The first step is recognizing that within each fight is not just one conflict, but, at a minimum, two: There’s the surface issue causing us to disagree with each other, and then the emotional conflict underneath. “Say you have a couple fighting with each other about having another kid,” Heen told me. “There’s the top-level conflict—you want another child, and I don’t—that seems, at first glance, to explain why they’re fighting. But there’s also a deeper emotional issue:
