<human>: Summarize the given text in a few sentences.

Things have been rough for a while.  We just had a kid (3 months) so there's the stress and exhaustion from that and the pregnancy before it.  I also lost my job about a year and a half ago and have been working freelance/independently since then, so income is low and unstable.  We're surviving fine with some passive income and her maternity benefits, but she's very security-conscious so is stressed out anyway.

We end up snapping at each other and fighting over the dumbest things.  Our fights are locked in a pretty predictable pattern of defensiveness, arguments that only frustrate the other person, etc.

We usually just sleep it off and are ok in the morning, but we both hate this and don't know how to fix it.

I know the first piece of advice on here (after "dump the bitch you deserve to be happy") is usually "talk to your partner", but that's the thing - we're good at starting the conversations, we just can't end them well.

I guess I'm looking for sort of an underlying way to go into these conversations, or maybe a book that helped someone, or something.  We're open to counselling but can't really make that happen right now b/c of the kid, and might try in a few months when we can leave him with other people.
<bot>: wife and I always end up fighting when we talk, looking for advice or books or something to use as a base for our fixing this