Marriage Rescue and Restoration Program

The “Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive,” is a 3-day, 18 hour marriage boot camp promises to radically improve marital dynamics by focusing on what Joe calls the “E3 training system” (Empower, Educate and Entertain):

• Empower – Empowering people through God’s word means more than giving them knowledge. The key is to take action with what’s learned.
• Educate – The Marriage R&R will educate couples based on the best practices and finest materials available -- but also on what’s proven to work. This means basing marital training on results.
• Entertain – In today’s world, most people would rather be entertained than educated. The Marriage R&R capitalizes on this fact, and engages them on an intellectual, spiritual and emotional level. Secondly, when couples are entertained, they are more emotionally engaged into the dynamic
process of change that energizes from within and between, and are more likely to retain what they have learned and act on it. Use of video clips, music and other experiential exercises will be implemented.

“Joe Whitcomb has not only my respect as a marriage counselor, but my heart as well. His leadership in guiding couples through tough times displays good training and a great spiritual foundation,” said Jerrold Sugarman D.D.S., an elder in the Los Angeles Church of Christ. “His own marriage reflects love and godly principles that are consistent with his counseling. I highly recommend him for marriage and family counseling, as well as workshop presentations.”

“My husband and I were blessed to have Joe and Cindi Whitcomb as facilitators for an eight-week marriage class we took at the 20-year mark in our marriage. We learned so much!” said Tammy Fleming, a women’s minister in Birmingham, UK. “Joe and Cindi were professional and yet modeled a great personal humility and intimacy that inspired us greatly to change. They gave 100% and clearly practice what they preach. We're still benefiting from the things we learned in their class several years down the road."

According to Joe, "when couples disagree, most repeat the following disruptive pattern: blame, criticize, defend, express contempt, distance, and emotionally or physically withdraw. Distress is not about how many fights you have or even if you resolve the fights. Distress is about how you fight, and whether you can retain some sort of emotional connection after the fight. While traditional types of marital counseling tend to be open-ended and seek to solve immediate problems, such as continual arguing, by focusing primarily on behavior change and communication skills, the Marriage R&R approach hones in on increasing a couple's appreciation for how each partner feels in order to build trust and a secure base they can each rely on. In this approach, couples learn to recognize the negative cycle they are stuck in, where one person criticizes and the other responds defensively or withdraws. Couples learn to identify the needs and fears that keep them in that cycle. They learn to identify and express their underlying emotions. Partners learn to empathize with each other and become more supportive of each other. Partners come together through the emotional needs they are each expressing, and can begin to comfort each other's needs."

Joe concludes, "Until a couple is able to identify, acknowledge and ultimately forgive injuries, an emotional gulf persists between them. No matter how dissatisfying things have become and how unhappy or angry partners may be, they each need to feel safe in coming together to work out their problems. Each partner needs to understand the emotions dictating their actions. The emotions behind perceived problems are the key to understanding each other."

The Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is a journey that can lead couples:

• From alienation to emotional connection.
• From vigilant defense and self-protection, to openness and risk taking.
• From a passive helplessness in the face of the inexorable dance of the relationship, to a sense of being able to actively create that dance.
• From desperate blaming of the other, to a sense of how each partner makes it difficult for the other to be responsive and caring.
• From a focus on the other's flaws, to the discovery of one's own fears and longings.
• But most of all, from isolation to connectedness, reconciliation and forgiveness.

What is the intensive like?

In today’s society it is difficult to commit an hour a week for several months to anything, let alone the health of your marriage. Typically, this is what you are asked to do when you seek marriage counseling. Often, you find yourself experiencing more stress just trying to get into counseling because you have to take off work early, find a baby sitter, coordinate each other’s schedules, etc. In the end, counseling becomes more of a hassle than an asset. Our intensives are focused help for your marriage.

Proven success for our intensives

The Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is based on the wildly successful Couples Intensive program by The Smalley Relationship Center and Imago Dei Relationship Institute that was over 87% successful in keeping couples together and satisfied in their marriage!

Because the average divorce, at least in Los Angeles, CA costs nearly $70,000!

* Because nearly every possible negative behavior for a child increases after a divorce.
* Because of the brilliant work of some of the most respected marriage and family researchers today, we now know what it takes for a marriage to over come most any conflict it will face.

For this reason, the Imago Dei Relationship Institute believes you can survive whatever conflict or hurt your marriage is suffering from! Our Marriage Rescue and Restoration Intensive is proven to turn even the most hurting or devastated marriages into thriving and committed ones!

So how can you know if you need to attend one of our Marriage Restoration Intensives?

Signs of a couple in crisis:

* Difficulty communicating well, especially when you disagree.
* Avoidance/Withdrawal-one or both partners choose to avoid or withdrawal from conversations as a result of negative discussion.
* Invalidation-when one talks negatively about the beliefs, feelings, thoughts, looks, etc. of the other partner.
* Negative Interpretations-when one partner believes that the other partner is constantly behaving/speaking in a more negative way than is actually the case.
* Escalation-when in a discussion, one or both partners begin to escalate the conversation to hostile levels.
* Not handling disagreements as a team.
* Unrealistic beliefs about marriage.
* Difference in beliefs about important issues.
* A low level of commitment to one another (infidelity, no long-term goals, etc.)
* Not practicing faith/spirituality together.

A snapshot of our content

* Why do couples get into trouble
* The greatest act of love no one wants to try
* Creating a marriage worth being in
* LUV Talk: the key to resolving conflict
* The most important thing to do every week for your marriage
* Building a community of support in to your marriage


For more information,to register for the class or to schedule a session to be held for your church, please contact Joe and Cindi Whitcomb at 310-560-0726 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.joewhitcombtherapy.com

posted by Jerry Maday