Examples and Applications of Relational Dialectics

by Heidi Radakovich

The theory Relational Dialectics of Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery is my favorite of all the communication theories that I have studied. The reason I enjoy this theory the most is because I feel that I, and anyone who has been in a romantic relationship can easily relate to the internal and external struggles that Baxter and Montgomery explore. I will focus on these internal and external dialectics when applying them to the movie Say Anything.

In the romantic comedy Say Anything the characters Diane(Ione Skye) and Lloyd(John Cusak) each feel the push-me-pull-you dialectics of close relationships. The movie begins with high school graduation. Diane is the class validictorian who has sacrificed her social life for the past four years to strive academically. She is a beautiful girl who is admired by her peers and as well is mysterious to them. Diane is very close to her father(John Mahoney) whom she chose to live with at a young age when her parents divorced. Lloyd, on the other hand, is a laid back, friendly guy who is well known and liked by everyone at the high school. Unlike Diane, Lloyd does not have is future planned out for after graduation. The only thing he knows he is into is kick boxing and Diane. Lloyd has been obsessed with Diane for four years and decides at graduation that he is going to finally ask her out. Lloyd decides to call Diane and invites her to the annual graduation bash. Diane accepts his invitation after some pleading which is the start to their relationship.

According to Baxter and Montgomery, a common struggle in relationships is the contradiction between connectedness and seperateness. The idea of this concept is that the couple wants to maintain some individual autonomy with out becoming too connected. This was shown in the movie Say Anything. Once Lloyd finally got Diane to go out with him he wanted to spend every waking minute with her. Although she was falling in love with him she did have other priorities that needed to come before the relationship. For example, Diane was working on a scholarship to study abroad at a private university and needed to spend a lot of her time studying and preparing for it. It was a major struggle in the relationship for her and Lloyd because she did not want to lose him and he felt that he was not that important to her.

During their relationship Lloyd did a lot of unexpected and cute things for Diane. However, he was always wondering how she felt about him and where there relationship was headed. The certainty and uncertainty dialectic explains that people in relationships want a sense of security and knowledge of where the relationship is going but they also want spontaneity. My favorite scene in the movie is when after breaking up Lloyd stands outside of Diane's window holding a boom box and plays their song "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. This to me is a great example of spontaneity. Lloyd also sends Diane a card after their first night being intimate together to show he cares and will always be there for her. In the relationship Lloyd yearns for a sense of certainty from Diane. He knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with her but does not know if she includes him in her thoughts about the future. Towards the end of the film Diane asks Lloyd to come with her to Europe and Lloyd finally gets the certainty he was looking for.

Diane's relationship with her father is a very important aspect to the film. As I said earlier, when Diane was a little girl she chose to live with her father when her parents were divorced. Ever since her decision, she and her father have been very close. Diane's father wants the best for her, just like most dads, but he is to the extreme. He is constantly buying her expensive gifts and offering her great opportunities. The close father daughter relationship is destroyed when Diane finds out her father has been lying to her. Her father runs a retirement home and is caught, after years of investigation by the FBI, for stealing from his clients. Feeling she can no longer trust anyone if she can not trust her dad, Diane's anger causes porblems in her relationship with Lloyd.

Instead of sharing her hurt with Lloyd, Diane is ashamed of her father and does not know if she can tell Lloyd her story. A person's need to tell all is countered by a natural desire for secrecy according to the dialectic theory of openness and closedness. This dialectic is apparent in Diane's situation. It is not that she does not trust Lloyd enough to share her family problems but there are things that are hard to self disclose even to people that you love. It can be hard sometimes to balance openess and closedness in a relationship. You want to be able to share things with your partner but there are certain things that people sometimes need to leave to themselves.

Forces outside of a relationship such as social networks and the community can also cause struggles in a relationship. For example, how do you know when to announce to your friends you are a couple? How much time do you spend alone with your partner? Will you and your partner be accepted by outsiders? These questions are common in relationships and are explained by the external dialectics of Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery. The dialectics are known as inclusion and seclusion, conventionality and uniqueness, and revelation and concealment. In the movie Say Anything, these outside forces were evident in the relationship.

Lloyd and Diane were considered a unique couple from the start. At the graduation party no one could believe Lloyd was with Diane. Let alone that Diane even went to the party! Eventhough they did receive a lot of attention because they were such a different match they also wanted to be accepted as a couple. The conventionality and uniqueness strain took ahold of the couple. However, in the end they realized it did not matter who accepted them and who did not because they are happy and in love.

After Lloyd and Diane had been dating for a while her father started asking her questions about where the relationship was going. Diane's father had never been that thrilled with Lloyd because he saw him with no future and did not think he was good enough for his daughter. Despite his feelings, Diane's father was not worried about the relationship because he figured it was just a summer fling that would definetely end when Diane went to Europe. Deciding when and who to tell about a relationship is a common strain among couples. This is known as the dialectic of revelation and concealment. Diane had to tell her father that not only was she in love with Lloyd but that he would be accompanying her on her trip to Europe. Most often revealing a relationship to outsiders is not so dramatic. Usually friends and family start to notice a couple's nonverbal behavior and makes inferences on their own. However, at some point a verbal statement of togetherness is usually made.

The final external dialectic that was portrayed by Lloyd and Diane's relationship was inclusion and seclusion. The graduation party was the last social event Lloyd and Diane attended that summer. Diane became more distant with her father because she was spending so much time with Lloyd and Lloyd became distant with his friends because he was spending so much time with Diane. Secluding themselves from people who normally saw a lot of them caused problems espescially for Diane. Diane's father became jealous of Lloyd because he was taking time away from him to spend with his daughter. Although the couple does need to spend time away from outsiders there needs to be a balance so the isolation does not cause problems for the couple.

To visit another site about the movie Say Anything which contains useful links click here

To return to the title page done by Tony click here

To view Natalie's research page which looks at an article written by Eric Simon and Leslie Baxter click here

To view Julia's humanistic critique of Relational Dialectics click here

To see a research page done by Brian on the article "Relationship Maintenance versus Relationship Change: A Dialectical Dilemma" click here

To get some useful links related to Relational Dialectics click here

To return to the INCO 234 home page click here

To look at another web page on the related theory of Uncertainty Reduction click here

This page was last modified by Heidi Radakovich on 3/1/00