“It’s Not As Easy As It Looks”: College Students’ Experiences With Romantic Relationship Development and Decline

As the number of young adults enrolled in colleges and universities increases, so too does the need to study and understand the communicative processes through which young adults engage in romantic relationship development and decline. Grounded in the model of interaction stages in relationships (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2009), the researcher conducted eight interviews with college women to investigate how young adult women use interpersonal communication in order to develop, maintain, and ultimately terminate their romantic relationships with those of the opposite sex. The researcher describes the ten stages of coming together and coming apart using the language of the model. Implications of these findings are discussed to provide insight to researchers and individuals who are looking to understand how we can effectively learn more about the ways in which young adult women experience relational development and decline