You can be right or related, right or happy.

Our survival brain pushes us to fight/flight/freeze. But we can cultivate our mammalian nurturing systems as well. Your wife did a perfect “empathy prompt” exercise. If we can retain a seed of compassion for the other people in our lives, and remember to retain friendliness and common humanity towards ourselves and others, we can defuse the natural moments of tension that can happen. As Buddhists say “relationships are the highest form of spiritual practice.” More at “Understanding Anger: Generating Compassion” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5K9WvYVJU0