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Your marriage
What keeps a marriage well is not the big gestures. It is knowing each other, turning towards each other in ordinary moments, staying regulated when it gets hot, and repairing quickly when it goes wrong. Most of the practices here take under five minutes.
What works for this
Gottman on repair, and emotionally focused therapy
What separates couples who last is not the absence of conflict but what happens in the ordinary moments and whether repair gets through. Emotionally focused therapy works on the pattern the two of you fall into, not the thing being argued about.
One move, today
Notice one small overture from them today and answer it. Not a conversation, just turning towards it rather than past it.
What matches
3 practicesOffer a full, tender apology for a wound, with no defence appended.
I see how that hurt you, and I am truly sorry. Then stop. The silence after is the repair.
After a fight cools today, say the reconnecting thing: we are still okay.
The fight can leave a quiet fear. Naming that you are still solid puts it to rest.
When your spouse names a wound you caused, listen without defending, even once.
Not I didn't mean to. First: I hear that I hurt you, and I am sorry. Defence can wait.