Glossary terms beginning with L
The plain-language glossary behind The Architecture of Intimacy — a field guide to 369 green flags of healthy relationships.
Terms beginning with L
- legacy thinking
- Two partners talking openly and together about the kind of life they want to build and the mark they hope to leave on people and the world beyond themselves.
- legible
- Able to be read and understood — here, a request whose intent is plain, so a partner can meet it, negotiate, or decline it.
- leisure gap
- The unequal distribution of genuine rest between partners — the leftover, recovered hours after work is done — where one person ends up with far less unclaimed downtime than the other.
- life-transition synchrony synchronize · synchronized · synchronized retirement
- Two partners timing a major life change so they reach the new stage at roughly the same time, rather than one crossing over long before the other.
- liking genuine liking
- In this book, genuinely enjoying a partner as a person — finding them interesting, funny, and good company — treated as distinct from loving or desiring them.
- liminal space
- An in-between, transitional zone — like a commute — where a person is neither fully in their work role nor their home role, easing the shift between them.
- logrolling
- Trading across the issues in a disagreement: each person gives way on the points they care less about to win on the points they care more about, beating a flat compromise.
- longitudinal longitudinal analysis · longitudinal experiment · longitudinal follow-up · longitudinal research · longitudinal study · longitudinal work · prospective longitudinal · two-wave longitudinal
- A study that follows the same people over time (often years), allowing researchers to see change and sequence, not just a single-moment snapshot.
- loss-oriented coping
- The side of grieving that confronts the loss itself — yearning, remembering, looking at photos, letting the pain of the death be felt.
- Love Lab
- The Gottmans' apartment-style observation lab where couples spend ordinary time together while researchers record and study their everyday interactions.
- love languages five love languages
- A popular framework claiming each person has one main way of giving and receiving love — words, time, gifts, acts, or touch — that partners should match.
- love maps building love maps · detailed love map · love map
- A partner's stored, detailed knowledge of the other's inner world — their history, hopes, worries, and the people and stories that shaped them — kept current over time.
- love-bombing love bombing
- Overwhelming, excessive admiration or affection delivered early in a relationship as a tactic to fast-track intimacy and lower a person's guard, often followed by withdrawal.
- low blow
- Using something a partner confided in trust — a fear, a failure, a diagnosis — as a weapon against them during conflict; a betrayal of disclosure, not mere harshness.
- low-arousal (positive emotion) low-arousal positive affect
- A calm, settled kind of good feeling — relaxed and peaceful rather than excited or elated, low in bodily energy even though it feels pleasant.
- Loyola Generativity Scale LGS
- A self-report questionnaire measuring how strongly a person cares about guiding and benefiting future generations, with items about leaving a legacy and passing on knowledge.