Retrouvaille means change

[TrentC]

Now that I think of it, I remember my wife saying something similar on our way to Retrouvaille: "Maybe this will give us tools that we can use in our next relationships."

If he is going through a midlife crisis, he's suffering through an intense emotional crisis that Retrouvaille is not set up to address. I would try to find a copy of Men in Midlife Crisis by Jim Conway; that is a good place to start learning more. I would also look into the MLC sites and the MLC forum on DB that I referred to earlier. I forgot that external links aren't allowed on the DB forums, but you can Google for them.

I don't want to discourage you from going to Retrouvaille; but based on my experience with a spouse in MLC, I don't know that it is going to help the two of you at this time. (With that said, I think it is a wonderful program; I would love to do it again if and when my wife is more willing to work on things.)

As for how he is going to react? You have no way of predicting how he is going to react. He could very well accuse you of "giving up", but he could just as easily accuse you of hanging onto a relationship that he considers over. All that trying to predict his responses and trying to make him happy will do is drive yourself crazy.

[angel61]

Hopefull,

When we went to retrouvaille I had a lot of doubts too. Although we were not separated my husband said he did not love me anymore, did ot really love me. He was having an EA, and had not stopped contact with the OW at that time. But he was willing to go, and that was the most important thing for me.

It turned our marriage around. We went in November 2011, and when my husband learned about love being a decision, he suddenly realized that there is hope in our M. And though its been really tough so far, our M has progressed to the point that we are now officially piecing.

I say go. there is nothing to lose, anyway. And as long as you can pay the 100 registration, they do not obligate you to pay anything else. The hotel and food is part of it. Maybe if it works out you can contribute later on. I intend to donate more money in the future to them, even if I did donate more than the amount of the cost of the hotel and food on the weekend itself.

When my H went, he said that he didn't even know why he was there, but the fact that he was probably meant something.

The fact that your H wants to go means something. Inside, he knows that he wants something more than what you have in your R.

Read my thread. Otherwise, I will also copy and paste what happened to us after Retrouvaille from my thread in MLC to share with everyone.

[angel61]

Here is a copy of my post from my original thread right after our Retrouvaille weekend (November 2011)

Back from Retrouvaille!!!

Thank you everyone for your prayers. God gave my marriage a miracle over the weekend. It turned out better than I imagined it to be. I hope it will be the start of a new life....

I am so emotionally exhausted that I don't think I can write that much. And also, the Retrouvaille method should not be divulged, but suffice it to say that over the weekend, there were any changes, not only in my H's heart, but in mine as well.

He now wants to work on our M. He came in not sure of why he was there, only knowing that it must mean something that he was going. But he did bring with him an open heart and mind.

It started easy, and we were telling ourselves that we were in this to just make our life more smooth sailing, nothing deep. He felt we were learning a new trick, even said there ws no need to go back for the post sessions as we were likely to learn what we needed in the first day. Then it became harder. We were forced to face our feelings, our issues.

There was a point he almost quit. I almost also ruined it by being indignant that he was not doing his best. Then we recovered. We said it was not a time to solve problems, only to learn. We pushed on.

At the end of Saturday we were feeling hopeful.

On Sunday, we were put into deeper waters.

I was afraid that H woud cave in under the pressure, would withdraw into himslef. But he did not. Hard as it was, he faced it and came through.

And so did I! I felt like my chest was going to explode with the emotions I felt. We cried together. We smiled and talked and laughed like we have not in a long time.

We both realized he has a long, long way to go. He said to me his inner issues are not solved yet, but tired as he is, he will persevere and will continue to work on them. He let me know that he valued my being there for him, and that the most important thing about me to him was my loving him in spite of it all. He told me that he saw all of my changes, and that he wanted me to help him understand how love could be a decision, and not a feeling.

We both agreed that God should be in the center of our relationship.

In the end, he even said that we should go to the post sessions, we will find a way inspite of his anxiety that we may rock the boat.

We went home both exhausted and quiet. I brought him to the airport, he will be away for a week. I was relieved that we have time to reflect away from each other. Time to pray as well and be thankful. Time to think back and see with the heart what we had divulged to each other. Time to offer it to God and listen on what the next step will be.

Those of you who have been debating whether to go or not, I urge you to do so.

There is nothing to lose, except for the expenses, which are voluntary, and everything to gain.

[angel61]

and to update: we have been gpoing to almost every post (except for the first one) and each post weekend has brought us closer, and has made us more open.

There is still a lot more to do; he doesn't really like to do the dialogue, we still have issues with complete transparency, i battel trsut issues and the memories of being hurt, and rejected. We sometimes go back to our old ways of arguing. But we have committed to each other that we are going to do all we can to preserve our marriage and hold on to our vows, put God in our lives and decide to love.

[hopefull79]

Thanks Angel! Wow...I'm at work, and reading your posts, I started crying!

Thank you again for your response, and reminding me that I can still hope against hope. I do hope we both get something out of this, and I really hope it will help re-ignite something within him to where he'll realize that loving each other is a choice, even though I know his image of love is very reminiscent of fairy tales and movies, which we lost a long time ago since he claimed to have loved me at first sight, and us being together was fate and destiny. He seems to think that if there is no passion, there is no love. I've chosen to love him and to make this attempt to keep our family whole, and hopefully hearing stories from others will help change his mind into wanting the same as well. I even feel at times, he's already over this and moved on and that we won't have another chance at all. I try to tell him anything is possible, there's always a chance, and always hope, but then he calls me delusional.

I've been begging him to at least go in with an open mind to the slight possibility that it could go either way, but his only response is that we are going to divorce, that's the only way this is going, and we're just attending this weekend so that maybe we can come to an agreement on the custody and visitation schedule of our son. I told him I understand that if there is a chance for us, it's a very small percentage based on his words and actions, and his response is that it's a negative percentage and to not get my hopes up because we'll never be together again, and that we'll never be a family again and that we should just learn from our mistakes so we can apply them to future relationships instead of working on them between us because it's too late. We've never had a solid base to work upon since we got married really quickly after we started seeing each other, pregnant before we got married, even though he was talking about marriage and family with me before that happened, so we never had the time for 'us'. I just feel like during our separation, we finally started uncovering bits and pieces that we should have shared and didn't which led to our failures, and I'm hoping he'll be willing to work with me to mend our mistakes together instead of re-creating or applying them to a different relationship, since a different relationship would just be a different set of problems later on.

I'm also very worried about the OW from his work since I've heard that she just had her divorce, and she also has a child with her ex husband who is around 2. The only reason I knew that was because I had a heart to heart with my husbands grandmother, and at that time I just had suspicions, and she said they were just friends, and that she was going through a divorce and had a small child etc. But then one day my son told me there was a lady on my side of the bed, and gave me her name, and then had a breakdown thinking his mom was being replaced, and over and over asking me, "why did daddy make bad choices?"

I'm just very scared, and anxious about next weekend, and I can't help but cry every day about having been the first one to walk away. I want to work with him to be able to fully forgive him for the past, I just hope he'll do the same for me for our family. When I left, I thought I didn't and couldn't love him again either, until the day I went to the courthouse to file the divorce papers, and I couldn't leave the car to do it because it just didn't feel right. Then 3 months later, I end up receiving the divorce papers he's filed in the mail.

LOL, I'm so sorry for venting, I'm just having a moment.

[hopefull79]

I just got a bit more bad news today....well, possible bad news. He called me at work saying he might not be able to do the weekend of Retrouvaille now due to work. That he had less vacation time than he thought, and he had 2 days of vacation, can't go into the negative, and 1 of the 2 days he needs for our court date 2 weeks after the Retro weekend.
He wants me to call tonight after I put our son to sleep, and talk about issues, but I'm a bit scared to because I know it's just going to end up with us having another communication breakdown because we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things anymore. I just have a feeling it will turn into nothing but him going into verbal abuse mode, and me crying

[TrentC]

I'm sorry that he's waffling on the Retrouvaille weekend; when he asked for the info and said he'd "think about it," I was concerned that he might be passive-aggressive and wait until the last minute to say he wasn't going to go.

I would get confirmation that he doesn't want to do it and contact the organizing couple so they can try to fill that slot. They may want to talk to him try to to convince him to go; if so, I'd let them do their work.

You don't have to talk to him about relationship stuff if you're not ready to do it. But if you DO talk to him, focus on listening to what he has to say. Try to validate his feelings without necessarily agreeing with the conclusions; something like "I understand that you feel like we can't work things out, but I believe that there are things we can do."

[hopefull79]

whew...false alarm...just got a voicemail from him saying that things were worked out.
Now I'm just dreading the phone call later on. Our son has been taking things realy bad through the seperation, but has never shown those feelings to my husband. And this past week was the first time he acted depressed around him, and I'm worried he's wanting to try and place blame on me for his feeling that way. I'm hoping I can at least push the conversation to after the weekend, maybe we'll be able to talk about that and other things more constructively then.

[TrentC]

And this past week was the first time he acted depressed around him, and I'm worried he's wanting to try and place blame on me for his feeling that way.

You can drive yourself crazy if you try to anticipate every reaction (especially if you try to figure out how it can be used against you). If your husband has questions why his son is depressed, he should ask his son.

Clear, honest communication doesn't have to wait until the Retrouvaille weekend.

[hopefull79]

Well, he doesn't think our son will talk to him like he does with me. He's placing that on the stereotypical father/child and mother/child relationship, and he just has the assumption that kids don't open up to their dads like they do moms. Which in my case isn't true, I've always been much closer with my dad.
I have told him several times, that he should try and initiate a conversation with him, talk to him about his feelings, and just a little digging will help open his eyes up to why the little guy is acting the way he his, and not wanting to go out and play, and why at dads house he just wants to lay about and do nothing but cry or sleep. Of course he places blame on me for it, since I was the waw, and he knows our son talks to me all the time about feelins, and his needs, and I'm always the one he comes to with questions or if he needs reassurance because I've always made myself available for him. So my husband just waits until I tell him about weird behaviour or things that were said that were a bit disturbing. But I always encourage him to talk to his son, and I also try to encourage my son to open up to him, but he says he's scared to.
But we have a nice 4 hour drive on Friday, so hopefully we can have a talk about things then without his anger flaring up or me in tears.
My husband has already said that he'd walk out of the session if they didn't listen, then I asked him, "listen to what?" Which he replied, I don't know, but from the phone call I got from the Retrouvaille lady, it sounded like a weekend of cult brain washing. I've talked to him several times about what goes on, and that we don't have to share our story with anyone unless we want to, and have given him countless links on the internet for him to read in his own time, just so he would know what to expect.
I did talk to his mom yesterday, and she said that both her and his grandmother have both told them they aren't pleased with him right now, and that he's been making a lot of bad choices. But that he also told them he would be going into the program with an open mind to either outcome, but then of course he tells me he's not. She did tell me not to worry about it so much, because his temper is well known in his family, and I know we've both hit sore spots with each other.
I just need a magic 8 ball...
Unfortunately as Friday comes closer, the more anxious I get, and it's really hard to not just break down in tears at work every day.