3 Key Factors of Best Marriage Retreats

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3 Key Factors of Best Marriage Retreats

Searching for a marriage retreat that’s right for you can be a challenge; after all, you do have options. To help you on your way to success with your partner, take into account these three key factors of best marriage retreats. 3 factors of best marriage retreats

  1. Location and accommodations: You are planning to spend a few precious days with your spouse without kids, work, or other normal life distractions, so you should choose a location that will enhance the time you have together. Many marriage retreats are held in hotel meeting rooms or similar charmless locations that do nothing to add to the experience you are looking for. Choose a marriage retreat that offers natural beauty and harmony, conducive to learning, healing, and change. Whether you lean towards beaches, mountains, or rolling hills, select the site best for you. And don’t forget about accommodations. The best marriage retreats are all inclusive, so you can focus on your relationship, not on all the details of where to stay and eat. You need to feel comfortable as you work toward a more fulfilling relationship. The best marriage retreats will offer 5 star accommodations no matter where you go.
  2. One-on-one counseling and real progress: Most marriage retreats will have group activities for all of the participating couples at a retreat. The best retreats will work with very small groups and also offer one-on-one private counseling sessions for you and your spouse. Privacy is key as you work through the issues of your relationship. Your counselor should have the experience to guide you toward success and progress in your marriage, at any stage you might be.
  3. Follow-up: Since marriage retreats are considered a concentrated road to success in your marriage, it is important to continue using the tools and strategies you learned when you return home from the retreat. The best marriage retreats offer follow-up support with the counselors with whom you worked at the retreat, helping you to ensure lasting positive growth and change.

There are many wonderful benefits to be found at the best marriage retreats, however, these three factors can help you select the right program and set you on the course for the best possible experience.

LIFE Marriage Retreats offers each of the three key factors of best marriage retreats, including four sublime locations, one-on-one counseling by caring professionals, and a carefully developed AfterCare post-retreat program. Let us guide you in your journey to a better marriage and a happier life together. Contact us or learn more about our marriage retreats on our website.

Why Life Marriage Retreats are Successful

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Why Life Marriage Retreats Are Successful

4 Beautiful Retreats for Couples

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4 Beautiful Retreats for Couples

If you are looking for a scenic location to escape to as you seek to build the relationship of your dreams, LIFE Marriage Retreats has ideal locations for you. Our retreats for couples are all stunning, set in the beauty of nature’s finest backdrops. Take a look at theRetreats for Couple v1 benefits of our beautiful locations.

  1. San Diego, California: Waves lap at the sandy shore as dolphins and birds play in the surf, and the soft sun warms the beach. The calming sounds of the rhythmic ocean soothe couples in their journey to reconnect, heal, and grow together. Our retreat for couples in North San Diego County, in the Carlsbad-Oceanside area, is an easy commute from Los Angeles and other California locations, and has been enjoyed by couples from all over North America. Read more

5 Benefits of Marriage Retreats for Any Marriage

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5 Benefits of Marriage Retreats for Any Marriage

5 Benefits of Marriage RetreatsSome people think there is a stigma for marriage retreats that requires couples to be at risk of divorce or beyond reconciliation without intervention. While many couples who seek help from LIFE Marriage Retreats are in a state of high relationship distress, others are simply seeking the higher and happier ground that every marriage can attain with some effort and know how. Marriage Retreats from LIFE can benefit any marriage—providing benefits that can serve you and your spouse for the rest of your lives together.

Here are 5 benefits of marriage retreats for any marriage.

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Marriage Communication Problems and Solutions

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Having marriage communication problems? Take the following quiz to help pinpoint a possible communication weak point. Your perceptions of what is true and what is false will indeed take you in very different directions: 

1. I believe that criticism can be a very positive behavior in resolving marital conflict. True___  False___

2. I respond very well to criticism from my spouse; it motivates me to be better. True___  False___

3. Neither my partner nor I become defensive when we criticize or judge one another. True___  False___

4. Our best solutions to marital issues result from blame and relationship score keeping. True___  False___

5. It is easy for me to stay emotionally engaged when my partner nags and criticizes me. True___  False___

You likely found this little quiz very simple, but perhaps also felt some pain and remorse. If you are like virtually all of the couples we work with at LIFE Marriage Retreats, you answered “false” to every question, or at least to four out of the five.

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Marriage New Year’s Resolution

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You probably will not be surprised to learn that the average personal or marriage New Year’s Resolution has a life expectancy of about one week. Most people tend to smile knowingly and a little sadly at such a fact, believing that failed efforts to improve our lives and relationships are simply an unsolvable part of the human condition and there is not much we can do abut it.

The fact is that at LIFE Marriage Retreats we understand very well why efforts to take your marriage to a higher and happier place have not borne lasting fruit in the past. Better yet, we can show you how to deal with the past healthily and move forward into a bright future of lasting positive change.  Prisoners of Past Quote

For this New Year we encourage you to make two resolutions. First, make the commitment to deal with the past, leave it behind, and move into the future with eyes focused on what is best about your partner and your marriage.

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Balanced Relationships

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A key element of any LIFE Marriage Retreat is helping couples to build a balanced relationship. Recently at a private marriage Retreat the couple found what they considered the perfect symbol for their future relationship. Along the San Diego beach Retreat location we sometimes see awesome columns of intricately balanced rocks that seem to defy the laws of physics. This couple felt drawn to one of these works of nature art as inspiration in building balanced lives and a balanced marriage relationship.  Balanced Rocks

Within any healthy relationships you will find numerous examples of balance in areas large and small. A few examples of such balance include (by the way, balance does not infer equal amounts of time in all areas):

  • A mutual recognition that their partner has needs to balance in physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual areas
  • Together time balanced with solitary time
  • Appropriate time for both family and couple time and activities
  • A balance between work and recreation
  • Respect of individual styles in relationship management such as resolving conflict

One of the best types of balance in a marriage is actually unbalanced when looked at like a ledger sheet. Research indicates that the happiest marriages focus on the positives rather than negatives. Certainly negatives are not ignored, but for every complaint or accusation there should be at least 5 heartfelt expressions of acknowledgment and love.  This will always lead to a positive emotional bank account.

So find a balanced relationship and personal life and build something even more remarkable than rock art!

Strengthen Your Marriage with a Healthy Marriage Perspective

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A healthy marriage perspective is important in maintaining a happy relationship.  Recently, I heard a man use the all too common phrase “the old ball n’ chain” in reference to his wife.  Oh, how damaging thisStrengthen your Marriage phrase can be.

While at times, this phrase may seem to accurately describe the feeling of being tied down, held back, or limited in freedom by our spouse, in reality, it is quite false.  The first inaccuracy is that it likens your spouse (a living breathing human being) to an inanimate object with no will of its own.  A second inaccuracy is assuming that you are attached to this object by a shackle to which you have no key. Any marriage perspective that dehumanizes your spouse and removes your personal accountability is bound to damage the relationship.

It would serve you well to remember, and reinforce through your thoughts and actions, that your spouse is not an object.  Your spouse is in fact a person just like you, who, rather than deliberately anchoring you to the ground is simply striving to live his/her own life.  Any resistance you feel on your end is felt equally on your spouses end.  Additionally, whether you realize it or not, the shackle was not forced upon you as a punishment.  You chose to bind yourself to your spouse and you still have the key.  Ultimately, remaining with your spouse is your choice so take accountability for that. Humanizing your spouse and retaining your personal accountability in these ways will certainly strengthen your relationship.

I propose, that in order to reinforce a healthy marriage perspective, adopt a more accurate analogy.  For example, how might things be different if you were to replace the notion of being attached to a ball and chain with the thought of you being two mountain climbers.  As you and your spouse navigate the rocky and ice-covered paths of life, you have chosen to bind yourselves together with a rope for safety. If you feel resistance from the other end of the rope, it means your partner is stuck and needs help, or that they view the path differently than you and feel that a course correction is in order.  Either way, if there is resistance, it means that you get to pay more attention to your spouse and consider his/her thoughts, feelings, and needs as you press forward on your journey together.

With this healthy marriage perspective you will find that there is no mountain you can’t climb together.

Healing Marriage: Administer First Aid

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One of the keys to healing marriage is knowing when to administer emotional first aid to your partner. This healing art is one of the great benefits of a LIFE Couples Retreat.  Healing Marriage-First Aid

When your partner is hurting from something you might have said or done, it is not the time for you to justify, defend, or blame; this is like pouring salt into wounds (and gas onto the fire). Rather than pushing to resolve the issue or prove yourself right you must first sincerely find ways to reconnect with the other person. Through compassion, care, and effort to see their perspective and acknowledge their pain, you will find the key to unlock both your hearts.

Often, words can get in the way of healing marriage and hearts and nonverbal signals will be the more kind and welcome path to reconciliation. A willingness to simply listen, or a gentle touch of the hand will speak volumes. A quiet validation of their feelings will sooth tender wounds.

This offer of an olive branch will not always be easy when your emotions might be running high, but the alternative of further contention and hurt is far more painful. The ability to pour calming oil on troubled waters will help refine you and your relationship into gold, and will produce untold sweet fruit.

At a LIFE Marriage Retreat you will learn to naturally offer healing to your partner, and to receive that same care from them. Contact us and we can help you see the way to a healthy and happy relationship.

So remember, just as physical wounds need first aid and healing before returning to normal activities, tender hearts and feelings need to be addressed in healing marriages before solutions to issues can be sought and found.

Healing Marriage: The Law of the Monkey

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Sometimes at our LIFE Couples Retreats we tell about a certain species of monkey in Africa that can teach us something about healing marriage. Over the years certain tribes have learned how to trap this monkey whether for the stew pot or to sell.  Monkey Trap

The hunter can use either a cavity carved into a tree or even a clay pot with a narrow mouth (see picture). He then puts a few nuts or raisins or whatever bait is available in the pot or the tree cavity. Soon a monkey comes along and smells the bait and reaches into the opening and grasps the nuts or raisins. When the monkey does so his fist becomes too large to withdraw from the opening. The monkey pulls harder and might have a quizzical look on his face, wondering why he can’t get free.

We might think, “Well, just let go of the bait and find a meal somewhere else.” But the monkey does not let go, continuing to try to extract his hand while holding onto the moldy nuts and raisins. Even if there is a better meal of fresh fruit nearby the monkey might stretch to reach it, but will not let go of the bait to free himself. When the hunter returns the monkey will go crazy with fear but still won’t let go.

This leads to the questions: What are you holding onto and unwilling to let go of? What has you stuck in your life and relationship? Are you carrying grudges or pain from the past? Are you stuck in fear, mistrust, or self-doubt? What is holding you back from a healing marriage?

Many people are like the monkey, stuck in a trap, often of their own making, and unwilling to let go and take a seat at the beautiful banquet table of life. While they hold onto moldy nuts and raisins of resentment and fear the best things in life lie beyond their reach.

So just as you might tell the monkey to simply let go, examine what you might be holding on to and tell yourself to just let it go. Might it take some work and perhaps clearing the air in some relationships? Sure. Might it take a sense of personal accountability and humility? Yes. But do what you need to do to resolve the past in a healthy way, and take your seat at the banquet of life.

At a LIFE Marriage Retreat we will help you to recognize what has you trapped and work with you in a life and healing marriage process. Contact us and find the liberation you deserve.