| This exploratory qualitative research is aimed at investigating the legitimacy of an unconventional personal relationship named "Post-Dissolution Relationship" (abbreviated as "PDR"), which is a cross-sex friendship established by former premarital romantic partners. Such relationships have seldom been studied academically. The data were collected by 32 one-on-one interviews with one partner of PDRs and two joint interviews with both partners of excouples, and the majority of participants were female undergraduate students. Ethnographic analytic induction uncovered ways in which PDR partners present their (non-standard) relationship to "audiences," that is, relevant network members, and "arguments," positive or negative opinions and evaluations about PDRs which appear in talk between PDR partners and their audiences.;Analytic induction identified the following five types of audiences and arguments which characterize each type of audiences or its relationships to PDR partners: (1) Type I audiences who support PDRs because they share PDR partners' histories from their past romances through their current platonic friendships. They legitimate PDRs by the four types of supporting arguments: Repairing, Encouraging, Teasing, and Observing; (2) Type II audiences who are PDR partners' newer mutual network members after they dissolved their past romances. Type II audiences and PDR partners legitimate the PDRs by emphasizing the PDRs' disconnection from the past; (3) Type III audiences who criticize PDRs harshly and therefore silence PDR partners. They illegitimate PDRs through their benevolent concern about the potential risks in PDRs or their stubborn suspicion that PDRs are a camouflage for continuing romantic relationships; (4) Type IV audiences who represent society in general. PDR partners justify their PDRs to Type IV audiences by these five arguments: Irreplaceability of the PDR, Detachment from the past, Denial of traumatic dissolution, Nullification of questions about PDRs, Inaccessibility of the PDR partner; and (5) Type V audiences who are PDR partners' new romantic partners. While some Type V audiences recognize their romantic partners' PDRs as beneficial and profitable, the other Type V audiences illegitimate PDRs by defining them as a cause of jealousy. These results were discussed in association with other traditionally important topics in personal relationship studies. |
