The program
People want to know what they are walking into before they say yes. Fair. Here is the whole thing, in order, with nothing left vague.
78%
The evidence
of couples who participated in Retrouvaille are still married five years later.
From a five year follow up survey of participating couples. That is five years out, not five weeks, and it counts couples who arrived separated or with a filing already underway. The couples who see that result are the ones who finish all three phases below, not just the weekend.
Phase one
Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.
You arrive Friday evening. Three presenting couples and a priest are there to lead it. No other couples will ask you anything about your marriage the entire weekend.
The structure repeats. A presenting couple stands up and tells a piece of their own story, honestly, including the parts that are hard to hear. Then the two of you go somewhere private, each write on the same question, trade notebooks, read what the other wrote, and talk about it. That is the pattern, over and over, from Friday night to Sunday afternoon.
The reason it works is that writing slows you down. You cannot interrupt a notebook. You cannot roll your eyes at it or start building a rebuttal while it is still talking. For a lot of couples, it is the first time in years they have each finished a thought.
By Sunday you will have covered the ground that marriages actually break on: disillusionment, anger, trust, forgiveness, intimacy, money, family, and what you each thought this was supposed to be. The weekend closes with a Catholic Mass, which couples of every faith and of none are welcome to attend.
Nobody made us stand up and confess anything. That was my worst fear walking in. They talked about their own marriages, and then they left us alone to talk about ours.
Husband, ChandlerPhase two
Six to twelve sessions over roughly three months.
The weekend is the beginning, not the program. Couples who only do the weekend tend to lose what they gained within a month. The couples who make it are the ones who finish phase two.
These are evening sessions, held every week or two, with the couples from your weekend and the team who led it. Each one takes a subject and goes deeper than the weekend had time for: forgiveness that is real instead of forced, rebuilding trust after a betrayal, intimacy, conflict, expectations, in laws, money, faith, and how you keep dialogue going once life gets loud again.
The same rule applies. You are never asked to disclose your business to the group. The talking you do is with your spouse.
Consider these sessions part of the commitment when you register, not an optional extra. Signing up for the weekend means signing up for the follow up.
Daily dialogue at home. Ten to fifteen minutes. This is the habit everything else rests on.
Sharpening the technique and working through anger, disillusionment and forgiveness. This is usually the hardest stretch, and it is where the real change happens.
Trust, intimacy, decision making, and the practical business of running a life together with a different set of tools than the ones that failed.
By the end you have a working method, months of practice, and a group of couples who know exactly what your year has been. Most couples move into CORE from here.
Phase three
Monthly, ongoing, and entirely up to you.
CORE stands for Continuing Our Retrouvaille Experience. It is a monthly gathering of couples who have finished the program.
Marriages do not stay healed by memory. Six months out, life gets busy, the dialogue slips, and the old patterns start reaching for the wheel again. CORE is the standing appointment that keeps that from happening quietly.
Each gathering takes a topic, does a dialogue, and gives couples time together. It is also the social side of this community: people who know your story without you having to tell it, and who are not going to be shocked by anything.
Many CORE couples eventually become presenting couples themselves. That is how this program has kept running since 1977. It is entirely made of people who were helped and came back.
Fit
None of these are permanent disqualifications. Many couples come to Retrouvaille after treatment and do beautifully. Call and talk to us about timing.
Ready, or almost ready
Registration for Phoenix weekends runs through the national Retrouvaille system. If you would rather talk to a person first, call. Nobody will push you.
602-254-6723