The marriage counseling intensive retreat is recommended for couples facing:

• Extramarital affairs,
• Mid-life crises, or
• Struggles with intimacy and sex.

But intensive relationship retreats are also wonderful when you want to refresh the passion you once had or seek to explore specific issues in depth.

Nancy and Bill were at a crossroads. Their romance had a storybook beginning, but now, five years later, it was a sad dance of rage and withdrawal. Either they were going to split up or find a way to make their marriage work.

Things began to turn around when they attended Deepening Your Love. But a few short days later they were back to working ferociously and ignoring each other. They emailed their grief and frustration to Kate and Joel, who suggested an intensive relationship retreat. That began a habit of regular weekend retreats of relationship work, long walks, and candlelit dinners. There were three at their last meeting with Kate and Joel—little Jason is three months old.

HOW THE INTENSIVE RETREAT WORKS

The marriage intensive retreat is four days, usually Tuesday through Friday. We begin ahead of time; you’ll fill out some questionnairres and we’ll follow up with phone interviews with each ot you so we can get to know you as much as possible and understand your specific goals.

Then you’ll arrive in Durango, Colorado where you’ll make yourselves comfortable at a B&B or hotel of your choice. On Tuesday morning you’ll meet us in our log home/office and we’ll spend the first day diving deeply into understanding your history and your issues, We’ll teach you new communication tools, and we’ll help you get started deepening the way you talk and listen to each other. As you take time to slow down, we’ll all begin to understand how you got where you are and what it will take to help you break through and resolve the issues at hand.

Our days together are designed to meet your specific relationship goals, personality, and styles of learning. We’ll take breaks, have some snacks, maybe even go outside for a walk and talk. We are not confined to one set of techniques or approaches.

You’ll find us to be a loving, safe, humorous team with a sharp set of skills to help you take risks, open your heart, and come to resolution, recovery, and understanding.

Each daily session is four hours. We have found that this is the best amount of time to work mindfullly without overwhelming the body, mind, or emotional systems. In the afternoons, you’ll be on your own to practice and integrate new skills and have some rest. Some people like to hike, shop, drive up into the mountains, or explore our ancient Puebloan heritage sites as a way to help them digest the intensive process.

In southwest Colorado any season can be used for rest and relaxation. It is sunny 300 days a year; the people are friendly, and the activities endless. We also have really good restaurants here in the four corners!

COUPLES WHO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN THE INTENSIVES HAVE WORKED THROUGH ISSUES SUCH AS:

• Shall we end the relationship or stay together?
• Recovery and healing from an affair
• Reviving sex.
• Resolving old angers, misunderstandings, and marriage gone luke warm.
• Retirement: How do we move into the future together creatively and passionately?
• Deepening Communication, building better communication skills and learning conflict resolution.
• To have children or not to have children? – when each partner feels oppositely about the issue.
• What is our relationship vision? Accessing shared dreams and creating a life plan.

WHAT PEOPLE SAY:

"The work we did with you has strengthened our relationship and laid a thicker foundation of love, trust, and appreciation of one another! This has ocurred to such an extent, that together, the only thing we need to know as a couple is: What fabulous life experience do we want to create together next -- i.e, where shall we go, what shall we do, how much fun can we have together next?"
H & J, Lawyer and artist from NYC

"We wanted to be sure to tell you how INCREDIBLY helpful the retreat was to us....we learned some really important new tools which have left us very optimistic about future communications...and therefore the future of our ongoing bond and love. What you offered us probably did more than a year or two or ten of counseling could have done."
K & M, Consultants from Boston Mass.

"We still find it hard to believe that, as a couple with troubles since the beginning and on the verge of divorce, we could arrive at the end of the intensive session so deeply connecte,d in lov,e and understanding of each other. And yet, it is so very true. It has been a year since our first session with the Feldman's and our marriage has been completely transformed and continues to be better than all the years past. We were recently able to actually celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary thanks to our work in the intensive retreat with Kate and Joel!"
A & M, Los Angeles CA