Approximately 100 adults participated in a study that investigated the themes of communication people use to characterize their relationships. The subjects produced 55 self-reports: 29 audiotaped dyadic discussions, 12 audiotaped group discussions, and 14 written logs. Dyadic discussants were romantic couples (dating or married), roommates, relatives, coworkers, and others; group participants were three or more family members, dormmates, and housemates. In the audiotaped tasks, subjects talked about their relationships, stimulated by several topics provided on an instruction sheet. Those keeping logs wrote about a current relationship on a day-to-day basis, then completed hour-long interview sessions about their writing. Seven semantic themes emerged during the study: (1) commitment, (2) involvement, (3) work, (4) uniqueness/specialness, (5) fragility, (6) consideration/respect, and (7) manipulation. Specific findings were that dating couples thematized their relationships around commitment, fragility, and manipulation, while married couples, relatives, and those living together characterized their associations around involvement, work, and respect. (FL)