The Core Concepts
Leslie Baxter credits this Russian philosopher for the idea that talk is always a struggle between competing voices.
Who is Mikhail Bakhtin?
Mark wants to spend every night with his partner, but Sarah feels she needs "me time" to maintain her identity. They are struggling with this tension.
What is Connection vs. Autonomy?
After five years of the same routine, Jamie surprises Taylor with a spontaneous road trip to break the "predictability" of their life.
What is Certainty vs. Uncertainty?
Sofia wants to tell her partner about her past, but she is worried that being too "open" will cause conflict.
What is Openness vs. Closedness?
In this form of interplay, a person acknowledges a competing discourse but then immediately dismisses it, making it "marginalized."
What is Negating?
This term describes the "unceasing struggle" between different ways of talking about our interpersonal relationships.
What are Relational Dialectics?
A newlywed couple must decide if they should attend every Friday night dinner with their extended family or stay home alone to bond as a pair.
What is Inclusion vs. Seclusion?
A couple decides to have a traditional church wedding to please their community, even though they personally identify as "non-traditional."
What is Conventionality vs. Uniqueness?
A couple chooses not to tell their parents they are struggling with debt because they believe their financial life should stay private.
What is Revelation vs. Concealment?
This happens when a couple switches between two different discourses based on the specific time or day.
What is Spiraling Inversion?
Instead of looking at communication within a relationship, this approach suggests that communication is what actually creates and sustains the relationship itself.
What is the Constitutive approach?
When a couple feels the need to be "together but separate," they are navigating the tension of this overarching dialectic.
What is Integration vs. Separation?
This overarching dialectic involves the tension between wanting a "transparent" life and wanting to keep some "mystery" alive.
What is Stability vs. Change?
This is the overarching dialectic that governs how much information a couple shares with each other and the world.
What is Expression vs. Nonexpression?
If a partner is "weighing equal options" and considering both competing discourses as equally valid, they are doing this.
What is Entertaining?
Baxter uses this sports-related metaphor to describe how discourses move back and forth to make meaning.
What is a ping-pong game?
"I love being part of our friend group, but sometimes I feel like we never get to just be 'us' in public." This reflects a struggle between these two external poles.
What is Inclusion and Seclusion?
"We want our relationship to look like a 'normal' marriage to our neighbors, but we also want to be known as the 'cool, adventurous' couple." This is a struggle with this dialectic.
What is Conventionality vs. Uniqueness?
The culture says we should share our engagement photos on Instagram, but we want to keep our private life private." This represents the struggle between these two.
What is Revelation and Concealment?
This complex form of interplay occurs when a couple combines two competing discourses into something entirely new.
What is Transforming?
This term refers to the entire "chain" of what was said before and what might be said in the future within a relationship.
What are utterance chains?
If a couple decides to be inseparable on weekends but completely independent during the work week, they are using this "separation" technique.
What is Spiraling Inversion?
This internal tension is often described as the struggle between the "comfort of the known" and the "excitement of the unknown."
What is Certainty vs. Uncertainty?
When a couple decides to be totally open about their finances but "closed" and private about their past romantic histories, they are using this method of "segmentation."
What is compartmentalizing (or Segmentation)?
When a person replaces an "expected" discourse with a completely different one (e.g., "I know you expected me to stay, but I'm leaving"), they are using this.
What is Countering?