“My wife was the one who suggested Retrouvaille. When we attended I was not optimistic that whatever we were to be presented with on the weekend would have a beneficial effect on me. I had several times given up hope that our relationship could be repaired. I came to Retrouvaille for the same reason that I had not walked away and had gone to marriage counselling. I knew that quitting would be a terrible thing to do. I think I knew that if our marriage relationship were to survive I had to make some changes in me. But I felt terribly discouraged. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to make whatever changes were required. But I had an idea that there was something I needed to address and I further thought that since I did not know what to do myself nor how to find the motivation or strength to make those changes myself, I better find a source. It had been a long time since I had sought God’s help for anything but I figured the time was ripe. I knew I needed some help of a different sort than the marriage counsellor variety. I suspected I might get something out of this Retrouvaille programme. So, although on the one hand I felt a terrible sense of despair that all was lost – and I was almost resigned to that; I still knew that there was hope and I was going to make every effort to at least go through the motions with this Retrouvaille thing and see what, if any, good might come out of it. I sure did not want to be there in that Retrouvaille programme. I was feeling ashamed and heartbroken that our marriage had broken down. When I thought about how our relationship had deteriorated, I felt frustrated and helpless. I didn’t know what to do to fix us and fix me. I felt uncertain and anxious about what would happened during the weekend and whether the weekend would assist me in coming to grips with our difficulties, but I also felt desperate, so I came… and stayed.”