Let's say your spouse is constantly criticizing you. You feel frustrated, so you criticize them as well. Someone stops you and says, "Wait, you should criticize

Let's say your spouse is constantly criticizing you. You feel frustrated, so you criticize them as well. Someone stops you and says, "Wait, you should criticize them less. Then they'll feel less frustrated and might also criticize you less." And you can, and do, and with some decent faith on both sides you can de-escalate. This is basically marriage counseling. This is how relationships improve. You're framing this as a simple prisoner's dilemma problem with sharp-edged binary choices - but it's much more fluid than that in real life. The fluidity non-binaryness of this is even more apparent given it's millions of people we're talking about, over time lasting generations. If life really was a prisoner dilemma cooperation would be impossible.