The theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL) offers a perspective on how every day, routine, and active investment in relationships can have significant and far-reaching benefits on  the quality and functioning of the relationship, as well as individuals’ health, emotional and mental well-being, and their ability to constructively cope with or even thrive under stress in personal and relational life. Stress presents challenges and often contributes to the deterioration of a relationship because it depletes individuals’ cognitive and emotional resources, making it more difficult for them to behave in kind, affectionate, and relationship-affirming ways. When couples respond negatively to their stress by blaming, criticizing, or avoiding their partner, it hinders their ability to support and help each other through stress and to strengthen their bond; instead, couples find themselves trapped in a negative cycle where stress reduces their investments in relationship maintenance, which further exacerbates the negative impact of stress and gradually contributes to a sense of burnout in the relationship—a phenomenon labeled as relational load in the TRRL. The theory proposes that in order to combat the wearing away of a relationship due to chronic stress and conflict, partners need to actively invest in relationship maintenance behaviors during normal times. When relational partners and family members regularly feel validated and supported, they build up their emotional reserves, or emotional capital, which helps partners better able to appraise their stress from a more positive mindset and even prevent unhealth levels of stress to develop in the first place. TRRL further argues that communal orientation, or a tendency to embrace a sense of unity and shared identity in face of stress, is beneficial for couples because it motivates partners to invest in their relationship and engage in more constructive communication patterns. Prolonged, consistent relationship maintenance and communal orientation foster a relationship environment where partners help each other minimize the negative effects of stress and achieve personal growth, contributing to the resilience for each partner as well as their relational bond. Propositions of the theory have received empirical support in various contexts, such as in couples managing financial hardship (Afifi et al., 2020), romantic partners coping with different voting patterns during the 2016 presidential election (Afifi et al., 2019), and interracial couples experiencing racial stigma from friends and family (Haughton & Afifi, 2020) 

References and other suggested readings:   

Afifi, T. D., Harrison, K., Zamanzadeh, N., & Acevedo Callejas, M. (2020). Testing the theory of resilience and relational load in dual career families: Relationship maintenance as stress management. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 48(1), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2019.1706097 

Afifi, T. D., Haughton, C., & Parrish, C. (2021). Relational load: Implications for executive functioning, mental health, and feelings of unity in romantic relationships. Communication Monographs, 88(4), 506–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2021.1896015 

Afifi, T. D., Merrill, A. F., & Davis, S. (2016). The theory of resilience and relational load. Personal Relationships, 23(4), 663–683. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12159 

Afifi, T. D., Zamanzadeh, N., Harrison, K., & Torrez, D. P. (2019). Explaining the impact of differences in voting patterns on resilience and relational load in romantic relationships during the transition to the Trump presidency. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 37(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519846566 

Arroyo, A., Richardson, E. W., Hargrove, C. M., & Futris, T. G. (2024). Foster caregivers’ depressive symptoms and parenting stress: Applying the theory of resilience and relational load. Family Relations, 73(2), 1438–1454. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12908 

Haughton, C., & Afifi, T. D. (2022). Resilience in interracial–interethnic relationships in the United States: Assessing relationship maintenance and communal orientation as protection against network stigma. Human Communication Research, 48(2), 265–291. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqab023   LaFreniere, J. R., & Ledbetter, A. M. (2021). How parental confirmation is associated with family quality: Applying the theory of resilience and relational load to parent-young adult child relationships. Western Journal of Communication, 85(5), 609–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570314.2021.1986636

Relational dialectics theory explains how people manage conflicting desires that cause tension within close relationships. The dialectical perspective of relationship development and maintenance argues that relationships are constantly changing as people go through ups and downs in their relationships. In healthy relationships, people manage ongoing tensions by adapting to one another’s changing needs, desires, or goals. According to the theory, tensions that occur within relationships are due to two simultaneous and incompatible needs or goals. Internal dialectic is the tension between the two partners within a relationship. For example, you might not want to have a lot of relationship talks, but your partner wants to talk about the relationship all the time. This reflects opposing views of intimacy that exist between you and your partner. External dialectic refers to the tension between the couple and people outside the relationship. For example, you may want to stay together with your partner, but everyone else, including your friends and family members, is telling you to break up, which can create tension. The theory suggests three basic sources of tension in close relationships. Specifically, people want to have both interdependence and autonomy while maintaining an intimate connection (autonomy vs. connection); people struggle with how novel or predictable they would like their relationship to be (novelty vs. predictability); and people manage the tension between being open and maintaining privacy (openness vs privacy). The theory has been used to understand how women make sense of their dissatisfaction during the transition to motherhood through examining competing cultural norms and expectations (Cronin-Fisher & Parcel, 2019). Another application of the theory was to examine how family members’ talk about severe mental illness and how they manage competing discourses to create family identity (i.e., a normal yet abnormal family, a physically/emotionally close yet distant family relationships; Sporer & Toller, 2017).  

References and other suggested readings:   

Amati, R., & Hannawa, A. F. (2014). Relational dialectics theory: Disentangling physician-perceived tensions of end-of-life communication. Health Communication, 29(10), 962–973. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2013.815533  

Baxter, L. A., & Montgomery, B. M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and dialectics. Guilford. 

Baxter, L. A., Scharp, K. M., & Thomas, L. J. (2021). Relational dialectics theory. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 13(1), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12405  

Cronin-Fisher, V., & Parcell, E. S. (2019). Making sense of dissatisfaction during the transition to motherhood through relational dialectics theory. Journal of Family Communication, 19(2), 157–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2019.1590364 

Sporer, K., & Toller, P. W. (2017). Family identity disrupted by mental illness and violence: an application of relational dialectics theory. Southern Communication Journal, 82(2), 85–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2017.1302503 

Suter, E. A., Parcell, E. S., Adebayo, C. T., Romo, D. C., & Weadock, C. R. (2024). Charting a research agenda for relational dialectics theory: Forwarding critical theorizing in interpersonal and family communication research. Journal of Family Communication, 24(3-4), 177–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2024.2394027   Wolfe, B. H., & Scharp, K. M. (2022). Resisting and reifying meaning in everyday life: Using relational dialectics theory to understand the meaning of heterosexual dating. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 39(9), 2680–2700. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221087462