I used to run my own email for years. Started on qmail, postfix+dovecot. Anti-spam (spamassassin for a while, rspamd), spf+dkim+dmarc, srs, arc-signing for forwards. All kinds of other tools, even wrote some of my own. I’ve learned a lot and pretty much ran the gamut to be honest.
So all that said, nowadays I just host with mxroute. Bought a lifetime plan. There’s features it doesn’t have but it’s good enough to get emails and a lot easier than self hosting.
I generally recommend finding a host that has the features you want at a price that seems fair. Email is the kind of thing that needs to just always work.
Once you set it up sure, it’s rock solid. Until one day you realize your emails are getting dropped and there’s some new thing you’ve gotta look into. Let somebody else handle it.
Based on your other comments of mentioning she was on the phone, it sounds like what was really bothering you was that the phone was getting attention and you weren’t. So just say that.
You definitely need to get comfortable with having quiet time where you’re both just reading, goofing off on the phone, or whatever. You can’t talk 100 percent of the time.
If the actual silence is an issue just throw on some music. I can’t think of a nicer time than starting the day with some coffee and music.