“I’ve worked with individuals, couples and families for fifteen years. I’m trained as a professional in conflict resolution and communication techniques. However in my experience the personal approach which focuses on the individuals instead of the problems is more effective than a clinical perspective where we concentrate on teaching you problem-solving strategies and communication skills.

Through this workshop you will find healthier more constructive ways of communicating with one another to bring the marriage back to a restorative state. Once you two are in a place where you are functioning as a couple in a collaborative manner then we’ll begin to tackle the really big issues. That’s not to say we’ll ignore them should they come up sooner but we might want to put them aside until you’re in a position to handle it better.

Our goal is that your relationship will undergo a paradigm shift where the partnership is no longer defined by specific roles or designations. As a couple you want to become interdependent where before there was perhaps too much dependency or too much independence and autonomy. You need to strike a healthy balance between the two or else you will find disconnect, discord, and disharmony which causes the communication breakdown. The challenges don’t disappear as they are inevitable in any intimate relationships however your approach to handling conflicts will be modified in a way that not only do you address the problems but you also take care to mutually satisfy the emotional needs and wants of each partner.”

“I would love for us to get to that place Paul but it’s hard to not let the problems affect how we interact with each other. I mean we have a daughter together and sometimes she’s the only reason we even talk at all.” Tina expressed her thoughts first.

“I know when you first inquired about the retreat and the couple’s sessions you were more focused on just learning better communication skills so you could effectively co-parent your daughter. We’re going to incorporate that in our workshops but now that you two have made a commitment to try to salvage the marriage we need to work on the relationship re-building aspect of it first. You both need to be in a place where your bond is strong enough to endure and survive the hard work that is ahead of you. The old problems won’t go away, and we might not be able to ‘fix’ everything. The key is to learn new ways to get it right the first time and avoid making the same mistakes repeatedly.