Marriage is held as sacred in Scientology, and it is a matter of dogma that any marriage can be saved. Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, wrote in one of his books that a man who destroys marriage destroys civilization. He believed that all marriages can be put back together. So Tom, like anyone else in Scientology, would be under a lot of peer pressure to solve his issues with his wife. Marriage counseling in Scientology is a labyrinthine and intrusive affair.
Members give themselves and their partners written citations for infractions.
A communication lag is basically how long someone thinks before answering a question. Someone who answers quickly and someone who doesn't are judged to be incompatible and there is an effort to get the slower one to speed up. Sometimes couples are given security checks. They will have to answer intimate questions about their sex lives while holding a device called an e-meter. The auditor judges the frankness of the answers by how the needle on the device floats.