MARRIAGE HEARTS & HORSES: Finding your way back to us.
April 22–25, 2027
SWELL Retreat | Castle Dale, Utah
Lodging not included: Airbnb/VRBO: Castle Dale, Orangeville, Ferron, or Huntington
For couples who love one another but know the way they are relating can no longer remain the same.
Marriage can slowly become consumed by responsibilities, parenting, work, stress, finances, unmet expectations, past hurts, and conversations that never seem to end well.
You may still love each other deeply while feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, lonely, guarded, or exhausted. One of you may pursue while the other withdraws. One may criticize while the other becomes defensive. You may repeatedly argue about the same issue when something more vulnerable lies beneath it.
Perhaps trust has been damaged. Maybe resentment has accumulated, affection has faded, or the relationship has begun to feel more like a working arrangement than a place of connection.
Marriage Hearts & Horses is a Christian-centered experience combining faith, the SWELL Method, horse-guided empowerment, nature, and intentional time together.
This retreat helps couples step outside their established patterns, understand what happens when pressure enters the relationship, and practice a healthier way of communicating, responding, repairing, and leading their marriage together.
The goal is not to determine who is right.
The goal is to become curious about what is happening between you—and what each of you can do to create something different.
THE EXPERIENCE
Through couple-focused SWELL experiences, guided horse activities, reflection, practical instruction, and meaningful time together, you will explore:
• Who each partner becomes when pressure shows up
• Fight, flight, freeze, and please patterns within marriage
• Criticism, defensiveness, withdrawal, control, fixing, and overfunctioning
• The needs, fears, disappointments, and vulnerabilities beneath conflict
• Listening without immediately correcting, defending, or solving
• Expressing needs and boundaries clearly and respectfully
• The difference between responsibility, control, and self-abandonment
• How past experiences influence present reactions
• Rebuilding emotional safety and relational trust
• Repairing connection after conflict or disconnection
• Shared values, expectations, and direction
• Inviting God into the way you love, communicate, forgive, and lead together
Horses respond to pressure, clarity, consistency, boundaries, trust, and connection. They make invisible relationship patterns easier to see and give couples an opportunity to practice new ways of working together without relying only on conversation.
No previous horse experience is necessary. All activities are guided and designed to accommodate individual comfort and experience levels.
THE THREE-DAY JOURNEY
 
DAY ONE: SEE THE PATTERN
What keeps happening between us?
Step away from familiar routines and identify the cycles shaping your relationship. Explore the pressures, unmet needs, protective responses, and assumptions influencing how you relate to one another.
DAY TWO: KNOW EACH OTHER
Who shows up when pressure enters our relationship?
Work with the horses to practice regulation, communication, trust, boundaries, pressure and release, shared leadership, and repair. Learn to recognize what may exist beneath your partner’s response—and your own.
DAY THREE: LEAD THE RELATIONSHIP
What kind of marriage are we willing to create together?
Move from insight into action. Identify the conversations, boundaries, commitments, and daily practices needed to interrupt old cycles and strengthen your connection after returning home.
 
YOUR RETREAT INCLUDES
• Three full days of facilitated marriage experiences
• Three nights of lodging 
• Horse-guided empowerment activities
• Horsemanship and guided horse interaction
• Couple reflection and communication experiences
• Meals, snacks, and beverages
• Marriage Hearts & Horses workbook
• Retreat T-shirts
• Intentional private time as a couple
• Evening connection and integration experiences
• Personalized 30-day Marriage Action Plan
• Post-retreat virtual follow-up gathering
PROGRAM INVESTMENT
Program Value: $5000
Registration Price Per Couple based on SWELL Foundation Scholarship: $1297
Payment plans are available. Contact Lacy at 801-230-6363.
Attendance is limited to preserve privacy, safety, personal connection, and the small-herd experience.
After registering, each partner will receive a confidential participant questionnaire. This will help us understand what is bringing you to the retreat and prepare for your lodging, dietary, physical, and horse-related needs.
IS THIS EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR MARRIAGE?
Marriage Hearts & Horses may be a good fit if:
• You love each other but feel disconnected, stuck, or misunderstood.
• You repeatedly experience the same conflict without resolving what lies beneath it.
• Criticism, defensiveness, withdrawal, resentment, or overfunctioning have become familiar.
• You want to strengthen communication, trust, affection, and partnership.
• You are navigating a major transition, accumulated stress, or a difficult season.
• You are each willing to examine your own responses—not only what your spouse needs to change.
• You want practical tools grounded in faith, personal responsibility, and connection.
• You are both willing to participate respectfully and take meaningful action.
You do not need to wait until your marriage is in crisis.
You only need to recognize that your relationship deserves intentional attention—and be willing to show up for it together.
You cannot control your spouse’s part of the relationship. You can become more aware and intentional about your own. When both partners do that, something new becomes possible.
RETREAT SCHEDULE
Check In: 10:00 AM on April 22, 2027
Program Finish: 10:00 PM on April 24, 2027
Check Out: 11:00 AM on April 25, 2027
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Marriage Hearts & Horses is an educational and experiential relationship-development program. It is not couples therapy, psychotherapy, crisis intervention, or a substitute for professional mental-health care.
This program may not be appropriate when there is active abuse, coercive control, immediate danger, or an unresolved crisis requiring clinical intervention. Participant safety and program suitability will be considered through the confidential registration questionnaire.