Relationship Vocabulary
Key Terms to Uplevel Communication in Your Relationships
Michaela Rothschild
June 8, 2023
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We’ve mentioned a number of words and phrases when describing relationship dynamics, and it can be helpful to clarify what we mean by them. So we made this list for you! Our hope is that it will be helpful for you to see these definitions and that you can use them in conversations with your partner to build the skill of healthy relating.
General Relating
Active Listening
A skill you can use in conversations with people that improves your understanding of what you are each trying to say. This can look like repeating what they said back to them in your own words and asking if you are understanding correctly, offering validation as you stay engaged in what they are saying, asking clarifying questions, and sharing that you care about what they are sharing with you. Active listening is far more about the quality of your presence than what you’re saying. It’s about caring deeply and staying curious about the ever-unfolding, ever-changing human being before you.
Attachment Style
A theory built by psychologists in the 1950s, attachment refers to a deep, emotional bond that exists between two people. The qualities of a person’s bond with their parents during childhood, as well as other life experiences, can shape the style of attachment a person has in adult relationships. People tend to have secure, anxious, avoidant, or ambivalent attachment styles.
- Secure attachment is characterized by a healthy desire for emotional intimacy that is not primarily motivated by fear.
- Anxious attachment is characterized by a strong fear of abandonment.
- Avoidant attachment is characterized by a strong fear of emotional intimacy.
Ambivalent attachment is characterized by a simultaneous desire for and fear of emotional intimacy. This term sometimes goes by other names, such as disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment.
Knowing your attachment style can help you identify what you need in order to feel safe in a relationship. It can also help you uncover why relationships may be challenging for you. If you want to learn more, we recommend the book Attached.
Attunement
The continuous practice of paying attention to your loved one and resonating with them. Let’s break that down!
Paying attention, in this context, means noticing their mood, body language, and nonverbal voice cues in the context of their life experience, personality, and needs.
MICHAELA'S PERSONAL EXAMPLE
“For example, it’s not unusual for any one person to look at the ground when saying hello – but I know it’s not usually what Savannah does, and that when she’s done that in the past, I’ve later found out she was feeling sad. So when she does that again, I know something is most likely going on for her. This example shows how attunement involves being present and observing the people we love over time and tracking how their inner experience lines up with their outward expression.”
Resonating, in this context, means: accepting and validating your loved one, empathizing with them, actively listening, and complementing their body language and nonverbal cues. I say “complementing” their body language and not “matching” their body language because when Savannah is sad and looking at the ground, she doesn’t need me to also look at the ground. She needs me to open my body language and soften my voice. Open body language and softness in my voice are supportive compliments to her energy that serve to connect with her in an unthreatening way. It’s important to note that complementary behavior does not intend to change how someone feels by expressing the emotional state you’d like them to feel.
Put another way, you are making a practice of “tuning in” to your loved one and calmly “meeting them where they are at” on an ongoing basis. When both people consistently do this for each other, it creates a deeply loving bond. Attunement also includes the practice of listening for and responding warmly towards any emotional bids that your partner may be sending your way.
You can also make a practice of attuning to yourself. Another word for self-attunement that you may have heard is “self-awareness.” This entails staying present with yourself, your behavior, the state of your mind, your posture, the sensations in your body, and any emotions that arise within you.
Edges, Boundaries, & Limits
A framework created by Michael McDonald to help you decide if choosing to do something scary will hurt you or help you grow. You can tell that the choice will help you grow if thinking about it feels a little uncomfortable but also exciting – that’s an edge. You can tell that the choice will hurt you if thinking about it is very upsetting, angering, or shame-inducing – that’s a limit. Boundaries exist somewhere in the middle; they are safeguards you deliberately put in place to protect you from harm, which happens when a limit is crossed. You can use this framework (visualized below) to identify what choices you want to make in life and to communicate those choices to others. If you’d like to learn more, read Michael’s article on Edges, Boundaries, and Limits.
Emotional Bids
Acts you or your partner make to connect with one another. The idea of emotional bids was coined by the Gottman Institute and they define bids as “the fundamental unit of emotional communication.” Bids can be small or big, verbal or nonverbal. They might take the form of a statement, question, or physical outreach; they can be funny, serious, or sexual in nature. They’re crucial to understand and notice because as the Gottmans found in their research, the couples that respond warmly to each other’s emotional bids tend to stay together and those that don’t… don’t.
Bids are subtle because they’re often unconscious attempts to seek out connection and attunement. Most people aren’t going to know exactly what unmet need they have and make a direct request of you to meet it, they’re gonna just feel a pang for connection and reach out for it in the form of a little bid. Here are some examples of emotional bids to help you understand:
- Statements: “Jeez, I’m so tense after that meeting today.” “I just finished fixing that leaky faucet in the bathroom.” “I’m not sure what to do today.” “I gotta tell you about what Shannon said yesterday.”
- Questions: “How was work today?” “Can you hand me the salt?” “Wanna watch a movie?”
- Actions: Reaching out their hand to hold yours, them checking you out with a smile, giving you a tender squeeze on the arm, walking their fingers over to you, making eye contact from across the room with a look of panic, touching their foot to yours.
If you respond to your partner’s bid with connection and attunement, you’re creating more trust with your partner and over time those small moments add up to a larger sense of emotional safety. If you act neutrally or “turn away” (as the Gottmans call it) by being passive, not responding, or giving the bare minimum response, that trust-building moment goes unfulfilled. And if you “turn against” and respond negatively to their bid (pushing their hand away angrily, responding with anger, rejecting them) this can really hurt your partner. So it’s key to make an ongoing practice of attuning to your partner, watching for their bids, and sending out some of your own in a way that feels authentic to you. There’s a lot of nuance and depth to this topic so if you want to learn more, check out this helpful blog post on the Gottman Institute’s website.
Emotional Safety
Emotional safety means that you feel comfortable being vulnerable with someone, because you trust that person will respond to your emotions with warmth, acceptance, and care. It’s an important part of a deeply bonded relationship.
Integrity
There are many definitions of integrity, but in this context, it means: when a person’s behavior matches their values. For example, when someone values honesty, they will tell the truth even if they could get away with lying. Or if someone values authenticity and self-expression, and they have a strong sense of integrity, they will communicate their feelings and needs directly instead of people pleasing and manipulating others to covertly get what they want.
SAVANNAH'S PERSONAL EXAMPLE
“That was me a while ago! By doing the practices we now teach in our programs, I took responsibility for being in greater integrity with myself and healed the underlying causes of my unconscious people pleasing.”
Integrity is an important quality in relationships because it can be very confusing to have a relationship with someone who doesn’t consistently act in line with their values. This confusion can prevent the formation of a safe, loving bond between people.
Intuition
Intuition is your sense of what is true for you, that empowers you to follow what’s important to you even if you can’t quite rationalize it. A well-cultivated intuition can give you a strong sense of direction when navigating relationships. It takes practice to learn how to listen to your intuition, and identify when it is your intuition steering you instead of the many other influences that can shape your decisions – other people’s desires, your own fears, societal norms, or cognitive biases, for example.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing on the present moment, while observing your feelings, thoughts, and physical sensations with acceptance and neutral curiosity. It’s a state of being that can be applied to literally anything: walking, breathing, connecting with your partner, doing the dishes, the list goes on. When done habitually, it can improve self-awareness and reduce chronic stress. People who practice mindfulness bring those benefits to their partner, as well.
Safe Space
To be a safe space for someone means they know you will treat them in a way that is conducive to their wellbeing; they know that they are safe from any psychological or physical threats when they are with you. They know you’ll be accepting and compassionate towards them. You may challenge them or engage in conflict, but you’ll do so in a respectful way that supports each person’s wellbeing and growth. It’s a similar concept to emotional safety.
Conflict
Attunement (in Conflict)
In conflict, you can give attunement to help your upset loved one fully feel their feelings in a safe space, so they can find their way back to being calm. You do this by offering acceptance, validation, empathy, active listening, and nonjudgmental curiosity to whatever they are experiencing. You also simultaneously complement their emotions with your body language and tone of voice and stay calm yourself. Complementing their emotions validates them and creates a connection between the two of you, while staying calm yourself helps them feel safe and find their own path back towards feeling calm. It’s important to note that you can’t force your loved one to feel calm by “making it better” or in any other way; this is a practice of patience and acceptance for whatever comes up. If you’d like to learn more, watch our tiktok on attunement.
Attunement in conflict can sound similar to holding space in conflict. The difference is that attunement in conflict is the act of supporting and even facilitating your partner through your words, questions, touch and overall support, whereas holding space is the receptive state of being you’re embodying as you’re being present with your partner in a conflict. They go hand in hand and are often done at the same time.
Comfort vs. Solutions
To resolve conflict fully, it’s often necessary to comfort your partner and to find a solution to improve whatever caused the conflict. Both are important, and your partner could need one or the other at varying times during the conflict resolution. If they need comfort but you offer solutions, or vice versa, it can feel invalidating to your partner. So, it can be helpful to use these terms to identify what your partner needs in a given moment. For example, you could say “Thanks for telling me you’re upset. Would you like comfort or solutions?”
Dysregulated
You are dysregulated when your sympathetic nervous system gets activated in response to a perceived threat. This is often called a “fight or flight response,” though there are several additional common sympathetic nervous system responses to a threat, including “freeze” and “fawn.” These are all involuntary reactions your nervous system uses to try to keep you safe. It’s important to note these responses can get triggered whether the threat is physical (a car almost hit you) or emotional (your partner is yelling at you). These responses can also get triggered in non-threatening situations, like if a situation feels similar to a previous experience that was threatening (i.e. the similarity in the situations triggers the memory, emotion, physical pain, and associated threat response that was felt when the original event occurred). This is because the nervous system will form response patterns to new situations based on what has happened in the past. Thankfully, due to neuroplasticity, we do have the power to reshape our patterned responses.
Emotional Charge
This term refers to a palpable sensation of emotional tension in one person, between you and another person, or in a group of people. It’s like an invisible emotion-thermostat that tells you how high emotions are running. You can use this term in several ways.
First, you can use it to ask about your loved one’s experience: “I noticed that talking about our dinner plans seemed to have some emotional charge for you. Would you like to share what was going on for you in that conversation?”
You can also use it to talk about your own experience: “It was a frustrating situation, but I don’t feel that emotionally charged by it.”
You can also use it to enter conflict in a healthy way: “I feel an emotional charge between us. Is something happening that we should talk about?”
There are probably other ways to use it, too!
Gaslighting
Gaslighting occurs when someone psychologically manipulates another person into doubting their own experience of reality. This can happen in a lot of different ways. For example, someone can deny something happened that you distinctly remember, or insist something happened that you are sure did not. Or, you could tell them you are hurt by something that happened and they could try to convince you that you shouldn’t feel hurt. They could express concerns about your behavior or emotional state when there’s nothing wrong with you, or name-call you “too sensitive” or “crazy.” It can be difficult to tell if you are being gaslighted, but if you are, it’s an unhealthy relationship dynamic that you should not have to tolerate. We recommend seeing a mental health professional if you suspect you are being gaslighted, so you can feel confident that you are mentally healthy and be supported in taking a stand against the person gaslighting you or safely exiting the relationship. See Objective vs. Subjective Truth for additional explanation of these themes.
Holding Space
Holding yourself and your reactions (though not repressing them) so that you can be emotionally available to your partner’s emotional process. Holding space may sound similar to attunement. Attunement is the ongoing state of presence and connection you maintain with your partner. Holding space is done in conflict or in moments when your partner really needs your deep emotional support.
Intent vs. Impact
Many relationship conflicts occur because the intent behind one person’s behavior is different from the impact the other person felt as a result of the behavior. For example, you can do something out of love for your partner (intent), but because it reminds them of something their ex did it can feel threatening to them (impact).
You can use the terms intent and impact to clear up these miscommunications. It’s important to treat both the intent and the impact as equally valid. Even though your partner didn’t intend to hurt you, it’s ok to need their help in repairing how it impacted you. And even though you are hurt, it’s important to understand that your partner didn’t intend to hurt you.
A lot of arguments occur when the person who has impacted their partner gets defensive and argues that they “didn’t mean to hurt them” (as if knowing this would logically fix their partner’s feelings) – all the while their partner is still hurt and now feels invalidated. In these situations, it’s so important to first care for the impact (ie the hurt, the emotions) with love and attunement and then ask if the other person is open to hearing what your intent was.
Objective Truth vs. Subjective Truth
In conflict, the objective truth is the factual reality of what happened – ie, “My partner said they would call me at 7 but they didn’t call me until 8.” The subjective truth, otherwise known as a narrative, or story, is anything that isn’t objectively true – ie, “My partner doesn’t care about me because they didn’t call me when they said they would.”
Both the objective truth and the subjective truth have an important role to play in conflict. The objective truth is important for both partners to acknowledge. If your partner consistently has a different version of the objective truth from you, there may not be much you can do to resolve the conflict. If your partner tries to convince you that the objective truth you know is false, they may be gaslighting you. Finally, there may be more to the objective truth than both of you realize – for example, in your moment of hurt, you may forget that though your partner didn’t call you on time today, they did call you on time the past 6 times you talked. Or in their moment of defensiveness, they may remind you that they usually call on time, but forget that there are other ways in which they haven’t followed through on commitments lately. It’s an important part of conflict resolution to name all the objective truths to build a shared objective reality together, separate from the subjective reality you may each be experiencing.
The subjective reality is an important part of conflict resolution because it can point to where you may each need some reassurance and love from each other. In this example, you could say, “Even though you usually call me on time, you didn’t today, and that made me feel like you don’t care about me.” That last statement – “You don’t care about me” – is the story (the subjective truth). It is important for you and your partner to explore together why you feel that way. Maybe it actually isn’t just because of this one late phone call. Maybe it’s because of a number of things going on at a deeper level in the relationship. This is the value of the subjective truth – it can point to what in the relationship may need some adjusting so that both people can feel good. It can also uncover needs that you each have in your relationship. For example, you may realize you have a need for your partner to call you on time every single time. That need may or may not be something your partner can sustainably commit to meeting. If there are consistent incompatibilities between one’s needs and their partner’s willingness and ability to meet said needs it may bring up the question of whether or not each partner is compatible.
Part
In the context of conflict navigation in partnership, parts refer to an inner sub-personality of yours that has needs, opinions, and interpretations of your experiences. The term comes from a form of psychotherapy called Internal Family Systems, or partswork. The premise of Internal Family Systems is that within each of us, we have many different parts of our psyche that are all trying to get important needs met and keep you safe. They may have different, and oftentimes conflicting, ways of fulfilling those needs and protecting you. Using partswork as a framework can help make sense of conflicting feelings and reactions you are having by personifying those feelings into parts you can observe and communicate with. It can also help keep a conflict in perspective; you can say to your partner, “The whole of me loves you, and there’s a part of me that’s angry at you right now.” That statement can offer more safety to your partner than simply “I’m angry at you!” – and if they feel safe, they are more likely to be able to help address the unmet needs that are surfacing in you through your angry part.
Shame Resilience
Experiencing the feeling of shame is often very intense and many people find it intolerable. To avoid feeling shame, people may get defensive, deny what’s happening, or disconnect from the situation, which can often escalate conflict. Coined by Brene Brown, the term shame resilience means building awareness of when you are feeling ashamed, and moving through that experience in a constructive way that de-escalates the conflict. If you’d like to learn more, watch our tiktok on shame resilience.
Sorry Sympathy vs Sorry Apology
Sometimes in conflict when your partner shares that your behavior had a negative impact on them, you may have an instinct to say “sorry.” You can use these phrases with your partner to distinguish between:
- Sorry Sympathy: empathizing with your partner’s pain, while knowing that you were in integrity with your own values and your relationship agreements. Think: “Even though I didn’t do anything wrong, I see that you are hurting and I care deeply for your feelings.”
- Sorry Apology: seeing that you were out of integrity with your values and/or your relationship agreements and acknowledging the negative impact your actions caused them, Think: “I made a mistake, and I am taking accountability for how that impacted you.”
This distinction helps to bring more clarity to a conversation that is otherwise made murky by the English language’s multiple meanings for “sorry.” It also helps both people understand who is taking responsibility for the impact that has occurred.
Taking Turns
This is an approach to having conversations that you and your partner can use to help prevent a conflict from escalating. In this approach, one person gets a turn to share their side of the conflict and has freedom to express without criticism or rebuttal. They receive empathy and validation from the other person, who stays calm and patient. The other person holds space, and helps their loved one identify what they need. Once the first person has shared everything they want to share, it’s the other person’s turn. If you’d like to learn more, watch our tiktoks on taking turns:
Trigger
A trigger is an experience that causes a person’s nervous system to be dysregulated, which can surface as significant emotional upset. This often happens because the triggering experience unconsciously feels connected to a traumatizing event from their past. This means that their reaction may not seem appropriate for the current situation. It’s helpful to keep this in mind when navigating conflict with your partner; if you are surprised by how upset they become, the reaction may be coming from very painful memories – and your partner may not even fully be aware that this previous experience is shaping their current behavior.
Tells
The state of being triggered is when a person is in that place of significant nervous system dysregulation (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn). When navigating conflict, it can be helpful to use this term to explain what is happening within you to your partner, so they can better support you. For example, you can say “I’m triggered right now. I need 15 minutes alone to calm down.”
Validation
To validate someone is to acknowledge to them that their feelings are ok to feel, and their perceptions are valid – in other words, that they are not crazy. It’s a simple act that can help create a sense of safety in the relationship for your partner. Simple though it may be, two challenges can make it more easily said than done. The first is that oftentimes people think it must be more complicated than it is – it’s not! Simply repeating what your partner says, saying “That’s valid,” or “It’s ok to feel that way” is providing validation and can feel really good. Another challenge is that oftentimes people think that by validating their partner’s perceptions, they are saying those perceptions are the objective, full truth – it’s not! You can say “I can understand why you’d feel hurt because I didn’t call you when I said I would,” and then provide more information, such as, “I got into a minor car accident and got really frazzled and forgot what I was supposed to do when I got home.”
If you have any questions about a definition or you’d like me to add a definition to this list, drop a comment or shoot us an email! We also discuss these terms on our tiktok account and in our workshops. My hope is that you can use these terms to have stronger communication and therefore a stronger bond with your special person.
With Love,
Michaela
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WRITTEN BY
Michaela Rothschild
Hi friend! Thanks for hanging out with my thoughts here in cyberspace. As co-owner of Collective Channel, I help people find their truth so they can live in alignment with their deepest values. I combine the empathy and personal transformation skills I learned from my time as a performance artist with the product management skills I learned from my time in software. From that foundation, I help clients build a roadmap for their personal growth and support them in every step they take towards their goals. When away from my computer, I’m usually dancing, mountain biking, remodeling my home, playing on the playa, or building radically authentic relationships with my friends, family, and sweetheart.
