"fb2- Did you go?" Yes I did. I also attended Marriage Encounter some years prior which is a milder dose of the same thing.
"I don't know what makes fb2 so bitter, but his dismissive attitude to Retrouvaille is insulting."
Sara, Its very valuable if BOTH have SOME sincere desire to stay M. And I could see it made a BIG difference for 80% of the people who were in this category. The issue I had was that the fellow (volunteer) who screened W did a bad job of the screening - instead he tried to get her to show up "for the sake of the kids" or something like that in the hope that she would then "open" up. And of course W lied to him about not having an OM and/or being "open minded"; and W shows up and from the get go asserts she is there to make the D go more smoothly and did not really participate in any of the dialoging practice - perhaps the volunteer even suggested this notion to her to get her to go who knows; she left early and had absolutely no intention of attending any of the followups. So for me it was pure torture - I was attending the thing all on my own after driving for 2 hours to get there - it needs 2 people to dialog, right? Also, they were kind of forcing me to sit thru' it well after WAW had checked out of the hotel and gone. And it was held in a very crowded, noisy hotel that made things worse! That's why my recommendation is to not cajole or manipulate the WA into going even if may work in 1% of the cases; its better to wait till the WA is more amenable to it. Also there is a faith/religious component to it - WAW had no respect for this part of it which made it every more of a mockery for me.
