Glossary terms beginning with G
The plain-language glossary behind The Architecture of Intimacy — a field guide to 369 green flags of healthy relationships.
Terms beginning with G
- gate-closing gate closing
- Behaviors that shut the other parent out — unwarranted criticism, taking over a task, or denying them solo time with the child.
- gate-opening opening the gate
- Encouraging the other parent's involvement — creating openings for them and resisting the urge to manage, correct, or redo how they care for the children.
- gatekeeping maternal gatekeeping
- When the main caregiver limits the other parent's involvement by hovering, correcting, or redoing their efforts, teaching that parent to stop trying.
- gaze aversion averted gaze · looking away
- Looking away from someone's face — turning the eyes to the side or into the distance — instead of holding their gaze while listening, thinking, or speaking.
- gender dysphoria
- The distress a person feels when their body, or the gender others assign them, clashes with their own felt gender identity.
- generativity couple-level generativity · joint generativity
- Concern and care for people, institutions, and futures beyond yourself — expressed through raising, mentoring, volunteering, activism, and community-building — treated in adult development as a central task of adulthood.
- gentle start-up gentle startup · soft start-up · soft start-ups · soft startup · softened start-up · softened startup · softening start-up · softening startup · softening the start-up · softer start-up
- Opening a disagreement softly — naming one concrete issue and your own feelings without 'always' or 'never' — rather than a harsh, global accusation that tends to escalate.
- geographically close geographically close (proximal) · geographically close relationship · proximal
- Living near enough to see each other in person day to day — the opposite of long-distance, where partners are separated by travel distance.
- gift gap
- The common mismatch between how givers and receivers judge the same gift — givers expect surprise to signal thoughtfulness that receivers often do not feel.
- glorifying the struggle glorify the struggle
- Telling a couple's hard times as proof of strength and commitment — hardship remembered as something that made the pair stronger, not merely endured.
- goal conflict
- How much one partner's goals get in the way of the other's, so that pursuing one person's aim makes the other's harder to reach.
- goal congruence goal concordance
- How much two partners want the same things, rather than pursuing different aims — the overlap between what each person genuinely hopes for and works toward.
- goal interdependence
- The ways two partners' goals are linked: how much they want the same things, how much they help each other's pursuits, and how much their aims get in each other's way.
- goal support
- How much each partner actively helps the other pursue their goals, rather than staying neutral or standing in the way of them.
- golden mean (of giving) golden mean
- The idea that helping benefits the helper up to a moderate level, past which the gains fade or turn negative as giving crowds out the rest of life.
- gracious receiving
- The skill of letting a partner give to you — accepting help, gifts, and care warmly and fully instead of deflecting, minimizing, or insisting you are fine.
- gratitude
- A positive emotion felt when someone's help registers as genuine care; it draws you toward the giver and makes you want to be good to them, not just repay them.
- gratitude intervention structured gratitude practice
- A structured exercise designed to build gratitude on purpose — such as regularly writing down or saying aloud things you are thankful for.
- gridlock gridlocked conflict
- A recurring fight that never resolves — the same argument returning in the same shape, often because deeper hopes or dreams underneath it have not been voiced.
- grief trajectory
- A person's path of grief intensity tracked over time; researchers sort people into patterns such as consistently low or persistently high grief.
- growth mindset growth belief · growth-minded
- The belief that a relationship can be developed through effort — skills like listening and repair can be learned, and obstacles can make the bond stronger rather than proving it wrong.
- guilt
- Here, distress focused on a specific bad action — the feeling 'I did something bad' — which tends to motivate apology and repair.
- guilt-tripping guilt induction · guilt trip
- Trying to change a partner's behavior by making them feel guilt, obligation, or shame instead of asking directly and honestly — turning a feeling into a tool of pressure.