on-again/off-again relational experiences were qualitatively analyzed to explore both reasons for breakups and reasons for renewals. Themes were interpreted within an interdependence framework to explain why partners dissolved as well as renewed their relationships. The themes in combination suggest renewals occurred due to dissatisfying experiences with alternative relationship partners and an increase in outcomes (i.e., rewards minus costs) after breakups. Partners’ post-dissolution contact and their uncertainty about relational status may have further facilitated renewals. More generally, the themes suggest, for on-again/ off-again partners, breakups did not indicate the end of interdependence but rather a redefinition of the relationship.

Dating couples (N = 59) participated in a longitudinal study of hypotheses derived from interdependence theory. Whether each partner's activity preferences and similarity of preferences, weighted by liking, would predict joint activity participation was examined. Preferences explained participation better than similarity, and own preferences predicted better than other's preferences. We hypothesized that conflict would increase with the strength of preferences but would decrease with similarity. The hypothesis concerning similarity was confirmed for some activities. Participation, similarity, and conflict explained relationship satisfaction and stability, but participation predicted better for men, whereas conflict and similarity predicted better for women. The findings support the theory but suggest that interdependence problems vary by activity type and gender. Three patterns are discussed: turn taking, unresolved competition, and cooperation.

The aim of this study was to compare partners in different types of courtship on the reasons they gave for changes in commitment. In previous research four courtship types (accelerated, accelerated-arrested, intermediate and prolonged) were identified from differences in newly weds' graphs of changes in the chance of marriage during courtship. In this study respondents' explanations for each turning point in the graph were coded as: intrapersonal/normative, dyadic, social network, or circumstantial. Significant differences among the types were found for the number of dyadic and circumstantial reasons and the proportions of intrapersonal/normative and circumstantial reasons. The types also tended to differ on the proportions of intrapersonal/normative and dyadic reasons for downturns. The results, combined with previously identified differences on partners' performance of activities together and with the social network, indicate that the types reflect distinct developmental patterns.

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In order to further our understanding of conflict within a marital relationship, this study had two purposes: (i) to identify married couples' conflict response profiles, and (ii) to relate these conflict profiles to appraisals of marital quality. Spouses in 173 intact married couples completed a questionnaire that included measures of a sample of aggressive, withdrawing, and problem-solving responses occurring during conflict episodes, and indices of marital quality. Cluster analyses of married dyads' conflict responses generated four conceptually interesting profiles - two symmetrical ('distancing couples' and `engaging couples') and two asymmetrical ('distancing husbands' and `distancing wives'). Results indicated that couples who endorse different conflict profiles could be distinguished according to their level of marital adjustment. The advantages to understanding conflict responses within a marriage by studying the couple as the unit of analysis were highlighted.