Scholars typically have conceptualized loyalty (and its opposite, betr
ayal) as a manifestation of individual dispositions of a state-like or
trait-like nature. By contrast, the present study takes a dialectical
perspective, arguing that loyalty is a social experience in which rel
ationship parties face a cross-current of competing and oppositional l
oyalty demands. As a consequence, when parties are loyal to one relati
onal expectation they simultaneously are likely to be disloyal to anot
her expectation. Two-hundred and seventy-three informants provided acc
ounts of everyday competing loyalties of two kinds for a friendship an
d for a romantic relationship: external competing loyalties in which o
ne faces a dilemma between the relationship and some other demand outs
ide the boundary of the dyad; and internal competing loyalties in whic
h one faces a dilemma between one relational expectation and another w
ithin the boundary of the dyad. We analyzed the 1092 accounts using th
e constant comparative method, resulting in nine kinds of external com
peting loyalty dilemmas and six kinds of internal competing loyalty di
lemmas. In addition, findings address how relationship parties managed
the dilemmas.