What to Consider Before You Participate In a Couples Counselling Retreat
You will have some marriage problems that require a third party to help you resolve because a marriage is not a perfect institution. A two or three marriage retreat can work miracles for your marriage instead of you throwing in the towel when things get tough in your marriage.
You need a marriage retreat where the therapist does not generalize the issues in the marriage. The couple should be given more time, and the therapist should concentrate more on the marital problems that have broken the trust between the spouses. Most marriages break because of infidelity since couples find financial secrets among others easier for them to resolve.
Ensure that the therapists of the marriage retreat do not take sides during the therapy sessions. The therapy should not favor any of the spouses because it will make the other person shoulders the blame for the issues that are facing the marriage. It will be more difficult to solve your marital problems after participating in a marriage retreat where the therapists were taking sides. The marriage retreat should enable the spouses to find out the good in their marriage and partners that they have forgotten because they are concentrating on their marital problems.
The marriage retreat should respect the boundaries of each spouse. The therapy should not force any of you to take part in an activity or talk about issues that they are not ready for. You may want to push yourself or your partner from their comfort zone during the therapy sessions, but that can cause more harm to the marriage and your partner instead of saving it. The willingness of a marriage partner to engage in the therapy and retreat will help the other partner and the therapist to have an easier time so that they can all work on finding solutions to their marital problems.
Spouses have varying goals for their marriages. The therapist should not force you to agree with their opinions about how the objectives for marriage should be. After the retreat, you will still go home with your spouse and not the therapist hence the therapist should not make you refocus your objective in the marriage. What you agree to achieve in your marriage with your partner is highly likely to be achieved than what are therapists imposes on you to achieve.
Inquire if the therapist makes follow-up after the retreat. You will need the therapist to help with problems that may arise after the retreat because your marriage will not bounce back to the condition it was before the problems occurred just because you have been to retreat.