by Mary Lynn Hendrickson

About the author: Mary Lynn Hendrickson is the contributing editor of Salt of the Earth magazine.

I'll just come right out and say it: a good fight is an essential ingredient to building a good marriage. I say it in large part because I need to hear it for myself. Like countless other married people—particularly married people who remain active in their church—marital fighting remains a taboo subject. Like confiding that one is a shopaholic or hasn't darkened the door of a confessional in years, admitting to other married people that you and your spouse spar on a fairly regular basis takes on an embarrassed and confidential tone.

Why is that? Such silence, it seems to me, conspires to put modern-day marriages at great risk. To do my part to help dispel this conspiracy of...