Since my husband will not do therapy I have been thinking of a marriage retreat! We are Catholic and would prefer a Catholic based retreat! Any suggestions. I feel like this may be a good compromise! What do you think? Would you try it?
this may be a lil' out of context here, but how about a "treat" rather than a "retreat" and come to visit world's catholic capital: Rome? I bet THAT would be a useful therapy...think about it;-P
My mom and dad had the most dysfunctional, unhealthy relationship I have ever seen. They did the marriage encounter retreats every month. Now granted I have a mess of biases here because I had a pretty crappy childhood. Still I have to say it did nothing for their marriage. If anything my mom, who is a bit like your husband, seemed to glean only that which backed up her poor behavior. So instead of being just a psycho she was a psycho supported (only in her mind) by god. :(
I guess what I am saying is that if someone doesn't want to change, or think they should, it won't help.
I think that is an EXCELLENT idea. We were considering one ourselves a few years ago when we hit a rough patch, but we got too busy with kids and eventually just worked past the issues. However, from what you've been saying, I think that your issues are more pressing than ours were, so it would be beneficial to go.
Edited to add: Is he as religious as you are? I can't help but feel that if he WERE truly devout, you wouldn't be having such deep problems. After all, the command from St. Paul was "Husbands love your wives, as Christ loves the Church." Clearly, from what you have described, he is not doing that. Was there ever a time when he treated you well?
I think it's a great idea! You should be able to find info on your Archdiocese of Mobile website or in the Archdiocese's weekly newspaper. There may even be info in your weekly parish bulletin. Good Luck!
We did one as part of our marriage prep and it was fantastic. Not sure how it is for already married couples but it was so good I would do another one if we could get away.
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I second Linda P.! I will be praying for you both.
I want to go on one so bad! I really wanted to do the weekend engaged couples retreat, but only one other couple signed up. We ended up doing the one day PreCana. It was good, but it felt like we barely had a chance to talk about the subject at hand before they called us back to the main group.
Sorry, I haven't read your other posts, so I don't know what problems you're facing. I can tell you that my husband and I have our fair share of times when we barely see each other and we're ready to go to bed hours before the kids are so you know that 2 second after they're in bed so are we.
You might decide after going that you still need some time to talk about things and/or work through some specific issues, but I really think just going on the retreat will help you both to have some quiet time to think and some time together (no kids interrupting) and at least reconnect and talk about some of what's hurting you.
I think it's a great idea! Wishing you all the best :-)
Start with your church. If they don't have anything happening right now I'm sure they can refer you to one.
I've gone to Presbyterian churches so I know they also offer weekly marriage Bible study/couples workshops. Does your church offer something like that?
Even counseling with a pastor (in your case, priest) would be beneficial, I'm sure. Good luck :)
Check with your church and see what they offer.
