Sherrie Austin 1 year ago
My husband and I attended a 3-day couples retreat with Susan and Sandy. It was wonderful, and we are going to give a lengthy review.
We have been married for 10 years and are looking at the next chapter of our lives... retirement for the husband, more years of work for the wife, what does life look like for him, her, us?
We were looking for an immersive experience because we felt that would provide a better outcome than just one hour sessions at a time with a typical therapist, and we were right! We looked at various options out there for weekend retreats, and we wanted something that was a getaway, but was not some big fancy vacation with flights and the stress of travel. Having the ability to stay in a tiny house in the quaint town of McMinnville was perfect. We were able to treat ourselves to messages and nice dinners without a lot of effort. It was relaxing and allowed us to focus on what was most important - US!
Really knowing very little about the "process" going in, this experience exceeded our expectations. Susan and Sandy tailored the experience to us, listening very carefully, and adjusting the content to match exactly what we needed. We had the opportunity to dig into each of our lives to explore who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming, both as an individual and a couple. We had a safe space to take turns exploring our life history, and seeing how we show up today with it. There was the right combination of feeling safe yet challenged to see each of our roles and how they create dynamics, both wanted and unwanted, in our relationship. We spent 3 days and it took all of that time to unravel things and come up with a blueprint for our relationship going forward. This is not a Cosmo Quiz, folks!!
We felt it was important to give a review because as we came across this retreat, we saw mostly reviews from women rather than couples. When we had our Zoom call with Susan & Sandy, we trusted that it was the right forum for us, yet we really had nothing to tell us why we felt this was going to work as well as it did. We are here to tell you -- they do GREAT work with couples! There were some things in my mind going in where I thought, "I hope we will get to talk about X." We covered it all! Communication, intimacy, SEX, our adult children, money, how we do / don't give each other attention, etc. We have our blueprint hanging on the back of our kitchen door to remind us of our commitments to each other as part of this process. We are already recommending it to other couple friends of ours.
