The persons most responsible for this book, other than ourselves, are those couples and families whom we have endeavored to help to experience happier lives with one another, and our students, whose provocative questions pushed us to think more clearly and to present the contents of this book more effectively. We are indebted to the seminal theoriest of the systems model and too the marriage and family and family theorists upon whose work we built. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Steven Bartlett, whose probing in the area of epistemological analysis challenged us to seek new levels of understanding. Ray is particularly appreciative of the ideas and guidance provided by Margaret Hoopes, A. Lynn Scoresby, and Robert Stahmann at Brigham Young University.