This book offers new and compelling insights into the ways in which communication is central to the study of personal relationships. Specifically, this volume focuses on front-line cutting-edge theories and methods in the study of communication and personal relationships. The opening chapter of this volume plunges straight into investigating the question "What is a personal relationship?", the central issue facing personal relationship research. The answers offered in this volume highlight the role of communication as a means of expressing a relationship as well as it being the essential substance of the relationship. The authors in this volume focus on different aspects of relationships and explain them in different ways.