There is Hope for Distressed Couples at the “Hope Weekend” by Dr. Richard Marks with Marriage for Life, Inc.
"Hope Weekends" are a 3 day professionally/pastorally guided relationship skills marriage weekend in how to restore and sustain a connected relationship. HOPE Weekends were developed by Dr. Richard Marks because of his realization that the majority of couples coming to him did not have the necessary relationship skills that led to love, feelings of intimacy, and respect.
So, in 2004, he put together a weekend intensive using his relationship skills curriculum and has found that the majority of couples that attended decided 
to stay together. The success rate of couples completing this weekend program is approximately 70%.
Today, the Marriage for Life Team conducts these weekend intensives for couples monthly--on the third weekend of every month in Jacksonville, Florida. They take no more than six (6) couples per month and a team of 3-4 is present to help the couples navigate the weekend journey. They take couples who are separated, seeking a divorce, experienced adultery, have lost feelings of love, and more. They have even had premarital couples attend as they wanted to learn the skills as prevention.
The HOPE Weekend is NOT therapy, but a biblically based, educational process for bonding, attachment, and the skills to reconnect and recapture love. Thus, they like to say that though it is not therapy, it is therapeutic.
3rd Weekend of Every Month
The objectives of the HOPE Weekend are to help couples . . .
- Experience deeper intimacy and connectedness
- Experience deeper levels of knowledge and understanding of each other
- Strengthen communication and conflict resolution skills
- Promote a greater sense of “Us-ness” and bonding
- Remove some of the accumulated relational pain
For more information and or to sign up for the next Hope Weekend click HERE:
The Decision whether or not to divorce is one of the most serious decisions you will ever make in your life. Your marriage is in trouble, and you must choose between staying together or getting a divorce. Unfortunately, most couples base this major decision on emotions and feelings rather than sober thought and analysis. Most couples considering divorce do not understand the enormous implications of this decision before making it. During this difficult season of your life, take the time to slow down the “divorce train,” try as hard as you can to put the emotional turmoil you are facing on the back burner, and take an objective view of how this decision will affect your life in key areas including:
- Legal
- Financial
- Emotional
- Physical
- Spiritual
- Your children
Think of this as a season to acquire knowledge in these key areas, and to learn about the negative effect divorce will have on you, your spouse, your children, and the rest of your life. After all, divorce is more likely to multiply problems in your life than to solve them.”
-LivetheLife.org, 90 day Divorce “Cease Fire” Pledge
Click Here for to sign the pledge to fight for your marriage
Retreats:
Here’s a list of marriage crisis retreats and resources intended to help you and your spouse work out the conflicts that are hurting your marriage.
Marriage For Life
developed to help decrease divorce and family disintegration in the Greatger Jacksonville area. We accomplish this through offering educational classes, relationship skills training, marriage coaching, and weekend intensives for distressed marriages.
Retrouvaille
The Retrouvaille Program consists of a weekend experience combined with a series of 6-12 post-weekend sessions over 3 months.
National Institute of Marriage
4 Day Intensive Christian Marriage Counseling Program:
Utilizes a structure that was created and designed by our team through years of experience while saving thousands of marriages. It is the most powerful format we have found for helping couples who feel stuck and hopeless to move past the barriers that keep them from experiencing the joy in marriage they have always desired. This format consists of no more than five couples working with two of our marriage counselors over a four-day period.
Winshape Marriage
Winshape has designed a four-day intensive program for couples in crisis with a 95% success rate.
FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember:
At FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember marriage conference, you can put aside life’s daily distractions and focus on each other again.
National Marriage Encounter
The mission of National Marriage Encounter is to promote and encourage marriage and family life by offering Marriage Encounter weekends and a support community. National Marriage Encounter enables people to discover God's vision of marriage, family life, and spiritual diversity, thereby leading them to a clearer understanding of their relationship with each other and with God.
Center for Relational Care
Intensives are three-day and four-day therapeutic programs that offer structured, focused opportunities for personal growth and relational enrichment.
Resources:
Focus on the Family
The Focus on the Family website with resources and links for marriages in crisis.
Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman Counseling
With over thirty years of experience in marriage counseling, Dr. Gary Chapman has worked closely with thousands of couples struggling with countless issues. But at the heart of every marriage he has encountered–including his own–rests the same core longing: all people need to feel loved.
Fireproof My Marriage
Take the 40-day “Love Dare” and make a long-term difference in saving your marriage.
Reconciling God’s Way:
A “First-Response” ministry for marriages in crisis-even with an unwilling spouse.
National Institute of Marriage
National Institute of Marriage’s marriage counseling programs utilize a structure that is the most powerful format we have found for helping couples who feel stuck and hopeless. We have designed several programs to help couples move past the barriers and experience the marriage of their dreams.
Marriage 911
The Marriage 911: First Response program has been used for years to help people who are struggling in their marriage learn healthy and productive ways to deal with their difficult circumstances. This First Aid Kit can be used on your own, or in a small same gender group, and includes: One 12-Week Marriage 911: First Response Workbook, One Support Partner Handbook, A copy of YES, YOUR MARRIAGE CAN BE SAVED, by Joe and Michelle Williams.
The Marriage Retreat
Destin, FL (Northwest FL) (850) 650-8000
Rev. Dr. Forrest Mobley is the director and contact person.
8-day retreat dedicated to strengthening healthy marriages, providing ministry to marriages that are struggling, and healing marriages that seem helpless. (ECFA member) It is also a Clergy Care Resource Center, and is connected to the Episcopal Church.
Rick Brown
Winter Park, FL 32789 - 407.644.3537
He appears regularly as the “Relationship Expert” for FOX TV and has served as the therapist for the NBA’s Orlando Magic. He has spoken at every major psychotherapy conference from the Family Networker Symposium to Smart Marriages.