My existing thread in Piecing is 18 pages, which is on the long side. So I am starting a new one here in Infidelity.
I will post my story for those who don't know it. It is 3 years old already, and my H and I are celebrating our 31 anniversary today. Last night he told me that he is happy that he married me and happy that he is still married to me. He thinks we were fated to be together. Maybe so, but 3 years ago when he was dreaming of his long lost love, he was singing a different tune.
That is the point of this thread. For those who think it can't change because things are bad now, I am here to say that it can change. But there is a caveat. I have talked to a lot of people in the throes of unhappy marriages, and I can't tell who will be able to reconcile and who won't. But I do know that in order to reconcile, you have to be able to forgive another person. Only you know what your limits are. But, that is my little tidbit of wisdom after 3 years.
There are several people on this board who have been to Retrouvaille with their spouses. Some have had great experiences, some have OK experiences, and a few have had bad experiences. I hope that everyone with experience from Retrouvaille will post on this thread. Every experience is valuable to those who are looking for help.
And for those who have never heard of Retrouvaille, the website is www.helpourmarriage.org, they offer weekends-- all over America, in Canada, and many international locations-- dedicated to rediscovering the bond between husband and wife. Feel free to ask questions. We will do our best to answer them.
Several people have expressed interest in knowing more about the Retrouvaille program. My husband and I are Retrouvaille graduates, and proud of it. As you may or may not know, the web address is http://www.helpourmarriage.org. The website gives dates and locations of the weekends available around the world. However, it doesn't give much info as to what goes on at the weekends. Perhaps I am breaking an unwritten rule by telling you about what goes on, but I think knowledge of what to expect makes people more comfortable. Here is a brief description of Retrouvaille. I'd be happy to answer questions you may have.
Retrouvaille, meaning rediscovery in French, is an volunteer organization with support from the Catholic church that holds weekend retreats around the world to help people heal their broken marriages. They have a website, http://www.retrouvaille.org. The program works by example. Couples who have experienced misery in their marriages present their stories. They sit in front of you, with occasional tears in their eyes, holding hands and giving each other support, telling you openly and honestly about their lives, what went wrong, and how they fixed it. Then they teach you a communication technique called Dialoguing and you practice doing dialogues with your spouse, in private. They give you questions to dialogue about. These questions help you and your spouse understand each other at a deeper level than you ever could by simply talking.
The initial program takes a weekend. You can do it in your home city or go somewhere else and make it a mini-vacation. There are follow-up sessions locally. These help you to continue the openness and understanding with each other. They teach concepts like, love is a decision. Or, marriage is like a building supported by four posts: love, commitment, trust, and forgiveness. If you break one of the posts, like trust, and forgiveness is weak, then the building comes crashing down. To rebuild the marriage, you must first rebuild the foundation, and then you can rebuild the four posts. The more I thought about it, the more I understood. To rebuild my marriage I had to forgive, and trust. I couldn't rebuild the marriage first and have those fill in later. (Which is what I had been trying to do).
While it is co-sponsored by the Church, it is open to all. My husband and I are not Catholics, and we benefited tremendously from the experience. The presentations by the priest focused on marriage, not Catholic doctrine. The goal of Retrouvaille is to save marriages. They have only 48 hours with you for that purpose, so there is no time for dogma. However, the priest was also there to be of service to the Catholics in the room who wanted his services. We were told not to confess new things to each other -- the priest was there to take confessions. I found that interesting. They do not focus on the past, they focus on building a new future together.
Religion is a personal thing. For some, I have no doubt, the religious aspect at Retrouvaille is not strong enough for their liking. And for others, any mention of a higher power is too much. So how religious is a Retrouvaille weekend? It is middle of the road. Let me start by saying that I am Jewish, and my husband was raised Catholic, which sort of innoculated him against any religious faith. So as a couple, the religious part was not what we were going to Retrouvaille for. But the program is dedicated to helping people save their own marriages, and it is open to everyone. They make an effort to keep the religious part minimal to not turn off people like us.
On the other hand, like survivors of a hurricane, sitting on a rooftop unable to help ourselves, we were not about to refuse to get onto the boat offering to help us just because there was a cross painted on the side. My philosophy is that if you want the help you will take it from whoever offers it. And so it was with us. We needed help, and I had heard glowing reports of this program, I couldn't wait to go, and I gave it my all.
The program is led by the three couples. They are regular people. They experienced pain and unhappiness and found help at a Retrouvaille weekend years ago; they tell their stories in detail. There is a priest at each weekend. He has short talks interspersed with the couples. What does he talk about? A lot about his life and his personal observations about marriage. He has never been married, but he tries to relate the topic of marriage to his experience, and speak about that. Does he mention God, Jesus, the bible? Sometimes. Yeah, they are mentioned. Are they the focus of the program? No, the subject matter is marriage. The priest is willing to meet privately with anyone who wants to talk to him, and I saw several couples set up times to meet with him. But we didn't choose to.
There was an optional mass on Saturday morning for those who wanted to attend. My H and I slept in. There was a closing mass on Sunday afternoon. It was part of the program, and we should have attended, but we whispered goodbye and sneaked out to the car, as did a few other couples.
The program is relatively inexpensive. There are other marital retreats and weekends that have no religious aspect, but they are much more expensive. The Church supports this program financially, and that makes a difference. That, and the fact that all the lead couples are volunteers, keeps the cost of Retrouvaille low. So I would say it is a toss-up. If you and she cannot take help from a religious agency, then you should go to a different marital weekend. However, if you can overlook a few references to a belief system that you may not subscribe to, then go to Retrouvaille, because they really do save marriages there.
Thinking about the process of a Retrouvaille weekend. I often talk about the dialogue technique and what a great tool it is for communication. But the weekend is so much more than just learning to dialoque.
Over the course of the weekend, interspersed with the stories of the lead couples, you are asked to answer questions. You share your answers to the questions only with your spouse, in private. The questions are carefully chosen to bring out first your feelings about the past, but then also to bring out your dreams for the future. The process of going through the series of questions is purifying in a way that I can't explain. And there is an intimacy of sharing these answers with your spouse. Who knows? Maybe when we withdraw from each other over time we stop sharing our dreams. Maybe the return to sharing dreams is more important to restoring the marriage than other elements
My H and I were married in 1979, almost 29 years ago. We have 3 children. Usual problems and arguments, but as I saw my other friends get divorced and heard their stories, I chose against that for myself. I wasn't particularly happy, but they were even more unhappy.
I was not loving toward him. I decided years ago that I should have married a different boyfriend. But we co-existed and had a decent life together. Over the years we grew further apart, we argued over how to deal with our son who chose to be a juvenile delinquent and was verbally abusive to me. We went to counseling at that point, but made no headway in solving the problem.
About a year ago my husband began an internet relationship with his old girlfriend. That grew into an EA and then in November they took a romantic weekend together. Super sleuth that I am, I figured it out! I confronted him with cell phone records of his calls to her (should have been looking at those all along), and he said he would stop. Two weeks later, I checked the cell phone bill again, and the calls were still going on.
I gave my son her number. If she wanted my job as his wife, she could have my son too! So he called her and told her he knew she was having an affair with his father, and if she didn't stop he would find her and make her stop! Apparently, H had neglected to mention that we were a dysfunctional family. So she decided my job didn't really look too good, and she called H and broke up with him.
At that point I decided that I really did want this marriage. We tried to put things back together ourselves, but it ran hot and cold. Some days were good, some were vicious. A friend at work had just been to Retrouvaille and sent a glowing letter to us all recommending the program. So, knowing next to nothing about it, I suggested that we go to Retrouvaille together. There being no other solution, he agreed to it.
We went to the weekend in January, 2007 did the post sessions in Feb and March and we were continuing to get better. Now the kids have moved out of the house - we are empty nesters, at least for the summer, and life is really good. I have learned to love my husband and he is learning to love me. We are different people than we were 18 months ago. The sex is great, we laugh at each other's jokes, it's a lot like when we were first married. I won't say all the tension is gone, but we know how to approach our problems when one comes up. We pull out our notebooks, and we dialogue on the subject.
I highly recommend doing the weekend. It turned our lives around! There are a lot of weekends coming up this month and next. I am working on the handouts for the Tampa Retrouvaille group this weekend. We will have about 30 couples here -- a very big group.
Before you go they will call you to ask if there is a third party involved in the marriage and if you will both come with an open mind and a willing heart. Those are the only requirements.
I highly recommend doing the weekend. It turned our lives around! There are a lot of weekends coming up this month and next. I am working on the handouts for the Tampa Retrouvaille group this weekend. We will have about 30 couples here -- a very big group.
Before you go they will call you to ask if there is a third party involved in the marriage and if you will both come with an open mind and a willing heart. Those are the only requirements.
What if there is a third party involved? Will they not take you if you or your spouse is involved with someone else?
Me: 29 Him: 30 Married: 2 years Together: 13 years No kids Bomb: 6/4/10 Started MC: 7/16/10
