Two years ago, my wife and I were ready to call it quits after 10 years of marriage. We loved each other deeply, but every conversation turned into a fight. I felt unseen, she felt attacked. We both got defensive, shut down, and walked away with more resentment than before. We didn’t need more love, we needed better tools. So we dug in. We learned how to regulate before speaking, how to listen with curiosity instead of defensiveness, and how to repair when we got it wrong. That work saved our ma