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But Karin couldn't wait any longer. "I said, 'Something's got to give, or we're done.' It was ugly."

So they cancelled the rest of the tour and went home—with the support of their record company and their fans, as it turned out—knowing that their marriage was on the line. They could save it. Or lose it.

"And," says Karin, "we couldn't do it without outside help." Including the divine.

Linford and Karin returned to their Cincinnati home and went right to work. They got counseling—together and separately—where they discussed, among other things, how ill-equipped they were when they walked down the aisle. They both came from broken homes, and neither had a clue what a healthy marriage looked like.

"We had issues from our childhood, and what we saw—or didn't see—in our own home life left us both unprepared," says Karin. "We didn't have the tools for marriage. But we're artists, and artists think they don't have to play by the rules. I think in some respects, you can get away with that. But when it comes to a marriage, you can't."

Their counselor—a Christian, like Linford and Karin—helped equip them with tools, such as making those daily deposits, and saving that metaphorical "glass of water" for each other. They were starting to learn a simple truth: nothing takes priority over the relationship—not the music, not friends, not the tour, not anything.

Meanwhile, they also met with older friends/mentors who had solid marriages—and who shared good advice. They read two books by marriage expert John Gottman, The Relationship Cure and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. And they prayed, asking God to help and heal, to reconcile and restore.

They continued to live together—mostly. Sometimes, when one was home, the other might stay in a hotel for a day or two. At times, it looked like a quasi-separation. And even when they were under the same roof, they were "sort of living separate lives," says Linford.

But they kept working at it. "We were civil," says Karin.

"Yeah," says Linford. "But we were getting into it too."

But even those clashes were a step in the right direction. Karin remembers one fight "where we were really shouting down the house. Sometimes that can be productive. It's much better than that deafening silence where nobody knows what anybody's thinking."

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