ABSTRACT
This chapter explores family communication through cases that query how family dynamics contribute to and hinder relational health. The definition of family can refer to families of procreation and origin, including nuclear and extended family residing in one household, who have established biological or socio-legal legitimacy because of shared genetics, marriage or adoption. Sandra Faulkner's personal narrative about an intended ambivalent pregnancy addresses dialectics of work-life issues, certainty and uncertainty, and family decision-making. Accidental ethnography means writing and rewriting family secrets that haunt us and break into our day-to-day relating. Affection exchange theory (AET) offers an explanation for why we communicate affection to one another and with what consequences. Communication privacy management theory suggests that the revelation or concealment of family secrets depends on our motivation for disclosing, as well as what family disclosure rules are in place. The difference between personal motivation and the need to disclose family secrets and violate family disclosure rules creates turbulence.
