Every couple goes through different moments and seasons, and there are times when it can be helpful to step away from everyday life, take a fresh look at the relationship, face what is happening, and give a voice to what often remains unspoken.

That is what the couples who took part in Percorsi di Luce chose to do. Different in age, personal history and life experience, they spent several days engaged in training sessions, reflection, practical exercises, individual and couple conversations, moments of sharing and opportunities for relaxation. They were accompanied by four facilitator couples, including psychotherapist Lucia Coco and her husband Umberto De Angelis, together with Father Gianpietro Baldo.

The programme fostered an atmosphere of openness, authenticity and trust. This also emerged in the testimonies shared during the final gathering, which are reported here using pseudonyms.

Looking more deeply

Matteo and Elena were able to take a closer look at pain and personal responsibilities that had long been difficult to acknowledge. “During one of the exercises, I suddenly saw the enormous suffering my wife had been carrying. I knew she was struggling emotionally, but I had no idea to what extent,” Matteo says. “Some of the reasons behind the problems between us were very specific things I had been carrying within myself, but I had never clearly recognised them. ”Recognising his own responsibility also opened up a possibility for the future: “I have to take responsibility for some serious mistakes of my own; there was an affair. But I also came to understand better how some of our difficulties stem from her childhood. Things emerged that are much clearer to me now, and we will try to find a way forward, giving it everything we have.”

When asked to sum up what he was taking home from the experience, Matteo chose two words: “Awareness and surprise.” For Elena, the greatest gift was seeing her husband genuinely willing to get involved: “He may have come with me because I had more or less dragged him along, but day after day I saw him becoming more open and willing. We both discovered things, and now, naturally, we have to work on them. It’s a beginning, not the destination. But seeing the person beside me willing to work on our relationship is a truly important first step, because it means there isn’t a wall on the other side—there is someone who is willing to do his part. For me, that is incredibly important. It feels as though a wall has finally begun to crumble.”

Silence that opens the way to dialogue

Chiara and Daniele also arrived at Percorsi di Luce carrying a complex story. For Chiara, one of the most important discoveries was learning to make space for silence—a necessary space for listening and communicating with greater care. “We have always talked, but there were simply too many things we needed to say to each other. They were tangled up and, above all, full of resentment. That’s why silence was so important for me: listening, giving ourselves the time to understand and then to communicate. A silence that opens the way to communication, which can then become constructive and orderly: not putting everything on the table at once, but saying this first, and then that…”  Chiara had arrived with “a deep desire to face the truth”, and now feels that she has gained a new way of looking at things and a different perspective: “It is no longer simply a crisis that needs to be solved. It is our whole life that can have new momentum, new resources and new ways of being lived, instead of always feeling like a ‘red alert in the emergency room’.”
Daniele recognises that even when love is there, love alone is not always enough: “You need tools, you need strategies, you need to work on it, despite all the good will in the world.” The metaphor he chooses is Google Maps: “When we take the wrong road, it doesn’t tell you, ‘You’re wrong.’ It tells you, ‘Recalculating the route.’” Talking with other couples and gaining a deeper understanding of certain psychological dynamics helped them “recalculate the route”. And, above all, it gave them a sense that they could begin again.

Bringing something home

Sara and Marco return home with a new awareness.
“We’re taking away so many insights,” Sara says. “And also the feeling that some things have been put into perspective. Problems that had seemed huge have become smaller, perhaps precisely because of the tools we were introduced to and had the chance to try out.” There is still some concern about returning to everyday life, but also a strong desire to treasure what they experienced: “I’m a little afraid of leaving this protected environment, going home and falling back into our old habits. I feel that it will take method and commitment. But I also really want to treasure this experience. It’s like a little treasure we’re taking home with us.” Marco, meanwhile, has identified a concrete commitment: “I want to put into practice something that also came up this morning: making time to talk things through. It’s difficult, because sitting down and listening to what isn’t working isn’t easy.” On the other hand, he observes, “very often we make our lives miserable through arguments” and end up reserving “the worst of ourselves for the very person beside us”. And then he smiles: “We should have a monthly recap!”

A second chance

Francesca arrived with “the almost certain belief that there was no possibility left, no future for us”, but she chose to give their relationship one last chance.
During the week, she began to recognise her own responsibility in the dynamics of the crisis and to look at her husband differently. “I realised that I wasn’t seeing any mistakes on my part. Without what we learned here, I would never have recognised them. And so we had got caught in a loop where we could do nothing but tear each other apart.” “For years I had been telling Luca, ‘We’re not well, something is wrong between us.’ He would run away, but perhaps he was also running away because I didn’t know how to communicate my distress properly. And so we got caught up in a negative cycle until we reached a point where things were really bad.” Before leaving, she had told her husband: “If you want to go to the course, I’ll come with you, but we won’t solve anything, because you’ve never been willing to question yourself.”

But in Foligno, little by little, something changed:  “I understood that I too had been communicating my distress in a completely wrong way.” When they talked about the “Pearl”—the quality or experience that had first made them fall in love with one another—she initially thought perhaps it had never really existed. “Then I realised there was so much covering it that I could no longer see it.” And during one of the exercises, something suddenly clicked: “That’s why I chose to be with Luca! I had forgotten that in all those years.” Luca describes how important the relationship that developed with the other couples became:“At the end of each day, we would meet again and talk about everything that had emerged. We managed to create something really beautiful. We should find a way to continue it.” And he adds: “We committed ourselves to supporting one another, so that each of us could encourage the other. That means a great deal to me.”

Making time for the relationship

For Valentina and Andrea, the week was like a service check for their relationship—a period of time that, in ordinary life, seems almost impossible to find between children, work, home and parents. “I really appreciated the psychological support and the exercises we were given, because they allowed us to go a little deeper in our dialogue. That was something I felt was missing,” Valentina explains. “I’m the one who always talks, so my next challenge will be learning to listen. Andrea, on the other hand, finds it harder to open up. If he managed to do so here, it’s because you gave him the sense that it was possible to do that within the group sharing.” Andrea explains: “Finding people with whom you can have these kinds of conversations cannot be taken for granted. That gave me the push I needed to make an even greater effort to talk more, not to keep my emotions and ideals to myself. For me, that is fundamental.” And even putting a name to something he was previously not fully aware of, he adds, “means being able to identify what I need to work on.”

(Giovanna Pieroni – www.focolaritalia.it)