Hi Summerd - WEll, the whole Retrouvaille thing was a bit of struggle. My H never moves quite quickly enough for me so getting him there was a hassle up until the very last minute.
When my H told me that his R with OW was over, I told him that I felt that we had to go to counseling. He said he didn't really want to go to marriage counseling as he didn't believe it would help us. He was ok with going himself and me going myself but didn't think going together would be beneficial - I still wonder if he was trying to avoid/hide something which is why he was hesistant. But anyway, I began reading some threads here and Sara had mentioned Retrouvaille on a couple of them. I went to the website, did a little research, asked Sara a few questions and found a good time to ask H about it.
I approached the counseling subject with him again. This time I said, "I understand that you are hesitant to go to marriage counseling. I feel that I need help in communicating better with you. I was doing some internet research and came across a program called Retrouvaille. This program is designed to help couples communicate with one another. It isn't counseling and there aren't any sharing sessions. The premise of the program is that you and I will spend time communicating with each other. I think this program will help me communicate better with you. Would you please help me with that?" He thought about it a bit and asked me some more questions. I answered them the best I could and he agreed to go with me.
I made the initial phone call to go. They informed me that my H had to call, at a seperate time, and also request to go. It took him about 2 weeks to make that call - so that was tough. He had agreed to go, but didn't take the appropriate steps at first - drove me nuts.
But, it has helped us. We are still pulling ourselves out of the mess of our marriage, but this weekend I learned that my H values our marriage as much as I do - that was news to me. Good news. I feel we are getting closer to being on the same page.
The interesting thing that I discovered about our communication issues was that no matter how much I changed my approach, H was not going to share with me until he was ready. Retrouvaille just gave us an avenue to express what we need to. I wouldn't say we are now problem-free in that area, but we have made leaps and bounds. And, that change happened on Saturday of our weekend. All it took was a few really positive interactions about some "heavy" stuff and now we are trusting one another a bit more.
Thanks for reading and posting to me!
Last edited by ediemarie; 09/30/0706:19 PM.
Me: 34 H: 39 M: 7 yrs H A 12/05-8/07
If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. - M. Wheatley
