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Before we get to the dancing part, let's ask this question first: Communication theorists as relationship mechanics?
That’s the analogy Griffin uses to introduce theories on relationship maintenance. And while that may be true for some aspects of a relationship, Griffin says the idea of “servicing” may sound mechanical (156-57). So he cites John Stewart’s reference to a relationship as the “’spiritual child,’ born as the result of [individuals] coming together” (Griffin 157).
The following posts detail two theories on relationship maintenance: Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery’s Relational Dialectics theory and Paul Watzlawick’s Interactional View.
The above theories are just two examples that deal with relationship maintenance. Other theories, like Thibaut and Kelley’s Social Exchange Perspective, also provide some insights into how relationships are maintained and/or sustained.
Baxter and Montgomery provide a list of 50 strategies that individuals usually employ to maintain and/or sustain their relationships (see Griffin 158-59). While Baxter and Montgomery drew up this list for marital relationships, these strategies can also be seen in other theories dealing with relationship maintenance.
Now to the cha cha cha
Or should it be tango criminal? That is how Relational Dialectics explains the “tug-of-war” in relationships.
Let’s do an exercise to practice what we know of Baxter and Montgomery’s sensitizing theory. Read the following text below, then write either Jim or Shelley what they should do. Make Jim or Shelley understand what they’re going through, using Relational Dialectics to explain their situation. (Post your advice to Jim or Shelley as a comment here.)
Here’s Jim and Shelley’s story (McGlish and Langan 141):
"Shelley and Jim have been dating very seriously for about six months. From the beginning of the relationship, Jim has known that Shelley has kept a private diary that he has never shown anyone. At first, he wasn’t too interested in this activity, but as hey have drawn closer, he has become intrigued by her personal writings. Yet he never he asks if she would share her prose with him, she responds that she needs a secret place to work out her thoughts and emotions. In conversation, she never holds back from him, freely self-disclosing about herself and their relationship, but the diary remains all her own, and Jim is perplexed, even disturbed by this. The more interest he shows in her private writings, the more adamant about her privacy she becomes. What should they do?"
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