Description
This study explores how forgiveness strategies relate to communal orientation, relational maintenance, and resilience in committed romantic relationships. Guided by the theory of resilience and relational load, this study aims to identify how varying strategies of forgiveness can serve as an outcome of relational maintenance behaviors to help facilitate external stress and prevent strain on the relationship. Individuals who had been in a romantic relationship for at least a year and were able to recall one time when their partner hurt their feelings (N = 342) were surveyed using a cross-sectional questionnaire research design. Hypotheses predicting positive associations between both communal orientation and relational maintenance behaviors with interpersonal forgiveness strategies (i.e., direct, discussion, nonverbal) were supported. Additional hypotheses predicting a negative relationship between communal orientation and conditional forgiveness were also supported. Hypotheses predicting a moderating influence of ongoing negative affect on varying forgiveness strategies and resilience were not supported. Further, hypotheses predicting relational maintenance behaviors as mediating the relationship between forgiveness strategies and resilience were also not supported. This study expands the literature on resilience and forgiveness and suggests future studies on this topic should include biosocial research designs. Finally, future studies should consider using resilience as a predicting variable for cross-sectional surveys that are guided by TRRL. Keywords: resilience, forgiveness, relational maintenance, relational transgression, romantic relationships
