Acknowledgments

We are indebted to many people for the important contributions they have made to this volume. This project came to fruition because of the work of a group of outstanding authors. The time, expertise, and careful thought that the authors willingly dedicated to writing chapters made this Handbook possible. We also are grateful to our acquisition editor, Hetty Marx, and our current editor, Janka Romero, with whom we have worked as this volume has come to fruition. Their willingness to respond to what must have seemed like an infinite number of questions, their patience, and their sense of humor made our work a pleasure.

To our universities we owe a debt of gratitude for their good libraries, for their computer systems, and for providing an environment that facilitates productivity. The first edition of this Handbook was started when Dan spent a very pleasant semester as a sabbatical visitor with the University of Texas’s Human Development and Family Studies program. We also want to thank low-cost long-distance calling services for allowing us to work together on the phone for long periods without concern about telephone bills.

Being editors of a book about relationships, we are especially sensitive to how relationships enhance our lives and how there are trade-offs between work and family. We would like to thank our partners, John Daly and Lorrie Brubacher, for their support and understanding during the three-year journey that this book has required, and Abigail and Patrick, for reminding us, as young children will do, that relationships should come first.