There is nothing wrong with your marriage if you're dealing with bills and kids and the broken garbage disposal and in-laws and work demands. That's a normal marriage.

Take it from a guy: If you're in love with somebody, you will swim the stream, you will climb the mountain, you will slay the dragon. You're going to get to her somehow, some way.

Why do so many marriages fail? Because nobody gets taught how to be married. We're not taught how to pick a mate, or why to pick a mate; we don't know how to manage our emotions once we're in a marriage; we don't know how to resolve marital conflict. Married people have never been taught why they or their spouses feel the way they do and act the way they do. Nobody has ever taught us the fundamentals.

Like an enemy I knew as intimately as any friend, I came to know the nagging, constant emptiness of the incongruent life. I ignored myself and lived for people, purposes, and goals that weren't my own. I betrayed who I was and instead accepted a fictional substitute that was defined from the outside in.

In life you have three options with any situation that is a challenge. Remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it.

I just am not good at math.

People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. You should be an open book, be transparent.