Marriage Quest is a private, personalized 3-day couples therapy retreat program located in Cabot, Vermont. It is for couples who are looking for an intensive and effective approach to relationship or marriage counseling, even healthy divorce counseling when necessary. The two of you will meet together with two highly-trained Marriage Counselors and Sex Therapists, Israel Helfand, PhD and Cathie Helfand, MS who work with one couple at a time so that they can focus on your specific goals. You do not need to figure out which program is right for the two of you. They tailor the sessions to your situation. This is not a group workshop, seminar, or marriage encounter. It is not religiously-based counseling.

Is Your Marriage Falling Apart?

Marriage Quest Can Help

We have found that our private intensive couple-to-couple retreat (the four of us working together) is a highly effective way to help couples understand and resolve their problems, whether they are in a crisis and at a crossroad in their relationship… or hoping for a deeper intimate connection.

Unlike other programs, we advocate for marriage but not at any price. The objective of our couples retreat is to support the two of you in your specific personal relationship goals, whatever they may be, while concurrently enhancing your relationship.

Many couples come to us for a marital triage and wanting our professional opinion after an emotional or sexual affair, with one person wanting a divorce and the other person wanting to keep the relationship together. In this situation our job is to understand the roots of their problem, explore the options together, and help them make their momentous decision.

As a husband-and-wife team, counseling couples together and running retreats for 30 years, we have specific training in marriage therapy, marriage repair, intimacy, and sexuality. We know personally and professionally about the challenges of modern-day relationships. With this knowledge we bring to our couples counseling work a blend of male and female perspectives and a comfort with the issues common to evolving relationships.

Whether it is to renew and awaken your fading love, repair a marriage that is ready to fall apart, or make a major relationship decision, our couple-to-couple intensive marriage counseling retreat can help you gain insights into your personal situation while teaching you healthy communication skills to keep your discussions focused and fair.

Our work is professional and non-religious. We believe that people have the right to be happy, and that children greatly benefit from authentically happy parents. The most important goal is to follow the truth, to treat each other honesty, and to do that with love and respect.

We Get Results

Our three-day marriage retreat has been designed for the couple wanting a private marriage counseling experience that is deeper and more comprehensive than that which they may have experienced in regular weekly counseling sessions. The marriage retreat is offered regularly throughout the year at our Cabot, Vermont retreat center. Unlike most marriage encounters, seminars, workshops, and retreats this is not a group experience. Meeting with you, one couple at a time allows us to deal exclusively with your personal relationship issues. The four of us usually meet together in our comfortable counseling room, but often we meet one-on-one for a short period of time to explore a specific issue. Many couples come here to get in touch with their deeper truth: whether it is to rekindle and rescue their relationship, explore the decision of a separation, or to work towards a friendly divorce and healthy co-parenting.

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Middle Aged Couple

Private Intensive Retreats

  • Explore what you each see as your problems in a new positive manner, while focusing on the strengths you each bring to the relationship
  • Opportunities to discuss what you each see as the problems, as well as strengths, in your marriage
  • An in-depth discussion of your personal backgrounds and experiences, including your history as a couple together
  • Understanding your feelings, building your emotional awareness, and enhancing your skills in problem solving through effective communication
  • An opportunity to learn and experience how love and forgiveness can build through increased tolerance and through the recognition that personality and character differences can actually enhance your marriage and personal happiness
  • Learn how to make your partner feel good about their self, as is done in healthy marriages

Based in New England, Serving Couples Across The USA

Couples have come to Marriage Quest from many places including Massachusetts, Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, British Columbia, Switzerland, and Australia…and many places in-between. They stay at a local hotel or B&B while meeting for three days of intensive marital therapy.

Couples have come to us for many phases of relationship (including pre-marital) counseling to build better communication skills and a structure for a healthy marriage. (Hey Mom and Dad, what a great idea for an engagement present!)

Better Than a Year of Therapy

We have often heard from clients, many of whom themselves are therapists, that our 3-day program is worth more than a year of 45-minute weekly therapy sessions. Come experience what many other couples have found to be a more satisfying, comfortable, private, cost effective, and time-efficient way to nourish or heal your relationship.

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