Marriage Intensives in Boulder, Colorado for couples at a turning point.

The Second Half Intensive

A private 2-day or custom Marriage Intensive in Boulder, Colorado for midlife couples ready to repair what has been strained, understand the pattern they are caught in, and create a clearer path forward together.

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When Weekly Therapy Isn’t Enough

Weekly couples therapy can help. But when you’re caught in the same painful cycle, recovering from a rupture in trust, or standing at a crossroads about the future of your relationship, stopping just as the important conversation begins can make progress feel slow.

A Marriage Intensive removes that ceiling. Over two consecutive days, we step out of daily distraction and work with the deeper patterns — the fears, protections, and unmet needs that keep pulling you apart — long enough for something new to take hold.

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Is a Marriage Intensive Right for You?

An intensive is for couples who still care about each other but feel caught in patterns they haven’t been able to change on their own. It may be the right fit if:

• You keep having the same painful conversations without resolution
• You feel more like roommates than partners
• One or both of you are unsure how much longer you can keep going this way
• You are recovering from betrayal, broken trust, or a major rupture
• You are facing a significant transition — empty nest, retirement, relocation, shifting priorities
• You’ve tried therapy before but didn’t get the progress you hoped for
• You want dedicated time to understand what’s happening and leave with a clear path forward
• You’re ready to invest time, honesty, attention, and care in your relationship

You don’t have to be in crisis to choose an intensive. Many couples come precisely because they want to stop drifting — and move with clarity and intention instead.

How the Work Begins

Every couple begins with a Relationship Roadmap — three hours to understand how the two of you are built and what it will take to change, followed by a written assessment and roadmap you keep.

It’s how I know whether an intensive is the right format for you, and how we determine the shape it should take. I don’t schedule immersive days with a couple I haven’t assessed.

Choose the Intensive Format That Fits the Moment

Every relationship reaches a different kind of turning point.

Some couples need a focused reset. Some need deeper repair after a major rupture. Others are standing at the edge of a new life chapter and want to decide, with care and honesty, who they are becoming together now.

The right intensive format is determined during your consultation, based on your relationship history, current concerns, emotional readiness, and goals for the work.

The Focused Reset

For couples caught in recurring conflict, emotional distance, or uncertainty who need focused movement and a clear roadmap.

This format is often a good fit when you still care deeply about each other, but the same pattern keeps taking over. You may be arguing more than you want, avoiding hard conversations, living like roommates, or wondering why closeness feels harder than it used to.

The Reset gives you protected time to slow the pattern down, understand what is happening between you, and begin building a clearer way forward.

Deeper Repair

For betrayal, major rupture, long-standing resentment, or years of accumulated disconnection.

This format is often a better fit when there is more pain in the room, more history to understand, or a deeper repair process needed. You may be carrying old hurts, rebuilding trust, recovering from betrayal, or feeling unsure whether the relationship can become safe and connected again.

The Repair gives us more time to work carefully with the layers of hurt, protection, accountability, and reconnection.

The Next Chapter

For couples navigating empty nest, retirement, remarriage, leadership or business stress, relocation, or a major life decision.

This format is for couples who are not only trying to repair what has been strained, but also asking a bigger question: What kind of relationship do we want for the next chapter of our lives?

The Next Chapter is designed around your specific transition, goals, and relationship dynamics so the work supports both repair and future-building.

Most intensives run two days. Some need more. We determine the length together at the Roadmap, before anything is scheduled — never in the middle of the work.

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This Work Is Not the Right Fit If

• A Marriage Intensive requires honesty, willingness, and active participation from both partners. It is not the right fit if:
• One partner is attending only to appease the other
• There is an ongoing affair that is being hidden, minimized, or leveraged
• There is active coercion, intimidation, untreated addiction, or ongoing emotional or physical safety concerns
• You want a referee to decide who is right
• You want quick advice without honest participation from both partners

If there are safety concerns, active abuse, untreated addiction, or ongoing betrayal, those issues need a different level of support before intensive couples work can be effective.

This Is Not a Generic Marriage Retreat

The Second Half Intensive is private, clinical, in-person couples work in Boulder.

There is no group programming, no formulaic weekend curriculum, and no promise that a few days will magically fix years of pain.

Instead, the work is focused, experiential, and built around your relationship in real time. We slow down the pattern as it happens, make room for what has been protected or avoided, and begin repairing the bond with honesty, care, and clear therapeutic support.

This is not about escaping your life for a weekend. It is about stepping out of the daily pattern long enough to understand what is happening between you and begin practicing something different.

Traveling to Boulder for Your Intensive

Couples come to The Second Half Intensive from across Colorado and beyond. For many, the travel itself helps — stepping away from home, work, and the daily routine makes it easier to focus fully on each other and on the work.

Boulder is about 45 minutes from Denver International Airport. Your intensive is held in person at my private office, and couples who travel often stay nearby so the two or three days stay protected and uninterrupted.

This isn’t a getaway from your life. It’s dedicated time, away from the usual distractions, to understand what’s happening between you and begin practicing something different.

How the Days Unfold

The Second Half Intensive is a private, structured experience built entirely around your relationship. Depending on what your relationship needs, your intensive may be two days, three days, or a custom format determined during your consultation.

No two couples move through the work in exactly the same way, but the experience often follows a clear progression: relief, reset, repair, and a path forward.

Relief — Slow the Pattern Down

We begin by helping the tension, defensiveness, shutdown, or distance finally have somewhere to go. Many couples feel the relief of being in skilled hands early in the process, because the pattern is no longer running the room.

Reset — Understand What Keeps Happening

We look closely at your relationship history, strengths, recurring conflicts, and the protective patterns that take over under stress. The aim is not blame. It is a clear, shared understanding of what happens between you when hurt, fear, or disconnection take hold.

Repair — Practice a New Way Forward

We work with your patterns in real time: slowing down escalation, interrupting withdrawal, repairing missed signals, listening differently, reaching more clearly, and staying connected through hard moments. This is where change becomes something you experience together, not just something you talk about.

Path Forward — Leave With Clarity

You leave with a grounded understanding of what shifted, what still needs attention, and how to keep building on the work in daily life. The goal is not a perfect relationship by the end of the intensive. The goal is a clearer, safer, more connected path forward.

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What the Intensive Experience Includes

• Preparation and treatment planning drawn from the Relationship Roadmap assessment

• Structured morning and afternoon sessions, with time to rest and integrate between

• Real-time work with the patterns as they happen

• Support for repair, reconnection, and clearer communication

• A personalized plan for moving forward

• A two-hour follow-up session, one to two weeks later

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What Changes Afterwards

An intensive isn’t a guarantee, and I won’t tell you two days undo years. What it offers is enough concentrated time, structure, and skilled support for something to actually shift — and then a plan for keeping it.

Most couples leave with:

• A shared understanding of the cycle, and language for it that doesn’t make either of you the problem
• Less blame, and more compassion for what each of you has been carrying alone
• The experience of moving through a hard conversation without it going the way it always goes
• Practical ways to slow escalation and repair faster when it happens anyway
• A written plan for what comes next, and a two-hour follow-up session to work it through

What matters isn’t how the last hour of the second day feels. It’s what’s different between you six weeks later — which is exactly what the follow-up session is for.

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Why This Work Goes Deeper Than Communication Skills

By the time a relationship feels stuck, the problem is usually deeper than communication alone.

In a Marriage Intensive, we work with the patterns underneath the conflict, distance, or broken trust — the automatic ways each partner protects, reacts, withdraws, pursues, or gives up when the relationship feels unsafe.

For 17 years, I’ve worked exclusively with couples, integrating PACT®, TCT®, attachment science, trauma-informed care, and experiential approaches to create change that is not only understood, but felt.

The goal is not simply to talk about what needs to change. It’s to experience a safer, more connected way of being together.

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Investment

Relationship Roadmap — $1,500. Required first session for every couple.
Marriage Intensive — $7,000. Two five-hour days plus a two-hour follow-up.
Additional days — $3,500 each, agreed in advance.

Private pay; I don’t bill insurance.