Retrouvaille

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Joyish

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My husband told me two weeks ago that he wants a divorce. He hasn’t moved out yet but is working on it. There is no affair, or abuse, he is just unhappy because I have disrespected him in our day to day interactions. I know I have hurt him but I truly believe we can repair our marriage if we work at it. We have a 9 month old daughter, and I know that divorcing would be the absolute worst thing for her.

I would like to request prayers, and also ask for any advice regarding what I should do for the two weeks before we go to retrouvaille. He has agreed to go but I don’t think he expects anything to come out of it. I am extremely hopeful however. I know he still loves me, because he told me he does, but he has just lost hope that we can be happy together. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am not sure if I should ask my husband to meet with out priest before the retreat.
 
Sorry to hear of your situation. I’ll say a prayer for you though you should post a separate request in the Prayer Intentions section. I’m afraid I can’t be of much more more help than that. God bless.
 
Joyish said:
My husband told me two weeks ago that he wants a divorce. He hasn’t moved out yet but is working on it. There is no affair, or abuse, he is just unhappy because I have disrespected him in our day to day interactions. I know I have hurt him but I truly believe we can repair our marriage if we work at it. We have a 9 month old daughter, and I know that divorcing would be the absolute worst thing for her.

I would like to request prayers, and also ask for any advice regarding what I should do for the two weeks before we go to retrouvaille. He has agreed to go but I don’t think he expects anything to come out of it. I am extremely hopeful however. I know he still loves me, because he told me he does, but he has just lost hope that we can be happy together. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am not sure if I should ask my husband to meet with out priest before the retreat.
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Having a small child at home is HARD. Does your husband understand that this is objectively one of the most difficult times in your lives, and it might just be that the two of you need more help to reduce both of your stress levels? Reduce your levels of stress and fatigue, and life together may look much more manageable.

Also, divorce is very expensive. How about investing a few hundred dollars in babysitting and cleaning help and see if that doesn’t make your life together run more smoothly? Plus some marriage counseling, of course, to help you both to learn to communicate more respectfully and lovingly. For $1,000 invested in household help and a little bit of marriage counseling, your husband could save easily $100k, not to mention saving your marriage.

Good luck!
 
I am so very sory for you both. Eucharistic Adoration is very powerful. I will keep you both in my Prayers.

May Our Lord Jesus Christ heal your marraige and you both. Amen.
 
Thank you all so much for your kind words. I would appreciated your continued prayers for our healing. I just finished reading Proper feeding and care of husbands and it has really opened my eyes to how we came to this point. I am pleading with God for another chance, and I feel a strange amount of peace that everything will be okay, and that our family will stay intact.
 
Respect is the single greatest need a husband has from his wife. If a wife loses her respect for her husband, their marriage is invariably in poor health, if not outright separation. If the husband has acted in ways that cause his wife to lose her respect for him, then yes he most certainly has things to work on himself while she works on shoring up her respect for him. Good luck to the OP and her husband.
 
Thank you all for your prayers. I am clinging to hope right now, even though I have now agreed to separate. He is so miserable and all he can focus on is he negative. I’m hoping giving him some space might help him get some perspective, even though everything I’ve read says separating is very dangerous. Does anyone have any experience with retrouvaille, with a spouse who doesn’t want to try anymore?
 
Hi Joyish,

You are in a tough spot. I have been there, and it didn’t end well for me; he moved out 6 months ago and has filed for divorce. There are a few things I’d like to share…

Has he been evaluated for depression? When you said that he says that ‘everything is negative’ that made me think about depression.

My husband refused to go to retrouvaille, so I don’t have any help for you there. I looked into it and it looked promising! I think that the main key is if your husband wants to try to save the marriage.

Are you going to couple’s counseling together? Preferably with a catholic counselor?

Another book I recommend is the 5 Love Languages. This was very enlightening for me.

I’m very sorry for your situation, and I will pray that things improve!
 
He has not seen anyone for depression but I would say that he has it. He has always struggled with depression and drinking, according to his mother this started after he got out of the military. I wish he would see someone for himself. For us, I would love to go to a counselor but he absolutely refuses. I honestly cannot even believe he agreed to go to retrouvaille. I am praying that he doesn’t change his mind at the last moment. Every now and then I see glimmers of hope, but I know I am being optimistic. I just can’t believe he would be willing to walk away from daily life with our daughter. His own father walked out on him and it scarred him.
 
Hi Joyish,

You are in a tough spot. I have been there, and it didn’t end well for me; he moved out 6 months ago and has filed for divorce. There are a few things I’d like to share…

Has he been evaluated for depression? When you said that he says that ‘everything is negative’ that made me think about depression.

My husband refused to go to retrouvaille, so I don’t have any help for you there. I looked into it and it looked promising! I think that the main key is if your husband wants to try to save the marriage.

Are you going to couple’s counseling together? Preferably with a catholic counselor?

Another book I recommend is the 5 Love Languages. This was very enlightening for me.

I’m very sorry for your situation, and I will pray that things improve!
 
My husband struggled (still) with depression. He couldn’t see any future with us together, and refused to do anything to try to create a better future with us together. He also comes from a divorced family (we both do), and so we were determined to do everything we could to avoid that for our own children. Depression can really mess with how a person thinks about things!

At least here where I live, the retrivaille program also includes several meetings over the next couple of months after the weekend. you may be able to transition from these meeting to counseling sessions. And, you may have an opportunity to explore the idea that he might have depression with him over the weekend. Be careful though; my husband decided that I was trying to blame the break up of our marriage on him when I suggested that his depression might be contributing to some issues.

I pray that your husband is open to working on your marriage! I will pray that retrovaille will be life changing for you and for him.
 
Thank you so much! Your kind words mean so much during this dark dark time. Depression is a terrible illness, and that coupled with anger problems makes it difficult to get through to him. However, I know better than to blame our problems on that. I am also very tough to be with. But I know we can make things better! I just can’t get past the idea that marriage is between two imperfect people who commit to making it work. My parents have been such a great example of this for me and I am crushed at the thought of not providing this for my daughter.
 
I’m so sorry to hear what’s happening in your marriage. My husband and I had our own near marital collapse when our son was around your daughter’s age. I had tried for months to get my husband to go to counseling, but he felt it was all hopeless and he made it clear he was not interested in repairing our marriage. Eventually, I found out he was having an affair and when I confronted him with what I knew he chose to leave us.

12 hours later he realized everything he walked away from and how he had permanently changed our son’s life in an instant.

Months of counseling and retrouvaille helped us save our marriage. It hasn’t been easy. I still hurt and it has been a year and a half since all that happened.

As a somewhat happy ending to our story, one year to the day of discovering my husband’s affair was our daughter’s baptism.

As for Retrouvaille, it is a LOT of work. The weekend is very intense. The participants are never required to share their problems which is what makes it palatable for many people. The follow-up weekends are also very worthwhile.

If you have more specific questions about the weekend, feel free to PM me but part of the success of the weekend is not knowing what you’re going into. You really have to be committed to the work and, preferably, to the follow-up weekends as well.
 
I am so glad that things worked out for you, even though you had to go through a bad time to get there. Your story is inspiring. I have read countless, and I mean countless, blogs and threads regarding retrouvaille, and a lot of them give me hope. I am very nervous though, because I believe the biggest factor for our success is a willingness to work on our marriage, and my husband is completely done. My prayer is that once we are there, the Holy Spirit will touch his heart and help me see that if we work at it, we can have a happy marriage. But my nightmare is that he will be closed off the whole time & be unmoved by the presentations.
 
This weekend is our retrouvaille weekend. Please pray for me and my husband, that we will be open to healing our marriage. Thank you!
 
You have no idea how many people are praying for you this weekend! 👍
 
Hello,

This Prayer has helped me at times.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. O Good Jesus, hear me. Within your wounds hide me. Permit me not to be separated from you. From the wicked foe, defend me. At the hour of my death, call me and bid me come to you That with your saints I may praise you For ever and ever. Amen.

I Pray for all healing for all of you. Nothing is impossible with God. His Will be done.

God Bless you
 
Thank you for your prayers. We did not have any sort of miracle moment, but we did have some good moments and were able to connect on some things that we have both been avoiding for a very long time. I am glad we went. Now I have to ask for continued prayers, as I am hoping we can make it to the follow-up weekend post sessions. It does not look like my husband will go with me, but I am praying he will decide to go.
 
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