In my limited experience, couples create marital loneliness over years via bitter complaints when they should've worked on addressing the issue. Instead of sayi

In my limited experience, couples create marital loneliness over years via bitter complaints when they should've worked on addressing the issue. Instead of saying "honey I'd really like you to enjoy 24, and could you please let me show you how wonderful that show is", a wife would instead say "You never like any show that I enjoy". And immediately the tension mounts. Instead of saying "honey I know you don't enjoy playing tennis, but how about we find something we both like and we can even get a coach", a husband would simply say nothing and find a bunch of strangers to watch tennis in a bar. I don't quite understand such behavior, to be honest. We know that we shouldn't bitterly criticize friends, nor should we use absolute words like "never" or "always" on them. We also know that we should find common interests among friends, and it's okay if we occasionally get it wrong, like this one time you took your pacifist friends to a paintball tournament. Then, why can't we treat our spouse, someone we took an oath to spend the rest of our life with, like our friends? We learn how to conduct crucial conversation and nonviolent communication in our job, then why can't we do the same in our home? I puzzles me to no end.