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Our sons were five and two when we announced, "Saturday mornings are now 'Mommy-Daddy Time!'" We staked out our territory—the living room—and told the boys to stay in the family room in the basement, watching cartoons, without interrupting us (okay, so we were naive). And there would be no arguing or fighting between them. (That was a waste of breath.)

After sending our sons off to enjoy a morning of silly rabbits and doomed coyotes, we poured our coffee, found comfortable chairs, and settled down for a good talk.

We don't remember what we talked about that first morning. But evidently it encouraged us to plan for the next Saturday and then the next.

We were onto something.

Best intentions aside, we soon discovered that establishing consistency for our new approach wouldn't be easy. We stumbled often, we missed scheduled times together, we messed up sometimes by starting off with an out-of-sorts tone that colored the entire morning—causing frustration, anger, or hurt. But overall, we did one thing right. We never gave up.

Although there were weeks when it felt as though we'd gone one step forward and two steps back, the overall progress in our lives and our relationship remained constant, steady, and encouraging.

Life, however, seemed determined to work against us. We battled everything from the kids' activities to church prayer breakfasts to out-of-town trips. Chores and yard work beckoned. The phone rang often.

Distractions aside, sometimes there were mornings when communicating was difficult at best. Psychiatrists and psychologists advise that painful experiences must be shared verbally before a person can find complete healing, but achieving that goal means you must feel worse before getting better. We know that advice to be absolutely true. It is incredibly painful to share hurt feelings—and to hear them from each other. But ultimately, like cleaning infection from a wound, this is indeed a necessary step in our ongoing pursuit of marital intimacy.

The reward of such deep sharing is that core issues are exposed, processed, and eventually resolved. One time, for instance, Craig had been angry with Carolyn for making us late to something one evening. Craig lashed out with cutting words that deeply hurt Carolyn. That evening, there was a barrier between us that felt tangible, physically and emotionally. When we finally talked it out on a Saturday morning, Craig realized he had an obsession with not only being on time to things, but early. Further conversation brought up a childhood memory: At 10, Craig had made the baseball team, and his coach had warned, "Be there for practice, or you don't play." On game day, neither of Craig's parents could take him to the field, so he took the bus—and arrived late. The coach chewed him out in front of the whole team, and sure enough, he sat the bench. The pain of that moment made Craig resolve never to be late again.

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