ABSTRACT
I love the Bradbury, Rogge, and Lawrence chapter in this volume (chap. 5) for its brazenness in arguing, at a conference on conflict, that conflict isn’t all that important-and for its thoughtful working out of that thesis. Their approach, however, does take us away from the initial questions posed for this session of the symposium: What are the interpersonal roots of couple conflict, and what are its consequences for individuals and couples? I want to get back to those questions, and in order to do so I am going to present some of my own work. My major point is that neither of these questions can be answered without making distinctions among types of conflict.
