# We tried marriage intensive counseling



## whatisheupto?

My husband and I went through a 2-day marriage intensive in response to his infidelity. We tried counseling that lasted an hour at a time, but all that did was stir up the issues we had, only to leave everything hanging when our time was up - very frustrating. So we (I should actually say I chose and he agreed) to do a 2-day 16 hour marriage intensive. Long, long underlying story, but basically, the intensive was a huge waste of $4,000 for us. He never "checked in" emotionally during the session, so much so that the therapist concluded our session by saying that in all his years of conducting these sessions, he had NEVER seen anyone more "resistant to the process" than my husband. I had such high hopes that the session would be the "wake up call" he needed to see what his actions had done to our relationship, but it was a complete failure for us. Anyone else have a good experience or bad experience with a marriage intensive?


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## lenzi

What does it matter if anyone else had a good or bad experience with marriage intensive, whatever that its?

Your husband cheated on you and he isn't interested in working things out, that's all that matters here.


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## Adeline

whatisheupto? said:


> We tried counseling that lasted an hour at a time, but all that did was stir up the issues we had, only to leave everything hanging when our time was up - very frustrating.


these are exactly my feelings... so much so that I refuse to take the hour long sessions and instead only schedule an appointment with the marriage counselor when she can do an extended session, which isn't much more at an hour and a half. It seems things would be much more beneficial if counseling sessions were a day event. Get there in the morning, stay until late afternoon. Really get into everything and have enough time for a thorough response from the counselor. I hate when I can tell that our time is nearly up based on the counselor's responses, becoming quick and less substantial. She has another appointment coming in 10 minutes, so I guess I understand... but that still doesn't mean that my session got the time it needed. 

Anyways, no I have never done an intensive counseling type event. Did a marriage retreat once years ago, and ironically we did this when our marriage was great. I can definitely see the benefits of a marriage intensive, but I guess that also means that you lose out on meeting with that person over time as your marriage progresses, right? That would be the downside. I still haven't quite found the magic formula to what is the most beneficial way to utilize professional services to repair a marriage.


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