Retrouvaille weekend helps married couples strengthen relationship
By Mary Ann Wyand
Help for couples who are experiencing the pain of a hurting or broken marriage is available during a Retrouvaille weekend on July 29-31 at Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House, 5353 E. 56th St., in Indianapolis.
The confidential Catholic marriage reconciliation program provides tools for couples to repair problems that challenge or threaten their future together.
“Retrouvaille” is French and means “rediscovery.” The weekend, follow-up sessions and support group are open to couples of all faith traditions, and are offered in cities throughout the United States and in other countries.
Weekends are held twice a year at the archdiocesan retreat center in Indianapolis and are sponsored by the archdiocesan Office of Family Ministries.
The international faith-based program expands on the initial retreat experience with six post-sessions and Continuing Our Retrouvaille Experience ( CORE) support group meetings throughout the year.
Holy Spirit parishioners Paul and Debbie Bykowski of Indianapolis serve as a coordinating couple for the Indianapolis Retrouvaille community and assist with the weekend, post-sessions and CORE meetings.
They want couples who are struggling in troubled marriages to know that the Retrouvaille program offers hope as well as help for repairing broken relationships.
“We went on our [Retrouvaille] weekend in June of 2003,” Paul Bykowski said. “We were both previously divorced and were married in 1999, so we had been married about three and a half years when we went on the weekend.”
At the time, the Bykowskis said, they were separated and he had filed for divorce because of “emotional baggage” they brought into their second marriage.
Because of challenges in their blended family and several other difficulties, he said, “we started living what we call a married singles lifestyle … and were growing apart more and more. Communication broke down between us and there was a lot of blaming. I got an apartment and I began divorce proceedings. Neither one of us really wanted a divorce, but we didn’t know how to save our marriage.”
The Bykowskis met with Father Henry Tully, former associate pastor of Holy Spirit Parish and now pastor of St. Mark Parish in Indianapolis, who recommended that they register for a Retrouvaille retreat.
“When we went on the weekend,” Paul Bykowski said, “it gave us the tools that we needed to get on an equal playing field to really get to know each other on a deeper level. For us, it was almost a miracle. On Monday, I had the divorce proceedings dismissed and moved back into the house.”
Through the post-sessions and support group, he said, “we continued to progress in our relationship, learning how to communicate with each other without blaming.”
They still participate in CORE meetings, he said, which are “totally confidential.”
Couples are not asked to share their story during the retreat, post-sessions or support group meetings, he said, but often find that it is helpful to discuss similar experiences.
“We’re not counselors,” he said, “so most of the work is between the husband and the wife themselves. It gives them tools to communicate better with each other.”
Marital love requires trust, respect and friendship, he said. “But going into the Retrouvaille weekend, you may not have much respect or trust for your spouse. It helps to slowly rebuild that trust. You can liken it to building a house. You get the foundation re-poured then slowly work on that trust, respect and love, and hopefully you can build it back into a home that a family can survive in.”
The Retrouvaille weekend and follow-up sessions were “a night-and-day experience for us,” he said. “We just want to share and give back to others what we received so that’s why we are continuing in this ministry. If one couple can see the light and have their marriage saved by something we said then it will be worth it.”
The weekend includes Mass and an opportunity for confession as well as presentations by a priest and trained team couples who help participants rediscover emotional intimacy then work on healing their strained or broken marital relationship.
“It’s emotional work, intellectual work and spiritual work,” he said. “It’s all these things. You look inside yourself then share with your spouse, and try to come to an understanding with each other. It’s an attempt to get in touch with feelings, but men are not always good at that. If they want to honestly work on saving their marriage, they need to get down to some of these core issues. They have to make a decision that this is what they want to do. They have to ask themselves, ‘Is the marriage worth it?’ It’s not going to be easy, but maybe it will be the answer.”
Debbie Bykowski said she struggled with “fear of the unknown” when they registered for the Retrouvaille weekend.
“As you go through it together as a couple, it can be a very emotional experience,” she said. “As the weekend evolves, you see the tension kind of melting away. There’s a little bit more openness, a little bit more eye contact. Couples put their arms around each other again and talk about how—through this weekend—they feel that spark again. They’re more in touch with each other because the walls begin to break down.”
Retrouvaille helps couples communicate better by identifying and interpreting defense mechanisms, she said. “It brings about a new awareness, … and provides the ability to increase communication. … The people involved in Retrouvaille are very warm, very caring, very open. They’ve all been at the brink of despair and disaster, and understand the emotions that couples are experiencing because they’ve been there.”
Retrouvaille programs have a high success rate, she said, but are hard work.
“It takes effort,” she said. “It’s not an easy fix, but it’s a wonderful fix, and you do it yourself with some guidance.”
Marilyn Hess, associate director of healing ministries for the archdiocesan Office of Family Ministries, said Retrouvaille is different than regular marriage counseling.
“Both are helpful,” Hess said, “but Retrouvaille gives couples an opportunity to hear from other couples who have also experienced difficulties in their marriage and have been able to resolve those difficulties. The post-sessions which follow the weekend and CORE meetings give couples more opportunities to figure out what happened, what went wrong, and learn how to correct it.
“It’s worth doing even if a couple thinks that there is no chance that they can keep their marriage together, particularly if there are children involved,” Hess said, “because it does help them communicate better. It’s really worth the effort to do the weekend and see what happens.”
(For more information on Retrouvaille, registration information or an opportunity to talk with a coordinating couple, call Marilyn Hess at the archdiocesan office of Family Ministries at 317-236-1596 or 800-382-9836, ext. 1596, or log on to www.retrouvaille.org.) †