SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I had two recommended to me but I am not too sure and wanted feedback from others. Marriage max.com (home based program) and Retrouvaille (intense weekend through the Catholic Church but for any faith/no faith).

Thoughts?

Have seen lots of good things said about Retrouville, but haven't heard anything about the other one. I'd be suspicious of Marriage Builders, as that seems a bit scammy/cultish. ("Just follow our 10 easy steps and...") -- JMO

Retrouvaille is wonderful & well worth the experience. Besides just the weekend, there are follow up sessions at no additional cost. After that, there are monthly meetings that are free too. That makes it easy to have one night a month where marriage enhancement is done with a variety of topics, speakers, etc.

The Retrouvaille program is geared toward making it affordable to all, so its a donation requested (altho they will tell you the full cost of the weekend). The people are very sweet, friendly & helpful so its a great group to get to know.

We did our weekend on the East coast but also enjoy going to the CORE monthly meetings after moving west. We are moving, so will be checking out the group near our new place.

It is a very private weekend, so you never have to discuss anything in front of anyone else, just your spouse. They have lay presenters who are couples that have experienced a challenging time in their marriage. Sometimes that is infidelity, additions or other serious issue(s).

I know quite a few SI'ers have gone & benefited from it.

My husband is the king of conflict avoidance and detachment, denial, and no communication skills.

I say that in order to say that Retrouvaille has helped us more than anything else. If we make it, which is questionable right now, it will be because of Retrouvaille.

Try to participate 'full out' in the process if you go. Like anything else, the more you are BOTH want to heal, the better it can work for you.

Good Luck!

The main complaint I have with Retrouvaille is that they tend to promote sacrifice in marriage. Part of the program, as I understand it, is designed to get each spouse to accept the faults and foibles of the other as just the way things are in a "you can either be right or be married" kind of way. Marriage isn't for romantic love it's for caring love. However, if your reluctant spouse agrees to attend such an event/retreat with you, focusing on your marriage for a weekend can't hurt as long as you understand it's only a first step towards restoring love in your marriage instead of just tolerance. It also may make for interesting conversations with your spouse to realize this difference/limitation of the program going in as it may actually be all your spouse wants or is capable of and you can consider that as you decide whether it's enough for you (because YOU MATTER TOO).

As far as MarriageMax goes, IMO, Mort Fertel isn't truly a relationship expert of any kind. He's an author who self-describes himself an expert just like Amy Waterman of Save My Marriage Today. There's a bunch of these guys and girls (some completely fake with models posing as the "expert") on the internet promoting their marriage saving programs, for a fee, who basically just read a bunch of real accredited marriage professionals and researchers (as you are free to do) like Helen Fischer, Dr. Willard Harley, David Carder, Shirley Glass, Dr. Janis Abrams Spring, Michelle Weiner-Davis, Frank Pittman, etc and wrote their own on-line versions, set up websites and begin the task of promoting their programs (and themselves) for profit. They also go about setting up fake "review" websites in case you try to google whether they are good or not. These, cough, "Authors", are snake oil salesmen preying on VERY vulnerable and desperate betrayed spouses. IMO, you'll get better information and help from the posters here who have been through it than from reading these frauds.

Blobette says: I'd be suspicious of Marriage Builders, as that seems a bit scammy/cultish. ("Just follow our 10 easy steps and...") -- JMO

You mean MarriageMax not Dr. Harley's Marriage Builders recovery program, right? My wife and I successfully used the MB recovery program and there are a lot of posters here at SI.com that did the same. There's nothing "scammy" about MB since Dr. Harley is truly a fully accredited and experienced (like 30 years) marriage expert and his program, for the most part, is available FREE on his website (or get his widely available books used on Amazon.com for a couple bucks). "Surviving an Affair" and "His Needs, Her Needs" are two of Dr. Harley's books referenced in SI's "Healing Library". Note that Mort Fertel is NOT referenced in the "Healing Library".

I got the free promotional newsletters from Mort Fertel of marriagemax.com when I first started. Guy doesn't even understand NC, at the end of it all, he sent an email saying it was the last reminder and to continue receiving I had to sign up, or I would not hear from them again. He continued to send them for months anyway.

Oh yeah, marriagemax program was all about tolerance for your spouses behaviour and rugsweeping. Probably not what you are looking for.

We signed up for Retrouvaille. Thanks for replies!

Notmylife77, my WW and I just did World Wide Marriage Encounter last weekend!

Was well worth it.

Retrouville is basically a subsidiary of WWME...FYI

I can get you info on this if you are interested. It's centered around Catholics, but all faiths where there.

Good luck, and god bless

I am very happy you signed up for Retrouvaille. It was a turning point in our healing journey. It made a huge impact on my FWH.

Go with an open mind and be prepared to work your buns off.

So glad you signed up for Retrouvaille. It is well worth it. My H and I did our weekend this past April. We have now "angeled" (volunteered) for two weekend since and plan on continueing to do so. We drive/have driven 2 1/2 hours one way to attend our weekend, post and CORE sessions. I don't beleive we would be as far along in our healing or possibly not even together anymore without it.

WH purchased the MarriageMax CD set almost immediately after DDay but we never even got past the 3rd disc. One thing that was a huge turnoff is that Mort kept insisting that MC was basically death for any marriage and that if you were resorting to MC then your marriage was doomed anyway. We have had great success with MC. He really didn't give any useful information on how to heal a marriage or prevent infidelity. Like someone else said, there was more of a "rugsweeping" attitude. Don't waste your money on this.