Renew Your Bond with a Couples Retreat
While all couples have the potential for deep love, at some point in a long-term relationship, you might feel like your partnership is broken and needs some intense repair. Perhaps you’ve both fallen into an uninspired, bored rut of regularity. This is, unfortunately, quite normal. After all, the honeymoon period can’t last forever, and when “real life” takes over with work, life, financial worries or health concerns, it’s easy to slip into tired patterns or become distant from each other.
Perhaps you don’t feel like your emotional needs are being fulfilled, that you’re growing further apart rather than together or that your communication is non-existent or unhealthy. Marriage is a life-long learning process. Whether your relationship is on the verge of a crisis and needs some slight tweaks and a tune-up or is in dire need of a complete overhaul, other couples have also gone through the same thing.
Whatever the issues, as long as both parties are willing to work together, your relationship can likely be repaired and renewed. If you’re ready to come out on the other side to enjoy many more exciting years together, a couples retreat might be exactly what you need.
Some Hard Truths About Marriage
Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda wrote, “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
That’s what most of us think when we enter a relationship and, perhaps later, a marriage. We believe with all our heart and soul that love and love alone will keep us together.
And then, well, life happens, and some very tough truths about marriage come along.
Hard Truth #1
You’re going to need more than just love. Love doesn’t solve your problems, teach you to communicate, align your values, or plan your long-term goals. Love doesn’t teach you about finances or fidelity. Love demands commitment, hard work and the effort for both people to be flexible and adapt. Yes, of course, love, desire and sex can all help keep that spark going, but for the day-to-day trials and tribulations, it’s simply not enough.
Hard Truth #2
Change is inevitable. Sure, maybe when you met at 20, you were both aligned with what you believed and how you lived, but what about 15 years later? Would you really expect (or want) your partner to be exactly the same? Growth is a good thing, but people who don’t embrace it will find themselves resentful. Couples who give each other the time and space to discover who they are will find themselves growing together rather than apart. Life changes, and so should your partner.
Hard Truth #3
Your car and house need maintenance and upkeep, as does your marriage. Do you have a calendar to service your car or yearly maintenance for your home? What about your relationship? Does that make it to the schedule? It should; however, for most of us, it doesn’t. And yet, without regular check-ins and “maintenance”, your relationship will fall apart, just like your car or home. With all the stress of daily life—work, kids, health, money—it’s easy to push “date night” to the bottom of the list and let your marriage become stagnant. But a healthy marriage takes work, sometimes, lots of work. Without it, your marriage cannot thrive.
Hard Truth #4
Your partner cannot be your everything or your “better half”. You are not half a person! A solid marriage is built on two whole, healthy individuals. While your partner should be your #1, it’s unreasonable for you to expect them to fulfill every role in your life. Having separate friends, interests, hobbies, and goals is necessary and healthy.
Hard Truth #5
There will be fighting. Conflict is a part of life. And that’s OK. If there’s no conflict in your partnership, there’s a good chance things simply aren’t being dealt with at all. Couples who never fight aren’t communicating, they are holding everything in until the inevitable explosion habit (or an “out of the blue” divorce). No one wants that. Those who learn “how to fight fairly” can actually strengthen their marriage by problem-solving and creating safe spaces for honest communication.
How do you know if you need a Couples Retreat?
Marriage has many ups and downs; some relationships have more struggles than others. Most people enter marriage with starry-eyed high expectations and don’t realize that the journey ahead will be the most rewarding—but challenging—journey of their lives. Marriage requires time, effort and energy. It is, after all, a commitment, and you need to learn how to support each other through anything.
Marriages can be challenging due to a variety of different issues, such as:
Wildly different ways of communicating
Contrasting parenting styles
Incompatible financial views or financial infidelity
Career upheavals
Lack of intimacy
Health crises that change the relationship dynamic
A violation of the relationship commitment, aka an affair
Unresolved past trauma resulting in neverending conflicts
In every partnership, both parties need to feel respected, valued, connected, appreciated, and cared for. In a healthy marriage, these qualities are present. In a struggling marriage, one or both parties start to feel unfulfilled, insecure, or resentful resulting in a stressful and problematic relationship.
Many couples feel overwhelmed by these issues, but they may also feel powerless. Perhaps they never had any good role models for a healthy partnership, so they have no idea what they should aim for or where to turn for help.
All couples have problems that are difficult to resolve, but if you or your partner are constantly struggling and feeling:
Disconnected
Angry, resentful, hurt or frustrated
Depressed and/or anxious
Lack of connection, intimacy or sex
Defensive or irrationally insecure
Then, it might be time to head to a couples retreat. The challenges are not the issue—it’s the lack of understanding of how to heal and grow together in a loving, healthy way. Simply hoping that things will eventually change for the better is a losing strategy. It’s time to take action and invest in your relationship.
How a Couples Retreat at the Place Retreats can help renew your bond
A tailor-made, specialized couples retreat provides the structure, support and guidance to repair and revive the relationship and help couples get back on track. When you join us at The Place Retreats in Bali, we will personalize a program specifically for you and your needs.
You’ll learn how to:
Repair unresolved trauma and resentments
Find your spark and connectivity
Rebuild trust, emotional security and practice vulnerability
Learn how to problem-solve together
Restore passion, love, affection, intimacy, sexuality and a deeper love for each other
Effectively communicate so you both feel heard, valued, respected and understood
Reach a shared vision for your relationship
Our retreats provide a safe haven where you can process and resolve the pain from the past while healing and working on your future together. Whether you’re looking for a retreat to spark a fading love, repair a relationship on the verge of crisis, or make a tough marriage decision, our couples retreats can provide a path forward.
Contact us today for a free 15-minute consultation with a member of our team. Join us in Bali and renew your bond with one of our award-winning couples retreats.
