anyone done strong bonds?

[basilosaurus]

What was your impression?

[iluvmytxrgr]

We love them. We always have a great time and get a lot out of them. Plus, who doesn't like a free trip?
It is very Christian based. Our Chaplain is great about keeping in mind that not everyone is Christian and tries not to bring faith into the entire weekend. Not all Chaplains are that way, though. If I were a non-Christian, I would really consider the Chaplain and their style before I decided to go.

[basilosaurus]

Hmmm. I spoke with the chaplain, and she said it does not endorse a particular religion. What I didn't know is if that meant it was pro-religion but neutral on Christianity or if it was religiously neutral. Like, would they suggest "pray together" as a strategy for your marriage or more neutrally suggest ways to openly communicate? Do they use religious based gender roles? Or are they accepting/encouraging of couples defining their own roles irrespective of gender?

I thought that activities open to all had to be religious endorsement neutral. Like, a prayer at an event can't mention jesus. So how would a program intended to help all couples be allowed to be Christian specific?

tx, in what ways was it "very" Christian? I'm just curious why you'd use such a strong descriptor.

I actually do want to go as it's in an awesome location, and I think even a minimal bit of help is a good thing. I don't think we'll be able to make it, though, as I rechecked the dates, and I don't think H can make it.

[sweethurricane]

We went on one. It was not religious AT ALL (not one single thing mentioned about church/god/praying/etc). We did enjoy it. Like TX said, it's a free trip. My only beef would be that there was practically no "us" time. It was advertised to us as a retreat yet we were in classes and organized meals almost the whole time.

[basilosaurus]

sweethurricane, they said we had free time after 4p on Sat night. Did you have less time than that? I don't know the sched on Sunday, but I do know early morning chapel is optional.

It's not entirely free as we have to get a flight to a different island, so I guess maybe I should check airfare before thinking about this more

[letsbeawkward]

Jul 30, 2012 18:29:20 GMT -5 Smurfette said:

What is this strong bonds you speak of? lol I first put bong I don't think that has anything to do with Christianity

www.strongbonds.org/skins/strongbonds/home.aspx

It is basically a retreat to help the soldier and their family strengthen their relationship.

[Jam]

I love them! I've gone to four in the last year. It's free food and a nice place to stay.
The downside is the seminars can be quite boring (depending on what type of retreat you're attending). There's an obvious religious tone with some of them but I just ignore it and have my fun.
We went to a reintegration one after the unit got back from deployment an it was couples themed. We had A
LOT of fun. There were about 28 couples and we actually had a lot of free time.

We drove to local neighboring towns to drink, had Bon fires, hit up the hot tub to drink some more, etc.

[krista]

We went to one in Hawaii (HHV) and it was so much fun! Ours was the humor based one and it was actually quite funny.
There are religious overtones. It is run by a Chaplain afterall, but there's nothing encouraging traditional gender roles or encouraging praying together. The strategies and techniques we were given are the basics that you would get from most types of counseling. active listening, respect, etc.
The only time religion was brought into it was with an opening and closing prayer. Oh, and we watched the movie Fireproof, which I though I would hate, but found it tolerable.

[NomadicMama]

In early September, LO and I are going to a Strong Bonds retreat for families with a deployed service member. I'm looking forward to it. I've heard nothing but good things from folks who have gone.

[iluvmytxrgr]

Jul 30, 2012 18:44:03 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Hmmm. I spoke with the chaplain, and she said it does not endorse a particular religion. What I didn't know is if that meant it was pro-religion but neutral on Christianity or if it was religiously neutral. Like, would they suggest "pray together" as a strategy for your marriage or more neutrally suggest ways to openly communicate? Do they use religious based gender roles? Or are they accepting/encouraging of couples defining their own roles irrespective of gender?

I thought that activities open to all had to be religious endorsement neutral. Like, a prayer at an event can't mention jesus. So how would a program intended to help all couples be allowed to be Christian specific?

tx, in what ways was it "very" Christian? I'm just curious why you'd use such a strong descriptor.

I actually do want to go as it's in an awesome location, and I think even a minimal bit of help is a good thing. I don't think we'll be able to make it, though, as I rechecked the dates, and I don't think H can make it.

Our Chaplain tries to keep it as neutral as possible. However, all of our speakers are also either former Chaplains, currently serving Chaplains or pastors. They aren't always so neutral. Last trip, we had a pastoral couple doing a workshop on parenting. If you know who the Duggers are, these people could have been their best friends. We are Christians, but they were so uber-Christian they turned the majority of the room off.
To tell a group of military wives that they have no right to determine their parenting styles because it is up to their husband's and God is not exactly smart. I don't think they'll be back.
We did pray before meals. There was an optional worship service Sunday morning. Like I said, though, I think it really it depends on the Chaplain in charge. We've been to one every year for the last 5 years. Some Chaplains have made it more religious based than others. Others base things off the book The 5 Love Languages. I would base my decision to go off the Chaplain.

[YellowRose]

DH and I have been twice, and gotten a lot out of each. Next time, I'm going to try to find the Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage one, because we've done the other two.

Sibil, if you have to fly to another island, your flights should both be covered as part of your travel orders.

I find that the religious undertones are dependent entirely upon the Chaplain. Our first one was completely un-religious, although we were invited to chapel service on Sunday morning. The second one was run by a chaplain who did have more of a religious message - he did discuss traditional roles in a marriage, but in my opinion he did so more as it related to his own marriage than ours.

We've found Strong Bonds to be beneficial to our marriage, if for no other reason than we got paid to spend the weekend together. I'm anxious for the FY13 schedule to come out so that we can do another one upon DH's return.

[krista]

hey, Yellowrose! It's Krista. I was staring at your tickers thinking, "who on this board has twins AND a daughter that young?!" Then I saw SGB above it. I didn't know you were over here!

[Jam]

The one we just went to was the "laugh your way to a better marriage" one. It was really relatable, funny but could be quite annoying at times. The porn discussion made me roll my eyes a little and that's probably the only time I felt that religion played a strong part in but it wasn't exactly off putting.

Like TX mentioned, there is an optional service on Sunday morning but not many people have gone at the retreats I've attended.

I'd definitely suggest you go. The places are usually really nice. You get more free time if it's a couples retreat. For example, we went on a Friday afternoon. Check in was at 4 but we checked in earlier cause our room was ready (I called the resort to check in advance). Dinner started at 5:30 and the seminar started at 7 and ran two hours. After 9 we were free to do whatever. Day two: breakfast was at 8 and the classes started at 9. Ran through until lunchtime and we were free again the rest of the day until Sunday. Sunday they have the optional service, breakfast and class until about 11am. Check out is usually at noon. We receive a to-go lunchbox.

Keep in mind that you don't have to eat your meals with everyone. On Saturday night, we opted to go to a brewery with some friends instead of eating with everyone else. You get a good chunk of time to yourselves because they want you to spend time together as a couple. The family retreats have way longer seminars (deployed families) and they encourage more family bonding so the daycare they provide runs shorter than it would at a couples retreat.

Also, not sure what PP meant but in my experience you have to get yourself to the location at your own expense. The retreats I've gone to have been anywhere from 1.5- 3.5 hours away by car.

Hopefully that info is better than my post above that makes me sound like I go to these things to get drunk. That's only semi accurate. Oh and my formatting is probably a raging mess. I'm on my phone lol

[basilosaurus]

Thanks for the info. The email specifically said we had to cover all transportation, flights and transfer to hotel.

Tx, I'd probably downright rage at a duggar type message

I've had no interaction with this chaplain, but the fact that she's female gives me hope it won't be too traditional.

Hopefully I could contain eye rolls if they start down a "men need to be respected, women need to be loved"path of gender ridiculousness overall it sounds like something we could get a lot from, though.

[iluvmytxrgr]

Have fun!

[YellowRose]

Jul 31, 2012 8:16:37 GMT -5 krista said:

hey, Yellowrose! It's Krista. I was staring at your tickers thinking, "who on this board has twins AND a daughter that young?!" Then I saw SGB above it. I didn't know you were over here!

I followed CE&P as a serious lurker. :-)

[krista]

Jul 31, 2012 12:01:03 GMT -5 YellowRose said:

Jul 31, 2012 8:16:37 GMT -5 krista said:

hey, Yellowrose! It's Krista. I was staring at your tickers thinking, "who on this board has twins AND a daughter that young?!" Then I saw SGB above it. I didn't know you were over here!

I followed CE&P as a serious lurker. :-)

same here. between that and the Daily Show, that's where I get 99% of my news

[Dumbledork]

We went once, we'd probably go again. The Chaplain had us watch a movie from some comedian during the class time about how men and women are wired differently. It was really stereotypical on gender roles, but not religious. However, he would stop it every once and a while and make a religious (usually Christian) comment in relation to the movie. I paid attention for about five minutes, got the gist of the movie, and spent most of the rest of the time doodling and writing sarcastic little notes.

So relationship-wise, it did bumpkis for us, but they paid for each couple to have dinner at this decently nice local restaurant during free child care and plenty of free time to explore the city on our own. It was like a free mini-vacation with a dose of cheesy, sexist grandpa telling "In my day..." stories.

Plus, K'd only been with this unit a month at the time so it was a good way to meet other people. Of course, a year later, everyone we met has either divorced or PCS'd so that perk fizzled out too.

[sweethurricane]

Jul 30, 2012 20:14:59 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

sweethurricane, they said we had free time after 4p on Sat night. Did you have less time than that? I don't know the sched on Sunday, but I do know early morning chapel is optional.

It's not entirely free as we have to get a flight to a different island, so I guess maybe I should check airfare before thinking about this more

It was a while back, but our schedule was something like this:

Friday - 3pm check in, 5pm Intro (1 hour), followed by mandatory group dinner, free time after
Saturday - Group breakfast, Class all day with mandatory group lunch break in the middle, 5pm mandatory group dinner, free time after
Sunday - Group breakfast, free time, late check out

It was winter so it got dark early and we couldn't do much. Sunday was the only day to do anything, but it was a 2 hour drive from home and DH still had to report it at 5am Monday so we just packed up and went home. Overall, it was a nice getaway... I just thought there'd be more bonding time considering the title of the event and all.

[basilosaurus]

KC, while it's an army program, H isn't army. He does work for them at the moment, but I think this is hosted by ANG. So, confusion

I do have confirmation that H gets back the day after the thing starts, though. Unless he can change his flights and leave a day early, there's no way we're going. After you guys convinced me it was worthwhile! Ah, well, such is the life with the military.