Retrouvaille vs Counseling

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IMHO ... be extremely wary about going to Retrouvaille if she's not in a good frame of mind. It MAY work if and only if BOTH have at least some hope/desire to save the marriage and faith in God and give it ALL they have.

When I went they seemed to have done a lousy job of screening for my W's motivations and attitude in attending. Turned out her motivation was not to try to "save the marriage" but to make it "easier to divorce". And she claimed she was "coerced" into going even though they supposedly screened her for that as well. The Retrovaille folks try very hard to get couples to just "show up"; after that you're pretty much on your own. It seemed too intense and busy and the hotel was also very crowded. They apply too much pressure to attend the sessions, dialog etc. that sort of went against the DBing principals of give the other person more space and time and this turned W off further. While there, W also conveniently declared she was now no longer Catholic, did not attend the masses, etc. So it turned out to be a very traumatic, humiliating and expensive($$$) weekend for me. I know it has helped others as evidenced by the speaker couples, but you take you chances.

Even if Retrovaille does soften up the WAW its only the afterglow of 1 weekend organized by non-professional people who do not take any responsibility for the outcome. So it needs solid/more formal follow-up measures. Besides "dialoging", most couples would probably require months of years of follow-up C, marriage education, etc.