Admittedly its mostly me playing without my wife and we are both average players and simply play for fun. We absolutely doesn't know all our pin rules and mostly just aim for the currently blinking lights.
Our goal when playing together is to get to enter our initials but we never compare scores. This relaxed atmosphere make us avoid all the problems you seem to have, our only goal is to have fun and 0 about winning so no upset feelings or drama if someone "wins" with a higher score.