Close personal relationships are the very essence of human existence. Nearly as fundamental to survival as air and water are the links between persons—parent with child, lover with lover, friend with friend. More and more scholars are conducting research on this essential topic, and it is out of a collective sense of the fundamental importance of relationships and relationships research that this volume emerged. The authors whose work is included are excellent scholars who represent the variety of disciplines and topics within this relatively new area of close personal relationships.

Close relationships come in various shapes, sizes, and forms. Relationships experience a variety of interpersonal processes, undergo a number of crises and threats, and can be examined in several different ways. In recognition of this complexity in the relationships domain, we have organized the 26 chapters in this Sourcebook into four major thematic areas—Relationship Methods, Relationship Forms, Relationship Processes, and Relationship Threats—along with a Foreword.

These chapters provide a panoramic view of close relationships research as it enters a new century, and they offer highlights from current literature, original research, practical applications of existing knowledge, and projections of what avenues of research might be most productive during the years ahead. In Part I, quantitative and qualitative methods provide important lenses through which scholars can examine relationships, and both topics are presented in an interesting and accessible fashion by Kashy and Levesque (quantitative research) and Allen and Walker (qualitative research).

Part II on relationship forms includes many of the stages, types, and roles that characterize intimate relationships. In a developmental fashion, chapters address social networks (Milardo and Helms-Erikson), children's friendships (Rose and Asher), adolescent relationships (Collins and Laursen), adult friendships [Page xxiii](Fehr), and friendships in later life (Blieszner). Chapters on multicultural and multiracial relationships (Gaines and Liu) and on gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships (Peplau and Spalding) introduce relationship forms that are not new but are newly considered, discussed, and accepted. Finally, the alignments and realignments of traditional family structure are considered in terms of contemporary marriage (Steil), divorce and single parenting (Fine), and remarried families (Ganong and Coleman).

Many processes occur within the crucible of close relationships. Part III, on relationship processes, considers several such processes. A discussion of emotion (Guerrero and Andersen) opens this part and is followed by attachment (Feeney, Noller, and Roberts), romantic love (S. Hendrick and C. Hendrick), and sexuality (Sprecher and Regan). Intimacy is strongly linked to communication, so a chapter on intimacy (Prager) serves as a bridge to a chapter on communication (Burleson, Metts, and Kirch), followed by conflict (Canary and Messman), social support (Cunningham and Barbee), and relational maintenance (Dindia). The important topic of gender (Wood) concludes Part III.

Although close relationship researchers have done much to depathologize relationships even as they explicate relationships, the shadow side of human nature exists and is explored in Part IV, on relationship threats. Here we find chapters on infidelity and jealousy (Buunk and Dijkstra), physical and sexual aggression (Christopher and Lloyd), depression (Beach and O'Mahen-Gray), and loss and bereavement (Harvey and Hansen).

Taken together, these chapters provide a wonderful commentary on the state of close relationships research, and we thank all the authors involved for giving their time, patience, and best scholarship. We also thank all the scholars whose pioneering work resulted in the interdisciplinary field of close relationships and those scholars whose work is referenced in this volume. We especially thank Ellen Berscheid for gracing this volume with the Foreword.

Thanks also go to Terry Hendrix, the friend and former Sage Publications editor without whose persistence this book would not have developed, and Jim Brace-Thompson, the Sage editor who helped bring the book into its final form. The whole staff at Sage, a publisher with whom we have worked fruitfully for many years, also deserves our deep appreciation.

Finally, we thank each other. The labors of this book would have been much more onerous without our shared editorial efforts. To the extent that these efforts have been successful, it has been the result of the editors’ ongoing close personal relationship.