When one partner in a relationship or a marriage breaks the agreed-upon moral code, he often feels that he cannot tell the other person about it. But these transgressions can gradually build up and cause a breakdown of the relationship.

An overt is either something that you did that you shouldn’t have done or something you didn’t do that you should have done, according to the moral code.

The thing that saves the day each time is to get each person to remember what he himself or she herself did. If the two marriage partners just keep that thought firmly in mind and disclose all of their overts and withholds to each other, any marriage can be saved.