I don't know why you left either. At some level you must have ambivalent feelings about returning to the marriage. And when you made the decision to leave you were overcome with the negative feelings. It is hard to fight negative feelings. But they will sabotage us in reaching our goals if we allow them to.
You really could benefit in learning the dialogue technique, but it takes patience. The Retrouvaille process feels slow. They know what they are doing, it takes time to reverse all the hostility that the couples come in with.
Think about the faces of the people you saw that friday night. I bet all of them looked tense and frightened. I know they did at my session. And nothing really changes that first night. It's just the ice breaker to have that first question.
If you had stayed you would have seen the change come over those people. By dinner on Saturday they are walking with their arms around each other. No, they didn't exchange spouses! Those are the married couples, talking and laughing and feeling happy together. It comes from learning to listen to each other with your heart. From both people learning to care about what the other person said. Until that day, I half listened when my husband spoke, and half planned my response. They taught me not to do that. To just listen. To ask questions and try to fully understand what he was saying.
You got angry because he didn't listen to you. You had a knee-jerk reaction to his desire to run away from your feelings. But if you had stayed THEY WOULD HAVE TAUGHT HIM TO LISTEN. You wouldn't have to argue or beg for it. They do it for you. And if he isn't listening, you can go to one of the presenting couples and talk about the problem. They will give him instructions on how to listen, really listen.
I can't tell you how this helped us. And from their success rate, I know it helps a lot of couples. It is a shame that we are all moving so fast that we don't take the time to really listen to each other.
