Attachment Style, Marital Satisfaction, Commitment, and Communal Strength Effects on Relational Repair Message Interpretation among Remarrieds Richard S. Bello, Frances E. Brandau-Brown, & J. Donald Ragsdale This article examines the influence of attachment style and several relational variables on the interpretation of relational repair messages. Participants were 191 remarried indivi- duals who completed questionnaires that measured marital satisfaction, attachment style, commitment, communal strength, and interpretations of hypothetical repair mes- sages from their spouses with varying levels of equivocation. Interpretations were mea- sured along the dimensions of honesty, competence, and politeness using Likert-type scales developed and successfully employed in previous research. Results of regression and MANOVA analyses found that, as predicted, each of the relational variables posi- tively influenced repair message interpretation, and that attachment styles also influ- enced these interpretations. Results are discussed in terms of the need for relational repair research that makes use of broader predictive models and deals with both production and interpretation of repair messages. Keywords: Marital Satisfaction; Message Interpretation; Relational Repair; Remarriage Imagine that you are involved in a marriage in which you are having difficulties and with which you are largely dissatisfied. Suppose that your spouse, in an attempt to repair the relationship, comes to you and says, ‘‘I need a more open marriage.’’ What Richard S. Bello (PhD, Louisiana State University, 1999) and Frances E. Brandau-Brown (PhD, Louisiana State University) are associate professors at Sam Houston State University, where J. Donald Ragsdale (PhD, Univer- sity of Illinois, 1964) is a professor and department chair. Correspondence: Richard S. Bello, Department of Speech Communication, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77341, USA; Tel.: (936) 294-1516; E-mail: bello@shsu.edu Communication Quarterly Vol. 56, No. 1, February 2008, pp. 1–16 ISSN 0146-3373 print/1746-4102 online # 2008 Eastern Communication Association DOI: 10.1080/01463370701838968