ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the visual representations demonstrates how we maintain our relationships. Relational maintenance involves the behaviors we enact to keep our relationships going, to keep them in existence in a desired state. Common behaviors maintains our relationships include being positive and cheerful, being open and self-disclosing, providing assurances, demonstrating love and faithfulness, sharing task, doing activities together, being sexually intimate and expressing affection. In the beginning stages of relationships, we may be more attuned to our partner's maintenance behaviors, which can lead to relational commitment. The fact is that we also use anti-social behaviors to maintain relationships, from making a partner jealous, being unfaithful to show we have alternatives to the current relationship, or spying, to avoiding topics because that could damage a relationship. In more established relationships, the commitment we feel for another may be the motivation for us to engage in maintenance behaviors regardless of whether they began online, are primarily face-to face, or exist only online.
