H: But it's a whole weekend (as if 14 years isn't worth investing a weekend) Me: I think we could use some help in communication. H: Communication is not our problem, it's your behavior and your character.
I find that pretty enlightening. If nothing else, you can understand where his head is. Accepting responsibility for your part in the M is not an easy thing. You can probably look back and see how you blamed him for everything initially, and then slowly started taking responsibility for your part. When you do, of course, you want the other party to do the same, but their timeline isn't going to be the same as yours (I went round and round on this one with my W, to my detriment).
With regards to communication, my W has said the same thing to me, and when we do the exercises, we really do connect. There isn't a lot of explanation required for us to "get it," so my W is right to a point. But when you start breaking down how you communicate, you eventually see where there's a lot of room for improvement.
Couple of things you could mention on retrouvaille that may help:
1) I'd equate the weekend to 20+ hours of MC. For the money, you can't beat it. 2) If your H doesn't want to waste 12-24 months in MC, this brings a lot of stuff to head pretty fast. 3) You can leave any time. It kinda defeats the purpose, but you could. 4) You can skip the mass on Sunday without impacting your weekend (we did), but then again, you'd probably be better to not mention the mass lol
I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating. When we went to retrouv, I'd probably spent a good 12-18 months already working on a lot of my stuff, reading a ton, thinking a lot, making changes. When I did the retrouv weekend, I thought it was almost like a summary of the highpoints of what I'd already learned/experienced. I was really impressed how well they tackled the major problems I'd dealt with and put it in a weekend format. It really is an awesome experience and I was really blown away by the success stories and the immediate changes by some of those attending.
One of the things that I wouldn't mention to him, but I think you should be aware of is that there are 6 post sessions, that run about 4 hours each. They are an important part of the experience. And after that, there are a lot of opportunities to continue to meet with the group.
