LaughingIshikawa

I've also heard people refer to the idea of "fighting nicely" as "non-violent communication" or much less frequently (but referring to the same practice) as "compassionate communication" - in case you want more things to google : )

The fact of the matter is that 69% of conflict in relationships is unresolvable... you deal with them over and over and over throughout your life.

That seems rather shocking to me, could you possibly elaborate and/or provide a source for that statistic?

Just some random thoughts:

She also claims the best way for her to get off [is] vanilla

You seem skeptical... while I'm all for people being willing to try kinky sex, I think there's a danger in assuming that it's always better sex. It's just different "flavors" of sex - you can have really terrible kinky sex, or really great "vanilla" sex.

and I know doing any sort of open relationship would destroy ours.

I assume you have good reasons to feel this way, but in reality I think it's a lot harder to predict such things. I've heard more than one story of couples where the man initiated the idea of swinging... but after visiting a club a few times, it was the wife who was more excited about returning! I'm definitely not saying you should pressure your wife into something like that (the wives in the stories I mentioned were unenthusiastic, not reluctant.) but I do think it's difficult to predict how someone will really react to non-monogamy when monogamy is all they've ever known... so don't rule it out arbitrarily.

Good relationships are already a two-way street with partners consistently doing things for each other... but more to the point, "equal" doesn't mean "the same..." If he wants sex and she wants food, why is it wrong for him to cook dinner for her and her to give him a hand job?