Welcome To Marriage Quest ®
Private Marriage Counseling Retreats For Couples
Is your marriage in trouble? Have you been trying to decide if you can stay together or if you need to separate? 88% of the couples we work with recommit to their marriage after a private retreat in just a few days… we can help you too.
Our 2-4 day marriage intensive retreats support couples by helping them find answers to their most pressing questions.
So whether your marriage is in crisis, you’re considering divorce or you simply need to recommit to one another, we will help you find the answers you’re seeking.
Better Than a Year of Traditional Therapy
Marriage Quest's Intensive Retreat program gets results with 88.5% of the couples we worked with in 2025 deciding to stay together after their retreat.
Many couples have told us that traditional therapy is slow, frustrating, and has sometimes caused more problems than it provided solutions. A Marriage Quest Program is like warp speed therapy. Imagine having a dozen or more really good therapy sessions back to back instead of spreading them out over 12 months.
We meet privately with one couple at a time to address your specific needs. Most importantly, our retreat program is designed to give you a formula and process that you can replicate once you return home. While we are happy to provide aftercare if needed, we want you and your spouse to become self sufficient as you continually improve your relationship or make a decision about the fate of your marriage.
Come experience what many other couples have found to be a more satisfying, cost effective, and time efficient way to nourish or heal your relationship.
Marriage Quest Can Help
Should You Stay Together? Is Separation The Best Answer?
Our Professional Opinion
Many couples come to us seeking a reality check on the future of their marriage. We always start with the same hypothesis that your marriage can be successful if you apply the right skills. Unlike other intensive retreat programs, we advocate for your marriage, but not at any price.
Most couples are able to turn their challenges around with the right support, but in some cases the best answer is a structured separation. In our retreats, we talk about every option.
Objective & Non-Religious
Many marriage intensives are faith-based, this one is not founded in that manner. Instead, our work with is based in scientific practices, brain-science and is not considered a religious retreat.
We also refrain from taking sides of either partner so we can assess your situation realistically and help you redefine your marriage in whatever manner is respectful to both of you and makes you feel happy and fulfilled.
Support for every stage of the journey
Where Are You Right Now?
Whatever stage your marriage is in right now, you don't have to figure this out alone.
Something is wrong in our marriage
Tried everything and it's not working
- Silent divorce: can your marriage still be saved?
- How to save a marriage that is falling apart
- How to keep your sanity when divorce is not an option
- How to get over an affair and decide if your marriage can survive
- How to rebuild emotional intimacy after an affair
- How intensive therapy can help when you're considering divorce
- Exploring alternatives to Gottman couples therapy
We're in crisis and one of us wants out
- My wife wants a divorce and I don't
- What is walkaway wife syndrome?
- What is discernment counseling and can it save my marriage?
- Understanding emotional affairs and the harm they cause
- How to gain trust again after lying to your spouse
- How can I get my spouse to come to a couples retreat?
- Can a couples retreat help us decide if we should divorce?
Issues Treated
How We Can Help
Considering Divorce
Many couples considering divorce believe they are no longer compatible with each other. This is a painful thought, but the reality is that you probably are compatible and just have to develop the skills to repair what has been hurt.
Midlife Crisis
People between the ages of 35 and 65 often wrestle with big questions regarding their meaning, purpose, and direction in life. In the world of work, the 40s begins a time of existential exploration. Feeling appreciated and acknowledged becomes an important contribution to our self-esteem and either keeps us going or if it is nonexistent it stresses us out.
Sexless Marriage
Most sexless marriages start with an emotional disconnection. So in order to not only survive a sexless marriage but to actually thrive, you and your partner need to have a deep conversation about your desires and fantasies both directly related and adjacent to your sex life.
Infidelity
Regardless of the reasons and context of an affair, it hurts and trust is significantly broken. Unfortunately, while divorce feels like a solution, about 80% of couples who separate due to an affair eventually regret that decision.
Resentment
Resentment in marriage usually builds up over time from unresolved conflicts. Failure to develop closure around disagreements, traumatic experiences, and other tense moments in your relationship tend to fester and become worse with time.
Couples Communication
Feeling unheard, misunderstood, or dismissed leads many couples to consider the fate of their relationship. Communication therapy is foundational to every Marriage Quest Retreat, and our goal is to help each spouse feel heard, understood, and respected.
Work with Licensed Psychologist Dr. David Helfand
Dr. David Helfand
Dr. David Helfand, a Licensed Psychologist and expert in intensive couples counseling, has conducted private marriage retreats for more than a decade. His work blends neuroscience, attachment theory, discernment counseling and practical skills to help couples reconnect, rebuild trust, or separate with clarity and compassion. David’s parent’s Dr. Israel Helfand and his wife, Cathie Helfand, founded Marriage Quest more than 40 years ago and worked together as a couple offering marriage counseling at their rural northern Vermont homestead. David worked alongside his parents until their retirement in 2025.
The signature Marriage Quest process was originally developed in collaboration with Dr. Barry Ginsberg of the Center for Relationship Enhancement and has been refined through decades of retreat work since 1995. David continues that work today.
