 Hello and welcome. I'm Rivka Slatkin. And I'm Shlomo Slatkin. And we're here today to talk with you about a brand new opportunity for couples to get help for their relationships. Married, engaged, dating, committed relationship. A new opportunity for you to get some help to improve your relationship in a beautiful tropical destination. We've launched in 2022 Costa Rican Tropical Therapy Retreats, also in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. And we've got six dates to choose from this year in 2022. And we just feel like after two years of the pandemic couples need the opportunity to get away and also improve their relationship. So some couples have just seen our website and just clicked on register now and they didn't even need to think about it. They knew immediately this is what they needed. But other couples have some questions and we wanted to take some time to answer those questions for you in case you've been wondering yourselves these very same points. So question number one that we received. Why in the world would I want to go away with my partner who I haven't been able to stand spending time with at home? Why would I want to travel in the airport on a plane and then five days, four nights in a beautiful luxurious location together? Like, you know, what if it goes horrible and we end up more mad at each other than we were at home? So tell us, Shlomo, you as the marriage counselor and a certified immoral relationship therapist, you see these questions all the time. Yeah, I mean it makes sense you wouldn't want to, in some ways it depends on the couple, but it makes sense that, you know, if every time you go somewhere with each other or you end up fighting, why would you want to go on a vacation with your significant other? On the other hand, there are many couples that actually if they would actually get away and have time alone where they could just focus on each other without the stress of work, of kids, everything, they would actually be able to reconnect. And we really believe that the fact that you chose your partner that you originally fell in love shows us that there's a deep connection there. And that even though it's buried out with all the clutter over the years and the conflict and the negativity and toxicity, we believe you can get back to that. And we believe that that's really under the surface. So being able to rekindle that, being able to have a chance to get away, to have a change of scenery is really important and can actually make it an experience, and especially with the work we're going to do, obviously we're not just going to have you on vacation, we have to work it out. With the work that you're going to do to learn about your relationship, couples experience, you know, those feelings of love that they initially had, they experience new hope for their relationship. So the goal is that it should be a positive experience and that you're going to actually enjoy being with each other. So it's almost like you're saying the experience that the couples will have at these therapeutic retreats will not just be a repeat of what's going on at home. They will be a new way of being together in relationship. Right, because once you get started, maybe on your way there on the airport, but once we start working, then the goal is that you'll be able to see something different. Right, and that's through the tools and exercise and all the experiences that we do over the retreat, which is detailed in the itinerary, but we can talk a little bit about it here as well. What about the privacy that a couple will have? Because there will be other couples there. Tell us about it. Does it feel, you know, invasive? Do you feel like you have to share your private life? Sure. So couples always, I guess the apprehension a lot of couples have about doing a group experience is they are worried about this privacy factor. People will see you. They probably learn your first name because we usually have people introduce themselves. Beyond that, you're not required to share anything in the group. It's group instruction, but the work is individual or as a couple. So the presenter is going to present the information. Then you have an opportunity to do some written exercises and then also exercise with your spouse. And you can spread out and you can, you know, not going to be right next to someone so it won't necessarily be audible. If you want to demo, you're welcome to. But otherwise, we've had people go to our group workshops. We've had actually no clue what was going on in their relationship, why they were there, and they came away with a wonderful experience afterwards. So it is possible to feel that sense of privacy. So couples come really in all stages of relationship, whether they're, you know, at their last straw or they just want to make a good relationship. Great. And you're saying that no one really knows why anyone else is there unless they choose to be the demo demonstration couple where we have them actually model certain. Right. Or you ask questions. I mean, if you're asking questions, you know, what do I do in a case where a partner cheats on someone? I mean, we can probably guess why you're there. But you know, it's going to, it depends on, you're not required to participate in terms of publicly. You are, we encourage you to do all the work that in terms of the written work and the work with your spouse, but in terms of publicly, you don't have to. So nobody's going to need to know. And I think it's also good to mention that really the theme of these therapy retreats for couples is emotional safety. So nobody has to do anything that they're uncomfortable with. The whole purpose is to teach you and show you how to create a new way of being in a relationship, which is an emotionally safe way of being. So we don't allow, you know, any kind of oversharing or like if one, if the wife wants to kind of share everything her husband does wrong. Like that's, there's no forum for that. Right. It's not going to be a blame shame fest and for sure not in public. And the presenters are skilled and going to make sure that the process goes on and that there's nobody kind of hijacking it. So if you're concerned that your spouse is going to start asking questions and they'll catch on to that too. If we notice somebody that's I would say asking questions that maybe not really nice or feel inappropriate for the group setting, we would kind of encourage them to hold their question, maybe speak to them privately afterwards, but kind of veer it away from the group. It's not a come by out oversharing fest. And it's not group therapy in the sense that everyone's doing the group. Now, I will say there is an advantage of being in a group because you start to see that when the presenters share what goes on in a relationship and when the couples that do share a demo, you start realizing, oh, well, I'm not alone. There's nothing wrong with us per se. Our situation isn't drastically different than any of the other couples. So there is a definitely a healing factor being in a group that you don't get individually where you can really normalize your situation. And I think that's one of the important factors of group therapy that really helps the healing factors because a lot of people come in, they feel awy me and like my situation is so horrible and I feel like a victim. And when you see that it's really normal, even though it's painful, it helps normalize it helps make it easier. It helps give you the motivation to actually to change. And it's actually funny because the first day, you know, there's always a little bit of tension in the air when couples come in the room by the end of the retreat. These couples are exchanging phone numbers. They're great friends. They have really found another couple that's going through sort of what they've been going through and they feel a huge sense of relief and camaraderie with the other couples that are present. So even when we have our meals or snack breaks, couples are actually wanting to interact with each other and maybe grab a quick snack here. Nobody's running off to their room to kind of wanting to be alone. They enjoy usually the camaraderie of the other couples. Let's talk about the presenters because we are not physically at every single retreat that we've planned for you. But we have handpicked the presenters who are going to lead these therapy retreats and how did we pick them slow-mo? So these are colleagues of ours. These are skilled in model therapy workshop presenters who have been doing this for years presenting the getting the love you want workshop. They've been doing it in their home location for years and they're joining us to our destination locations to bring their brilliance to you and to help you. So we know them all and they're all wonderful. Some of them are couples, some of them are individuals, but they're all experienced and they've done tons of these workshops. Yeah, we really are very selective in who we pick to lead our destination retreats because this is our baby. And so we want couples to walk away happy and we want couples to walk away with a new path charted forward that they feel is doable, that they can succeed. And most of the couples that attend our workshops and retreats end up staying together pretty happily. Some of them never having even implemented one testimonial we got was, we never did anything that you said after the retreat was over, but our marriage is changed forever because we understand the root of our conflict. We understand our childhood story. We have compassion for our spouse and we're in such a better place. So depending on your situation, we don't have longitudinal studies that we're tracking people five, ten years in the future. But basically depending on your situation, your motivation, sometimes it's just a mindset shift that people get from the workshop. They're also getting practical skills and if they really need, everyone can benefit from the skills, but the couples who really need those skills, if they're motivated and they apply them, they're going to be successful. If they're having a hard time, we do offer follow up opportunities. So if couples need the support and our accountability partner to make sure they integrate what they've learned, then that will definitely help them be more successful. Absolutely, for sure. And if you're a couple that's one, you know, you really want to go and your partner doesn't really want to go. That's very normal. There's always going to be a dragger and a draggy. Sulema, why don't you give some tips to the dragger? How can they gently get their spouse to be interested to actually want to go away on one of these retreats? So there are a few different ways to go about it. You know, for a lot of people we just say, you know, I really want to get away and work on a relationship. It could really be great for us, you know, from a more positive perspective. That works for some people, for some people that it's not going to work. The main thing is you don't want to make the other person feel like it's their fault. There's something wrong with them that they're the problem. So you can even take, look, I want to take responsibility. Look, I know I'm not easy to live with. I want to be a better husband. What can I do? You know, can you come with me on this retreat? I really want to learn the skills. I really want to learn about how to understand you better and be able to meet your needs. Talk about it like that. Now we have some couples who are in a situation where they're about to get divorced. In those situations, beyond those, you could just say, look, I want us to be able to get, I want to give our marriage two days to see if we can, if there's any hope for us. Or the four or five day retreat. Well, the four or five day retreat. The one that's, we have private two days and then we also have the ones that are just two days. Well, it's about two and a half. Yeah, I mean, it's a amount of counting the vacation part too, but I want to give ourselves this little retreat to see if we can make it work. Or at least to get closure because so we can have a clear conscience or you can alternatively say, I want to be able to walk away with this and be at peace with whatever decision we make and to be able to be, if you have kids to be good parents. That's just, can we do this just like kind of like one last effort? I'm not going to drag you out for months and months in therapy. It's going to do it, you know, a few days, three or four days, five day retreat. And then we're going to be, we can make whatever decision we make. And that for some people, it's helpful because people don't like the idea that things are going to be dragged out. They want to just feel like, okay, I can give, you know, three or four days and it will, and then I'm done. And that once you get them in, hopefully it can open, open their heart to being able to. That's really the hardest part is really getting them in the door because the magic happens once you're there, once you're going through this process where we take you through the past where you can understand the childhood and then we take you into the present and understand the current source of the conflict and then we help take you into the future. What is your vision for your future together? So the magic happens in the process. So really the hardest part is getting them in the door. If this, I guess also, you know, these are more pricey than maybe going once a week to a therapist that's on your insurance panel. What do you say, Shlomo, for a couple of that, you know, needs to justify the expense of going to Costa Rica or going to Mexico, doing intensive couples work? Yeah. How do you justify that? Well, a few things. First of all, you're getting, well, besides the fact that you're spending time with your spouse and having a vacation, but beyond that, you're getting six months of marriage counseling essentially in two days. That's what we say at this workshop. So if you think about whatever that would cost, that's a lot of therapy. And it's a lot of time and couples that are struggling cannot afford to wait. And nobody wants to be in limbo. Nobody wants to be in pain. And so just for that, it's worth it. You're getting six months, but it's not just six months. It's the cumulative effect of six months in a few days, which means that the impact is going to be much stronger and much worth, much more valuable than the six months of therapy you could get. You're also working with people who are skilled. We're not just talking about couples counselors, but we're talking about couples, marriage counselors with advanced training and with the workshop presenters. So these are people who have been doing this for years who are extremely experienced and probably going to be more skilled than just someone on an insurance panel who's doing marriage counseling. No, there are plenty of great marriage counselors around, but I'm just saying we're dealing with, this is people who are very knowledgeable. Right, to be able to lead the certified amago relationship therapy brand of getting the love you want, you have to go through many, many trainings. Yeah, so it's like going to a specialist and if somebody has an illness, they go to the specialist and they feel they don't just go to their general practitioner or somebody who just kind of got started. So you're in good hands and you're getting a lot for the time and it makes it all worth it. And then besides, the alternative is if you don't get good help or if you decide not just to get divorced, well, just the lawyer's retainer fees are much more than this retreat. And then of course splitting your assets and of course the emotional damage and probably all the individual therapy everyone's going to have to be in. It's just not worth it. And you find couples can really cancel the divorce process after going through getting the love you want. I've seen it happen. I mean, as I said, ultimately we can't make any guarantees. The success of the program is going to depend on your willingness to be open to the information and the application of it. If you don't do anything with this material, I mean, it'll be a great two days, but it's not necessarily going to be helpful. So you need to be able to take what you learn and apply it. And if you can do that, then you can build a successful future together. And we give them all the tools they need. We empower you to do it. It's just, you know, it's the motivation, the willingness to be vulnerable, the willingness to take responsibility. But it's definitely something that's doable. And if you need more help, the follow up sessions can help you with that too. Now, if a couple really, really cannot afford coming to a tropical destination retreat of ours, what do you suggest? So we do have a local, an online version of the workshop done in two days. It's significantly cheaper because you're not paying for the hotel or the food. So that's an option. And they can talk to you about that. Yeah, they can talk to us about that too. Yeah, about what makes sense. So really, we just want to invite you. And one thing is we do have a payment plan. You can use PayPal credit to pay it over six months without interest. So that also can at least make it doable in the short term. Absolutely. And that really helps a lot of people. I just want to see that we covered everything else. Very good. Well, it's a pleasure to have you attend one of these workshops. We hope you can join us. We heard from a clinician that went on one in a few months ago and she said it's the most beautiful place who's ever been in the world, Costa Rica, this particular hotel and area. And she lives in Florida so she gets plenty of tropical. But she said they're just absolutely wonderful. And they really are. We have an amazing staff. We have an amazing program set up for you. The magic is in the process that we take you through with getting the love you want workshop. And we really hope you can attend. So schedule a time really to make a time to speak with Shlomo, to give him maybe a little bit more details about your situation to have him, you know, help you figure out and get some clarity on what's best. Yeah. I'm happy to speak with you here about your situation and see how we can lead you in the right way. Absolutely. Thank you for watching. Bye.