In one word, selfishness.

You cannot have a good marriage when either partner thinks selfishly. And that means you, not just your partner! This isn’t an insurmountable problem, the answer is fairly simple. The key is to overcome the natural tendency to think that my way is the best way and that if you’ll listen to me we’ll both be happy.

I don’t ever give up hope on any marriage no matter what it looks like at the time. I wrote a book called, “Hope For the Separated: Wounded Marriages Can Be Healed.” It’s written to people who are separated and I’m being empathetic to say that if you had a healthy marriage you wouldn’t be separated. Obviously the marriage is sick but sickness doesn’t necessarily mean death. If you had a physical problem we would put you in intensive care and try to take care of it. And that is just what a marriage needs, if it has intensive care, chances are they can be reconciled.