About 15 years ago we watched the movie Couples Retreat. Don’t be tempted – it was a REALLY bad film even though it starred Kristen Bell, Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman and Charlotte from Sex in the City, all of whom we like. One good thing came from this bad film though which was a running joke. Often, when we would have a minor argument or fight, one of us would say: “It’s time for couples retreat” and that usually got us laughing and moving on from our skirmish.
That backstory is relevant because a few months ago (soon after her Cancerversary) Cassie suggested that we go on couples retreat. At first Dan was confused. Was there a fight he had missed? Something he’d done to piss off Cassie? What was prompting her to use this long standing shorthand? Turns out though that she was serious. Cassie was actually suggesting that we go on couples retreat to sort through our complex feelings surrounding hitting the five year mark of living with Metastatic Breast Cancer.
Dan immediately said yes as visions of hanging out with other couples at some nice spa/resort and going through facilitated exercises and mindfulness practices raced through his head. Two days later though he received an email from Cassie. It was titled “Couple’s Retreat” and included a multi-page retreat agenda she had developed along with a note that said: “This looks fun – I think we should do it.” You see, what Cassie had in mind was our very own retreat that would take place at our Winona condo and that we would organize and do together. A Couple’s Retreat not couples retreat! With this clarity revealed and the great draft agenda in hand, Dan immediately said yes – again.
So that’s what we did in mid-September. A three day, self-organized, Couple’s Retreat and it was amazing. We had sessions on our aspirations and values. We did yoga. We practiced stillness and walking meditations. We met with our Enneagram Coach (the remarkable Brigid McCormack) and learned about how to support one another better. We discussed what we had learned over these past five years and what we wanted the next couple to look and feel like. We scribbled on poster-board and went antique shopping to find things that symbolized this next phase for both of us. We cooked together and napped together. We laughed a lot and cried some. Wine was consumed and laughter abounded. Most of all, we kept looking at each other and saying: “Can you believe we are actually doing this?”
We covered a lot of ground but some very valuable and concrete take-aways emerged. Those include:
- A couple’s value statement that we can use to ground and orient ourselves.
- A set of practices that we can adopt (both individually and together) to help us stay anchored in our values.
- A “Vision Board” of things we might do over the next couple of years.
- Greater clarity about how we could structure our time; and
- Ways we can both help each other slow down and find greater harmony and balance within and across our weeks.
It was also interesting to observe what didn’t emerge from the retreat. We felt no need to label this next phase of our MBC journey. Instead we just decided to be in it and be in it together. We are thinking about the next two years hoping that we get that time but knowing we can adjust if something changes. We also decided that right now we don’t want to give cancer any more energy than we have to. Some days that might be a lot but hopefully, on others, not so much.
Coming out of our time in Winona we are leaning into compassion and kindness – for ourselves and for each other. We are feeling grateful that we had the time together, that we took it seriously and that we felt so aligned. Mostly though we are just so glad that our Couple’s Retreat was so much better than Vince Vaughn and Kristen Bell’s Couples Retreat.
