Retrouvaille - What's your experience?

[Deep]

It was the single biggest help I had in making the first step away from the train wreck that was my marriage and my emotional state.

I posted this before so I apologise if I'm being repetitive.

Prior to going, my W was:

- resistant to going. In fact she wanted a promise that she could leave any time she felt uncomfortable ... even on the drive there.
- She wanted to leave within 5 minutes of being there, I persuaded her to stay.
- convinced we had lost our connection ages ago (part of re-written history)
- convinced she could never love me again, and would have given the world to feel that way for me, but could simply never see it happening again. Ever.
- would want the M for the sake of the kids, but felt OM was her true soulmate, and it was a sacrifice she would have to make as a mother. In her words then "It's not like I hate you Deep, or can't stand the sight of you, I can live my life with you without being too unhappy". Till this day, I can scarecely recall words that hurt me more in my life.
- Was adamant she could keep OM as a friend, and refused on NC in any form.
- She was gritting her teeth and seeing this through so that I could not say she didn't try, not that she expected it to help at all.

Retrouvaille is not a magic bullet, nor an instant miracle that makes everything ok. But these DID happen:

- Saturday night (the second night of our weekend), W kissed me and for the first time in months, told me she felt something, a lot like the connection we had. This was after the agony of months hearing her tell me she felt nothing when we kissed and to please stop even asking her about it.
- When we packed to go back, she hugged me, and thanked me for making her come, and making her stay, and that she was moved in ways she never thought possible.
- when we pulled into the driveway of our apartment block, she held my hand and thanked me for giving us another chance.
- We unpacked in our room, I hugged her from the back, and the dam just broke, she cried and cried, and hugged me and told me she was so sorry. It was the first time I felt she truly felt remorse.

It wasn't a fairy tale ride after that. We had huge downs and huge fights and still had (and have) work to do on our M, but it gave us a chance that I honestly think we wouldn't have had otherwise.

Our third child was the 40-something child born to reconciled couples from the programme in our area we're told. We both help out at weekends now (simple things like registration and making the coffee) as a small way of paying it forward. From someone deeply suspicious and cynical of the programme (and still a non-Christian), my W is now encouraging people to attend it when she comes across friends with problems in their M.

2 couples I have helped persuade to attend are now reconciling, one of them just had a new baby.

It is not an easy and sure-fire solution, it doesn't work for everybody, and it does not fix everything and make the love just come back and the pain go away ... but it is a huge aid for couples to learn techniques to communicate better and move forward to a better marriage.

You have nothing to lose, do what you can to make a weekend.