Ever want to know what it would be like to go to a marriage retreat? This article chronicles the author's marriage retreat weekend and how it vastly improved her marriage. If you are considering marriage counseling or a couples retreat, read about this real experience to decide if it could help your relationship! We did this retreat with the Navy CREDO program in Hawaii.

Table of Contents

• Deciding to Go
• Friday : We arrive at the location of the marriage retreat.
• Saturday : We spend much of the day learning about new ways of relating.
• Sunday : We get more amazing relationship advice and we renew our wedding vows.
• Six Months Later

I had heard about CREDO several times from different couples. CREDO is a program run by Navy chaplains and hosts various retreats, like the one we had heard about. Neither one of us are particularly religious, but we had been having issues and I really wanted to try something.

Before meeting my husband, I never believed in love at first sight. But when I met him I experienced it for myself. Within weeks of meeting one another, my husband and I knew we wanted to get married. Three months after I met him, he was transferred to Hawaii. I moved to be with him. Four months later, we were married in a civil ceremony. Three months after that, my husband, Juan, got sent off to Iraq for seven months. All of these changes took a heavy toll on our marriage.

When Juan returned from Iraq, we were busy planning our "real" wedding and our family was flying to Hawaii to attend it. Weeks turned to months and we found ourselves approaching the one and a half year mark of our first date. We were still very much in love, but we were carrying around a lot of baggage. Because of our circumstances (or maybe just because we are a man and woman), a lot of misunderstandings cropped up. We really needed to do something about them. They were eating away at our marriage.

On Friday night, we arranged for our cat and boxer to be watched, and we headed over to the site of the marriage retreat. This particular weekend, they were holding it on a military base in some cottages right on the beach. The beach on base was breathtaking. We arrived in time to put our belongings in our room and file into the dining room to get our dinner from the catered buffet. There were around twelve couples there, plus two chaplains and some of the CREDO staff.

We introduced ourselves to some of the couples nearby, and when dinner was over we all headed into the small conference room. We chose our seats, and each of us received small blank journals and hand-outs about some of the things that would be covered that weekend.

After this, we were given time to go back to our rooms and relax. They didn't want us returning to our homes for any reason, so this weekend was truly meant to be a marriage getaway. There was a TV in our room, and we didn't really want to go back and watch TV during this "getaway". Juan and I were one of the few couples who decided to stay in the conference room and play some of the board games that were provided to us. We played Clue, Connect 4, and Scrabble. We laughed and acted like kids, and generally enjoyed the quality time we were getting together.

On Saturday morning, we woke up, got ready in the communal bathrooms and made our way to breakfast. After breakfast, the CREDO staff had us do some exercises outside with all the other couples. We did things like the human knot and some other games to get us feeling comfortable with each other. Then, we took our seats in the conference room. Saturday was the day we learned the most.

First, we watched a hilarious video on the differences between men and women. I learned that men have a "nothing" box. I had often asked my husband what he was thinking about and got the reply "Nothing." I never believed him until I saw this video and heard all of the other husbands in the room agreeing. The speaker explained how men compartmentalize everything and how women make connections between everything in their brains (see video).

 Then, we all took a Personality Test. They gave us the Meyers-Briggs Personality Test and explained to us what each letter meant. I had discovered the test a few months before this, so Juan and I were well aware of the benefit in knowing your lover's personality type. We had referred to it again and again in our past attempts to understand where the other was coming from.

The next thing we discussed was the Five Love Languages. I had read the book and sent it to my husband when he was in Iraq, but once we both had read it, we didn't talk about it much after that. This refresher really helped us start talking about it again. The premise is basically that we each express and understand love in different ways. For instance, I feel loved when my husband spends quality time (my love language) with me. My husband feels loved when I speak words of appreciation (his love language). Before we knew this, I'd be showing him love by trying to spend all this quality time with him, and he'd be telling me non-stop how much he appreciated me. Of course, this was very loving, but ironically enough, we both felt neglected because the other person wasn't showing us love the way we understood it best.

We also learned how to talk and listen. They taught us how to listen and repeat back what the other person was saying, instead of assuming we already knew what they were talking about. We later got a magnet to put on our fridge to remind us of this method.

In the afternoon, they had us write each other letters. One letter was a letter asking forgiveness. We had learned that we all are carrying this arsenal of weapons against one another when we don't allow ourselves to let go and forgive. We learned that the person doing the apologizing needs to make a commitment to really change their behavior. In the letter of forgiveness, we asked forgiveness of each other for certain things and stated how we would change. We also wrote love letters to one another.

After we wrote them, we returned to our room and read them with each other. It was an amazing thing. It was like a weight had been lifted for us.

After dinner, we all ate s'mores around a campfire, and then Juan and I went back to our room. We had some local Hawaiian wine and experienced some very honest and wonderful intimacy. The day had helped us immensely.

Sunday morning we woke up feeling refreshed and very happy. After breakfast we decided to attend the small optional Christian service in the conference room, and then we all did the exercises with the other couples outside, like we had the day before. (It is important that I stress that anyone would have felt comfortable going on this retreat. The religious aspect was in no way pushed on anyone. The chaplains mainly acted as counselors.)

After that, we took our seats and we talked about what we had learned. We provided some feedback for the chaplains. We exchanged numbers with another couple that we had become friends with and we went to pack up our belongings.

Before we left, everyone met down on the beach. All of the couples lined up on the sand and the chaplain led us in renewing our vows. Every couple probably felt like they were alone on that beach; I know we did.

When we had first arrived, it was obvious that many of the couples were having issues, or that one person didn't really want to be at the retreat. When we all left, every single couple looked like they had re-discovered something amazing and wonderful in their marriage.

Over six months have passed since we attended the marriage retreat, and we are still using what we learned just about every day. We regularly recommend that our married friends attend the retreat.

Some of the benefits we have noticed:

• We communicate better.
• We show love in the right way for the other person.
• We have learned how to listen better and not just assume we know what the other person is thinking and feeling.
• We check in on our relationship. In one of the books we read, the author mentioned that he and his wife would have "igloo" time each night in bed. They'd pull the sheet over their head and talk for a few minutes about their day. We've modified that to check in on each other's "love tank" (a term from The Five Love Languages).
• We feel more confident in our ability to solve problems and keep our marriage strong!

If you are considering going on a marriage retreat in order to resolve issues in your marriage, or even just to strengthen your marriage, we definitely recommend it.

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