Presenting Teams
Presenting Teams Share Their Personal Struggles
A team of three couples and a priest or three couples and a Christian minister & spouse for Christian Multi-Denominational (CMD) weekends present the Retrouvaille weekend. The presenting couples have grown through serious disillusionment, pain and conflict in their own marriage relationships. The team members offer hope as they share their personal stories of struggle, reconciliation and healing. They share the deep and personal hurts they have experienced, helping participants find the courage to express some of their own pain with their spouse in a safe and private place. In sharing their values and insights, presenters offer a message different from society's model of independence and selfishness. Hurting couples are invited to see how listening, communication, conflict management and forgiveness are healthy tools for building a stable relationship.
The members of the presenting team are not professional speakers, marriage therapists, or counselors, but are people who previously experienced the Retrouvaille weekend themselves. They give a specific series of presentations that are not meant to be lectures or teachings, but rather informational sharing centered around their personal experiences. They share their experiences of disillusionment and misery, as well as the tools they used to change their marriages. Time for personal reflection and private couple communication or dialogue follows most presentations, not with the teams or other couples, but between you and your spouse. The weekend process centers around open and honest communication, which occurs privately between spouses in their own room. There is no group sharing required, other than a brief personal introduction at the beginning of the weekend.
The presenting teams, through sharing the tools that have worked for them and how their relationships have grown, understand that no marriage is exactly alike. Therefore, the teams will share what they have learned and challenge couples to learn how to utilize the tools to improve their own marriages.
All team members, both couples and clergy, believe in God and his desire and power to heal and resurrect marriages. Though many denominations are represented, including Catholic and Protestant, all team members share a Christian faith, although the program is focused on marriage, not religious doctrine. It is beneficial to couples of all faiths or no faith at all.