Based on your most recent interaction I'd liked to suggest a technique:
Try to remember all the fights you didn't have because of words that were never spoken. Use the conversation above as a starting point.
Notice how refusing to take a conversation down a negative path helped the conversation melt into your lives instead of take over your lives. Chances are you remember negative conversations more than positive conversations because positive conversations are forgettable.
Since your wife is having a positive response, I think your marriage would greatly benefit if you continued a conscious effort toward making positive conversations a memorable event between you and your wife. A great example of making positive conversations a memorable event is what you just did when you sent the video card as a follow up.
Negative conversations lead to arguments and rob you both of any strides you may have made. Arguments continue in our mind long after the actual conversation has ended. This is how a negative conversation continues.
You can use this same technique with a positive conversations by continuing the "niceness" long after the actual conversation has ended.
