Long-distance relationships have become an increasingly popular area of study, although limited work has been published. In response to this state of scholarship, author Laura Stafford has developed this volume, in which she summarizes literature across the social sciences on various types of long-distance relationships and extracts themes and patterns across the relational types, relating them to theory. Stafford expands the notion of long-distance relationships to include those that span residences and relational types, such as noncustodial parent-child and geographically and residentially separated adult children and parents. She also challenges the assumption that face-to-face interaction is necessary to maintain healthy relationships and questions the assumption that maintaining, rather than terminating, a particular relationship is always best for the involved parties. Maintaining Long-Distance and Cross-Residential Relationships will serve well as a supplemental text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in interpersonal, relational, and family communication and family studies. It is also appropriate for special topics graduate courses on long-distance relationships and human communication. With its interdisciplinary approach, it will be attractive to scholars in communication, psychology, sociology, mass communication, and family studies.