When you stand at the altar, look deeply into your husband's eyes, and vow to stay together through sickness and health, it is impossible to predict the future. For some rare and lucky couples, this blissfully happy moment will be a foreshadowing of many uncomplicated, contented years. For the majority of couples, however, there will be a blend of both good patches and challenging times.

The obstacles arrive at different times for different couples. For some couples, the difficulty of communicating begins before the wedding photos are even arranged in an album. For others, it takes a life-changing event, such as the birth of a child or the loss of a job, to change the relationship between the husband and wife. For still others, it may be decades before silence has slowly taken over the house after the kids have departed for college and retirement is looming on the horizon.

One of the most difficult things to face is the realization that you and your husband never talk anymore. There are a variety of patterns that this lack of communication can follow, unique for every relationship. Maybe every time you start to talk, your conversation devolves into a stressful argument, with regrettable words exchanged and lasting emotional wounds created in the heat of the moment. After a while, you might have learned it is better to not even start a conversation at all. Or maybe you still communicate politely, but menially, and never really discuss things in detail anymore.