Glossary terms beginning with A
The plain-language glossary behind The Architecture of Intimacy — a field guide to 369 green flags of healthy relationships.
Terms beginning with A
- A.R.E. (Accessible, Responsive, Engaged) A.R.E. · A.R.E. (Accessibility, Responsiveness, Engagement) · ARE · Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement · Accessible, Responsive, Engaged · Are you there for me? · accessibility responsiveness engagement · accessible responsive engaged
- In Emotionally Focused Therapy, the three things partners seek from each other: Accessibility (can I reach you), Responsiveness (do my feelings move you), and Engagement (do you turn toward me).
- accepting influence accept influence · share power · sharing power
- In Gottman's framework, treating a partner's perspective and preferences as real and worth taking seriously — letting their point of view genuinely shape yours instead of trying to dominate.
- accommodating (partner communication) accommodation
- Communication and support that treats a partner's ongoing therapy as a normal, expected part of life, not something grudgingly permitted or extracted as a concession.
- accommodation accommodation processes · constructive accommodation
- In relationship research, responding in a way that favors the relationship rather than your immediate self-interest when a moment tempts you otherwise — one of commitment's pro-relationship behaviors.
- accommodation (compliance)
- Going along with a partner's goal to keep the peace without genuinely wanting it yourself — compliance that can look like agreement from the outside but isn't shared ownership.
- accommodation (disability access) access · accommodating · accommodations
- Arranging the environment — physical, sensory, cognitive, or social — so a disabled partner can move through daily life without friction, rather than expecting them to constantly ask or adapt.
- actigraphy actigraphy-based
- Tracking sleep and wake patterns with a small wrist-worn motion sensor, giving an objective record of when someone actually slept instead of relying on memory.
- active engagement
- Openly discussing a shared stressor and problem-solving together — the healthier counterpart to hiding worry, associated with fewer depressive symptoms.
- active listening active-listening
- The whole posture of full engagement while someone speaks — eye contact, attention, and not interrupting — broader than any single confirming or paraphrasing move.
- active-constructive responding active-constructive · active-constructive response
- Meeting a partner's good news with engaged, enthusiastic interest — asking questions, savoring it, helping them relive the moment — rather than responding flatly, negatively, or not at all.
- active-destructive response
- A reply to good news that engages energetically but negatively — pointing out downsides, raising doubts, or deflating the moment the news is shared.
- actor-partner interdependence model APIM · Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling · actor effect · actor-partner design · actor–partner interdependence model · dyadic study · partner effect
- A statistical method for couple data that separates how your own trait affects your own outcome (actor effect) from how it affects your partner's outcome (partner effect).
- adaptive coping adaptive coping strategies · adaptive strategies
- Ways of handling stress — like exercise, problem-solving, seeking appropriate support, or rest — that ease distress without creating new harm over the longer term.
- Adult Attachment Interview AAI
- A structured research interview about a person's early relationships, scored less for what happened to them than for how clearly and reflectively they can tell the story.
- adult day services adult day programs · adult day service
- Community programs that look after dependent adults during daytime hours, giving the regular caregiver scheduled time off while their partner or relative is cared for elsewhere.
- affect
- The emotional tone a message carries — humor, tenderness, playfulness — as opposed to its bare factual content.
- affect attunement
- A caregiver mirroring an infant's emotional state across different channels — matching excited arm-waving with an excited tone — so the child learns inner feelings can be shared.
- affect labeling
- Identifying a feeling and putting it into words, either to yourself or to another person, rather than only acting it out or going numb — the plain act of naming what you feel.
- affection deprivation
- The felt sense of getting less affection from a partner than you want or need — feeling unloved or un-attended to, whatever the cause.
- affectionate communication affectionate-communication findings
- Expressing fondness, warmth, and caring to a partner through words or actions; treated in research as a stable trait some people show more of.
- affectionate touch affection
- Physical closeness offered for its own sake — a hug, hand-holding, a hand on the back — as distinct from sexual touch or the practical touch of steadying someone.
- affective empathy
- The capacity to be emotionally moved by another's feelings — to actually care — as opposed to merely understanding their state intellectually.
- affiliate stigma courtesy stigma
- The shame that partners, family, or caregivers of someone with mental illness absorb by association — internalizing society's prejudice and feeling tainted or embarrassed on the person's behalf.
- affiliative
- Warm and connection-seeking — meant to bring two people closer and signal friendliness, rather than to compete, wound, or put someone down.
- affiliative humor
- Warm, bonding humor that brings people closer — joking with a partner or at the world together — as opposed to hostile humor aimed at someone.
- affinity-seeking affinity-maintaining
- A stepparent's deliberate, ongoing effort to be liked by a stepchild — doing fun things together, helping, listening, taking the child's side, and keeping at it through a cool reception.
- affirmation
- A partner perceiving and treating you in ways that fit who you most want to become, drawing out your ideal self rather than a lesser version.
- affirmative consent
- A standard for sexual agreement that looks for a clearly expressed yes rather than treating silence or the absence of a no as agreement.
- aftercare
- The deliberate choice to stay warm and present with a partner after sex — cuddling, talking, lingering — rather than pulling away once the physical act is over.
- agency thinking agency
- The motivation and felt capability to move along the routes you can see toward a goal — the drive half of hope, paired with pathways thinking in hope theory.
- aggressive humor belittling humor
- Humor that puts someone down - sarcasm, ridicule, or teasing with an edge - used to score a point at another person's expense.
- agreeableness
- A Big Five personality trait covering kindness, warmth, consideration, and a tendency to treat others cooperatively rather than antagonistically — a fairly stable disposition, not a temporary act.
- alexithymia
- A difficulty identifying and describing your own emotions, so the bodily signal of a feeling may arrive before any word for it does, or no word arrives on demand at all.
- allosexual
- A person who does experience sexual attraction — the counterpart term to asexual, used so that attraction is named rather than assumed as the default.
- allostatic load
- A stress-related biomarker reflecting the cumulative physical toll that ongoing stress places on the body over time, used here as a bodily health measure.
- amends making amends · sincere amends
- The reparative-action half of an apology — the part where remorse converts into altered behavior that repairs damage and makes the same hurt less likely to recur.
- American Time Use Survey ATUS
- A large ongoing U.S. government survey that records how people actually spend their hours each day, widely used to measure unpaid work at home.
- Anger Iceberg
- The Gottman Institute's image of anger as the visible tip above water, with larger vulnerable feelings — hurt, fear, loneliness, shame — hidden beneath the surface.
- anhedonia
- A loss of the ability to feel pleasure or interest in things once enjoyed — one of the warning signs that low mood may be depression rather than simple tiredness.
- anti-phase linkage in-phase linkage
- A pattern where one partner's arousal falls as the other's rises — one body staying calm while the other is activated, the bodily signature of co-regulation.
- anticipation (cognitive-labor stage) anticipating · anticipation work
- In household-labor research, noticing ahead of time that something will need doing — the first and most invisible stage of running a home, not excited expectation.
- anticipatory responsiveness forecasting your needs · proactive helping
- Sensing what a partner will likely need before they ask, from a current model of their inner life, and getting support ready in advance rather than only reacting.
- anticipatory savoring savoring · savouring
- The act of mentally pre-living a positive future event — enjoying a planned good thing in advance, so it lifts your mood now, before it actually happens.
- anticipatory vigilance vigilance
- The habit of scanning for and bracing against possible hostility before anything happens, staying alert to ward off discrimination even when no incident is present.
- appraisal
- How a person interprets a stressful event — reading it as one kind of thing rather than another — which shapes their emotional response and what they do next.
- approach and avoidance goals approach goals · approach motivation · avoidance goals · avoidance motivation
- Approach goals move toward something good, like intimacy or pleasure; avoidance goals move away from something bad, like a partner's disappointment or guilt.
- approach and avoidance sexual motives approach and avoidance sexual goals · approach goals · avoidance goals
- The reasons behind saying yes to sex: pursuing something good, like closeness or pleasure, versus avoiding something bad, like a partner's disappointment, guilt, or conflict.
- approach motivation approach goals · approach sexual goals
- Orients us toward positive outcomes we want to gain — pleasure, intimacy, fun, feeling close — reaching for something good rather than preventing something bad.
- approach motives approach-motivated sacrifice
- Reasons for giving or sacrificing that aim toward something good — making a partner happy, feeling closer, expressing love — rather than away from something bad.
- ARFID Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
- Persistent restriction or avoidance of food — often driven by sensory characteristics, low interest in eating, or fear of choking — without the body-image concerns that define anorexia or bulimia.
- arousal concordance genital-subjective arousal concordance
- How closely physical genital arousal matches the arousal a person actually feels — the fit between what the body shows and what the mind experiences.
- arousal nonconcordance
- The loose, often weak match between what a person's genitals physically do and what their mind reports wanting or enjoying — studied especially in women.
- asexuality asexual · asexual spectrum
- Experiencing little or no sexual attraction to others; increasingly treated as a stable sexual orientation on a spectrum rather than a disorder to fix.
- asking about capacity capacity check
- Checking whether a partner has the attention and emotional reserves to take on a hard topic right now, before you raise it, rather than simply unloading and hoping they can cope.
- assertive communication assertive · direct communication · directness
- Stating your needs, feelings, and limits openly and respectfully, owning them as yours, and leaving the other person genuinely free to say yes or no.
- assimilation assimilation pressure
- One partner quietly abandoning their own background to adopt the other's, so only one history ends up shaping the shared life.
- assumed similarity projection
- The tendency to assume a partner feels and wants what you feel and want, using your own inner state as the answer key instead of checking theirs.
- assurances
- A repeated, low-cost signal of continued investment in the relationship's future — everyday messages that say the bond is stable and going somewhere, not formal promises.
- asynchronous asynchrony · desynchronized
- Out of step in time — here, when one partner has entered a new daily life like retirement while the other is still working.
- atonement phase atonement
- In affair recovery, the first phase of repair, in which the partner who betrayed expresses remorse and answers the hurt partner's questions honestly and fully.
- attachment / attachment style anxious · attachment insecurity · attachment style · attachment system · avoidant
- The learned pattern of trust and closeness a person brings into relationships, shaped by early bonds, that shows up as more secure or more anxious/avoidant ways of relating.
- attachment anxiety anxious attachment · attachment insecurity · attachment-related anxiety · partner-specific attachment anxiety
- The worried pole of insecure attachment: fear of being left, vigilance for signs of rejection, and a strong need for reassurance about where you stand.
- attachment avoidance avoidance · avoidant · avoidant (attachment) · avoidant attachment · avoidant distancing · highly avoidant
- An attachment pattern marked by discomfort with closeness — pulling away when intimacy rises and managing that unease through distance rather than through connection.
- attachment injury attachment injuries
- A betrayal or abandonment at a moment of acute need — when one partner reaches for the other and finds them absent — that becomes a lasting, trust-defining wound rather than a passing hurt.
- Attachment Injury Resolution Model AIRM
- A structured, multi-step process used within the second stage of Emotionally Focused Therapy to help a couple open, work through, and heal one specific attachment injury.
- attachment theory
- The theory that early bonds shape a learned pattern of trust and closeness people bring into adult relationships, showing up as more secure or more anxious/avoidant ways of relating.
- attentional adhesion
- The difficulty of pulling your gaze away from an attractive face — an early, hard-to-control stage of attention that grips before any deliberate thought kicks in.
- attitude clarity
- How clearly you understand what your own view actually is — knowing your real position, which is separate from being certain that position is correct.
- attitude depolarization depolarization
- Movement away from an extreme position toward a more moderate one — softening a view after expressing it rather than digging in harder.
- attractive alternatives alternatives
- Other potential partners available to someone already in a relationship — the tempting outside options that commitment has to contend with, not just anyone who happens to be good-looking.
- attribution attributional style · attributions · distress-maintaining attributions · relationship-enhancing attributions
- The explanation a person reaches for about why a partner acted as they did — the private cause assigned to a behavior, which shapes how they respond to it.
- attribution theory attribution
- A framework about how people explain the causes of behavior — reading an action as due to a passing situation or to a lasting trait in the person.
- ATTUNE
- Gottman's acronym for the skills of building trust: Awareness, Turning toward, Tolerance, Understanding, Non-defensive responding, and Empathy.
- attunement attuned · attunement to your pleasure · emotional attunement · misattunement
- Being closely tuned in to another person's inner state — sensing and responding to what they feel — so they feel understood rather than alone with it.
- autobiographical memory
- Memory for the events of one's own life — the personal experiences a person has lived through and can later recall, share, and revisit together.
- autonomous motivation autonomous forms of motivation
- Doing something because it feels meaningful and freely chosen — acting from your own reasons and interest rather than to satisfy pressure or win someone's approval.
- autonomy volition
- A sense that your actions are freely chosen and self-directed — in a relationship, still feeling like your own person rather than fused with or controlled by a partner.
- autonomy (practical independence)
- The freedom to run your own schedule, space, and choices independently — something distance quietly grants and reunion partly takes back as two lives merge again.
- autonomy support autonomy supportive · autonomy-support · autonomy-supportive · autonomy-supportive behavior
- Actively supporting a partner's right to make their own choices — acknowledging their perspective, offering real options, and standing behind a decision they reach themselves, rather than pressuring them toward your preference.
- autonomy-detracting
- Ways a companion crowds out a patient's own voice in a medical visit, such as interrupting, speaking over them, or controlling the exchange instead of supporting their participation.
- autonomy-enhancing
- Ways a companion supports a patient's own voice in a medical visit: clarifying information, helping patient and doctor understand each other, and prompting the patient to take part.
- autonomy-oriented help autonomous help · autonomy help
- Help that supplies tools, a hint, or a skill and leaves the person to finish the job themselves, treating them as capable.
- avoidance motivation avoidance goals · avoidance sexual goals
- Orients us away from negative outcomes we want to prevent — conflict, guilt, a partner's letdown — acting to stop something bad rather than to gain something good.
- avoidance motives avoidance-motivated sacrifice
- Reasons for giving or sacrificing that aim to dodge something bad — preventing a fight, escaping guilt, avoiding disappointment — rather than to gain something good.
- avoidance-motivated sex reluctant sex
- Agreeing to sex mainly to avoid a bad outcome — a partner's disappointment, conflict, or hurt feelings — rather than from one's own desire.
- awe
- The emotion felt in the presence of something vast that we can't quite fit into our existing understanding of the world — defined by vastness plus the mind's need to update itself.