Tracing the diverse narratives of self in relationship research: insights from a multiple methods approach

This paper draws on findings from an ESRC funded study, Enduring Love? Couple Relationships in the 21st Century and its exploration of the ways couples experience and sustain their relationships. The study deployed a multiple methods approach, which included diaries, emotion maps, individual interviews and collage interviews with couples, to examine the temporal, spatial and emotional dynamics of such relationships and the socio-economic and policy contexts in which they are situated. These methods provided participants with opportunities to tell a range of stories about their relationship - individually, together and in interaction with the researcher - thereby bringing into view the diverse ‘narrating selves’ (Heaphy and Einarsdottir, 2012) that ran across each couple’s data. The paper illustrates how tensions between these selves were managed and how, by being attentive to the construction of selfhood in their complicated and often competing relationship accounts, understanding of the complexity of couples’ everyday lives together could be extended and enhanced.