Relational continuity constructional units and the maintenance of relationships

Sigman (1991) proposed that relationships are continuous despite discontinu ous periods of physical and interactional co-presence and that couples mana ge the discontinuous aspects of social relationships by using Relational Co ntinuity Constructional Units (RCCUs). RCCUs are actions or behaviors that couples do before, during, or after an absence to bridge the gap in the rel ationship caused by the absence. Our study examined the relationship betwee n time spent apart, RCCUs, and relational satisfaction. A total of 112 part ners from 56 married or cohabiting couples completed measures of time spent apart, their use of prospective, introspective and retrospective RCCUs, an d relational satisfaction, The results were as follows. Go-presence was pos itively related to relational satisfaction. Female prospective, introspecti ve and retrospective RCCUs were positively related to female relational sat isfaction, and female prospective and retrospective RCCUs were positively r elated to male relational satisfaction. Female and male prospective RCCUs w ere positively related to female relational satisfaction and female prospec tive RCCUs were positively related to male relational satisfaction when the effects of co-presence were held constant. A post hoc analysis of the 'rel ationship specialist' hypothesis did not indicate that women perform more R CCUs than men. However, RCCUs performed by women appear to have more impact on both male and female relational satisfaction than those performed by me n.