When Is it Too Late for a Marriage Retreat?

We believe in our private intensive Marriage Retreats. We think they can be highly effective in addressing issues and helping couples find hope and healing for their marriage. However, every now and then we meet a couple who we are unable to help. There are a few reasons for this, so if you are considering a retreat, please consider these as well before signing up.

We encourage spouses to examine their marriage before they attend a retreat. Here are the main reasons why a retreat may not work:

1. If there is an ongoing addiction (or mental illness) for which your spouse refuses treatment then a marriage retreat may not work for you. 
2. If there is ongoing abuse from an unrepentant spouse, then a marriage retreat will probably not work for you. 
3. If you or your spouse have a hard or bitter heart, a retreat may seem like it is too little, too late. 

In order for our retreats to be successful, couples must be willing to make some major changes, oftentimes recreating a new, better foundation than the one they have. This will take a lot of work and patience with one another. If one spouse digs in their heels and refuses to acknowledge that changes are necessary, then a retreat will not be successful.

Addiction

For a spouse with an ongoing addiction, there must be accountability and a humble attitude that acknowledges that they need help. We encourage spouses with addictions to seek this accountability and help prior to a private intensive retreat. Though we have helped some couples decide what the next steps would be with an addiction, the focus of the retreat is healing the relationship and addressing communication issues, not overcoming an addiction (and no one can overcome an addiction during a short retreat unless the Lord performs a miracle in their life!). 

A typical unhealthy response to addiction that is detrimental to a marriage is to lie about it, deny that it is a problem, blame your spouse or others for it, or minimize its impact on your marriage. These responses will not lead to change or healing from addiction. Instead, they will continue to cause major issues in your marriage and make it increasingly difficult for your spouse to trust you. For the spouse who is not addicted, you can also play a part in helping your spouse overcome an addiction. Though you are not responsible for your spouse’s addiction, you have to avoid codependent behaviors of making excuses, minimizing behavior, or covering for your spouse. All of these actions enable your spouse’s bad behavior. This will also lead to uncertainty and unhealthy patterns of communication in the marriage.  

Abuse

Abuse is another major issue that may prevent a couple from experiencing a successful retreat. Abuse can take on various forms: verbal/mental (emotional), physical, or spiritual. All of these are extremely destructive in a marriage. An excellent book to better understand and determine the level of abuse in your marriage is The Emotionally Destructive Marriage by Leslie Vernick. She lists five patterns that are destructive in a marriage. They are reactive abuse (“when a husband or wife or both are unable to manage their negative moods, the frustrations of life, or their tempers in a mature way”), controlling abuse (“threats and force… used to make the other give in”), deceit (when “we withhold information that, if known by the other person, would cause conflict, challenge, or consequence…” or “we deliberately make up excuses or stories or give someone information that misleads, confuses, deceives, or hurts another person”), unhealthy dependence (an attitude that says “I need you to love me in order for me to be okay” or “I need you to need me in order for me to be okay”, and indifference (“I don’t care enough about you to give you my time, my energy, or other resources to show interest, care, or love towards you”). All of these represent a form of abuse that destroys relationships. If you think you are in an abusive marriage, we recommend reading Leslie Vernick’s book to help illuminate each of these forms of abuse and assessing them yourself. 

However, there are times when we see these destructive patterns of abuse in marriages and are able to help couples overcome them. But as stated earlier, if one or both spouses are unwilling or unable to change these patterns, your marriage will not be what God intended and will not heal. We teach healthy boundaries to avoid unhealthy dependence. If deceit has been an issue, we have a roadmap for rebuilding trust that has been very effective with many couples. We also know that couples may struggle being indifferent when they are being reactive to the hurt they feel from their spouse, but that pattern can be changed if you are willing to see your spouse through a different lens of grace and love. But it takes both spouses being open and humble to allow these changes to happen.    

Hard or Bitter Heart

Sometimes an individual will come who is too hurt and too resentful to forge a new path. In this case, the anger and resentment may have been building for awhile and they are simply not ready to address their resentment and forgive their spouse in order to heal. Or sometimes the pain is so fresh that they are not ready. In this case, the marriage retreat may be too soon for the hurting spouse. Usually in both scenarios the spouse has been dealing with hurts from their spouse that have mounted and they are having difficulty believing that their spouse can or will change in order to stop hurting them. We have seen some breakthroughs in this area with the way we address issues, but it will not work if one or both spouses are not willing to submit to the process of healing through forgiveness in our time together. 

It takes two people to make a marriage work. So before attending a private intensive retreat, make sure you and your spouse are willing to put in the work to create a new and better foundation for your marriage.  

After reading this article, you may be thinking that you would still consider a retreat, if your spouse is willing to come. Here are some questions to ask you and your spouse to decide if a private intensive retreat will work for you. 

1. Are you and/or your spouse willing to take responsibility for the hurt and damage to the relationship that you have caused? 
2. Are you and your spouse willing to be honest and truthful with one another about your struggles and temptations? 
3. Are you and your spouse ready to forgive and heal the resentment that you both may feel towards one another? 

If you answer yes to these questions, then give us a call, we would love to help put your marriage on a better path!

Highly recommended resource for evaluating abuse in your marriage:

The Emotionally Destructive Marriage by Leslie Vernick