Mary Ellen Goggin

Marriage Retreat: Tune-up for a smooth ride

By Mary Ellen Goggin / July 18, 2016

 At a dinner party the other night, an attractive 40-something woman asked me what I do.  I told her that I work with couples who want more satisfying relationships. “You mean you’re a therapist? I don’t believe in therapy. What’s the point?” she scoffed. “My husband and I were married 20 years ago. We’ve never…

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Marriage Counseling Can Transform Your Relationship

By Mary Ellen Goggin / April 5, 2013

A Marriage Counseling Retreat Can Transform Your Relationship Marriage and Couples Counseling can be successful given the right ingredients: readiness, right timing, and resonance with a marriage counselor (and better yet, a counselor couple) who is experienced, knowledgeable, and highly skilled. Private intensive weekend retreats with the right mix of elements can be even more…

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Benefits of Couples Counseling Retreat with a PhD Husband-Wife Team

By Mary Ellen Goggin / April 5, 2013

We’re all human. Well, most of us. Invariably, during an intensive couples counseling retreat, Jerry and I exchange not-so-secret smiles of acknowledgment when one partner starts riffing about an ultra-annoying habit of the other. Think crinkling candy wrappers during movies, open-mouth chewing, fidgeting, fiddling, finger-tapping, incessant sighing, yelling from another room,  not making eye contact,…

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Commitment Phobic or Just Confused?

By Mary Ellen Goggin / October 29, 2012

Commitment Phobic or Just Confused by the Words “I Do”? I’m going out on a limb here by stating that the deep down cause of commitment phobia is the historic baggage associated with marriage as an impersonal institution of marriage and NOT lack of love. It’s about fear of loss of self and personal freedom.…

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