Intensive Couples Therapy: A Private Two-Day Marriage Intensive
Two days with Grant and Christine, one couple at a time. For couples who are stuck, close to giving up, or tired of weekly sessions that stop and start. Stop repairing the old relationship and build a new one with the same person.
By application. We reply personally within two working days.
Why two days
The weekly model has a built-in limitation. By the time a couple settles, warms up, and reaches something true, the hour is over, and a week of ordinary life passes before they return to it. An intensive removes that reset.
Two days in a private room, with nothing else in the way, is a different thing. You can go deeper than an hour allows. You can try a new way of speaking, get it wrong, and try it again with someone watching who knows what to look for.
And nobody else hears it. There's no group, no other couples, no one you might run into at the supermarket.
Is a private intensive right for us?
This is for you if
- You've heard "I don't love you anymore" or "we've grown apart" in your house, and you don't want it to be the end.
- You're stuck. Counselling helped a little, then the same fight came back.
- One of you wants to try and the other has gone quiet or is close to leaving.
- You live like flatmates. Opposite ends of the couch, both on your phones.
- You keep going back over the past, and nobody wins.
- Something big has shaken the marriage and you don't want weekly sessions to drag it out for a year.
- You'd rather know you tried everything, properly, in one go.
This is not the right room if
- There is violence or you feel unsafe at home. Please get safe, and get specialist help, first.
- Either of you is in active addiction, or is still deceiving the other. Those starve every tool we use.
- Only one of you is willing to come. Reading alone? Start with the book, which marks every step you can take on your own.
The two days: close version one, build version two
We learn your story, in your own words, and find the pattern you're both inside. Neither of you is the villain. The pattern is.
You close version one. What needs feeling gets felt, what needs forgiving gets forgiven, and you draw a line under the past so the old case can finally stay shut.
You learn to stop the pattern mid-fight, and what to say when fear wants to roar or run. You practise it here, with us, not at home on your own.
You design version two together and build it on small, clear requests and agreements you both keep. You leave with a plan you wrote yourselves.
Before you arrive we talk, so we know what we're walking into. Afterwards we stay in touch to help you keep it going.
Who you'll be with
We've been married for 44 years, and we've sat with couples for more than 20,000 hours.
We know this from the inside as well. One September afternoon, Christine sat heartbroken on the couch while Grant cried in the kitchen. We still loved each other. Neither of us knew how to find our way back.
What we learned finding the way back is in Same Two. New Love., and it's what we bring into the room. You get both of us, for the whole two days.
Couples from Australia and further afield
Couples travel to Havelock North for the intensive from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and further afield. Australian couples are welcome to join us here, and we talk through the travel on the call. The time difference with New Zealand is small.
Our weekly work with couples overseas runs online. See online couples therapy worldwide.
The investment
Working through this in weekly sessions takes most couples the best part of a year. This does the work in two uninterrupted days, and the investment is in the range of what a year of weekly sessions would cost. You're not paying for two days. You're paying to stop the year.
One fee, shared on a call in the currency of your own country. It includes:
- Two full days with Grant and Christine, in person in Havelock North, one couple only.
- A call with us before, so we walk in knowing your story.
- The Same Two. New Love. video series, to keep working with at home.
- A follow-up session with us after the two days.
- Email support for three months, so you're not on your own when it gets hard.
What we ask of you
- Both of you, for both days, phones away.
- A call with us before, so we are ready for you.
- The fee is paid in advance to hold your dates.
- Ninety days of doing what you agreed, because the two days start the work.
Already booked an in-depth assessment? It credits in full toward the intensive.
Questions about the intensive
It is concentrated, focused time to work through the real dynamic in your marriage, rather than spreading the work across months of weekly hour-long sessions. It is built for couples who want depth and momentum quickly.
The right format depends on your situation, which we talk through on the call. For many couples it is, because weekly sessions keep resetting momentum. An intensive lets you reach and work the real issue while you are in it.
Yes. Australian couples are welcome to join us in Havelock North for our private two-day intensive, and we talk through the travel on the call.
In person, in Havelock North, New Zealand. Couples travel to us. Tell us where you're coming from in your application and we'll talk through the practical side on the call.
It is priced on a call with us, in the currency of your own country. The investment is in the range of what a year of weekly sessions would cost. The fee is paid in advance to hold your dates.
Both of us, Grant and Christine, for the whole two days. It is the only way to work with the two of us together. Every other session is with one of us.
It's relationship work with two people who have done it for decades. It isn't a substitute for specialist care if there is violence, addiction or a mental health crisis in your home.
Apply, and one of us reads every application and replies personally within two working days. Or ask about it on a free call first.
Weighing it against weekly sessions? Read marriage intensive vs weekly therapy.
Book a Mentoring Consultation
Book a private mentoring consultation with Grant and Christine. Includes the Relationship Readiness Assessment, Love Without Limits book, and video training.
Book Your Mentoring Consultation