The phrase "marked by difficulties" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when you want to indicate that something was accompanied by difficulties or is characterized by difficulties. For example: "The path to success is marked by difficulties, but perseverance is key."
Mr. Corzine's one term as governor was marked by difficulties.
William's final years were marked by difficulties in his continental domains, troubles with his eldest son, and threatened invasions of England by the Danes.
The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which much diminished the population of Western Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans.
In the summer of 1997, a group of watermen (commercial fishermen) working on the Pocomoke River on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland developed a pattern of neuropsychological deficits marked by difficulties in learning and memory (Grattan et al. 1998).
It became clear that, despite the advantages of his birth, his life has been marked by difficulty.
Unlike Michael's father, however, Herzen has lived a life marked by difficulty: his son was born deaf.
The implications of impending parental death to HIV/AIDS herald the onset of several struggles including poverty, lost educational opportunities, living with extended family systems marked by difficulty, potential exploitation within their homes and culturally specific forms of stigma related to their HIV/AIDS orphan status making these youth twice and thrice vulnerable.
During the early postwar years, Finland's domestic affairs were marked by economic difficulties.
"The government of the Republic of Angola recognizes that the present still remains marked by numberless difficulties," the government told the nation in an Independence Day communique.
His term was marked by continued difficulties with Villa and Zapata, serious financial problems, and general social unrest brought on by his reluctance to institute far-reaching reforms.
In an interview last year with Le Monde he said he did not like to talk about his early life, "which was marked by the difficulties and racism suffered by a child of immigrants".
