Can a $4,000 breakup boot camp help you heal?

LOS ANGELES — When filmmaker Tito Molina told his ex-girlfriend (who also was his business partner) that he was attending a breakup retreat to help him heal from their recent split, she offered to help him pay for it.

The three-day retreat cost $3,995, but his ex figured it was a good investment if it would enable Molina to get his focus off their personal relationship and back on their work.

The ex ended their relationship in early September, a couple of weeks before their nine-year anniversary. Molina, 35, had experienced previous breakups, but this one hit him differently.

"I thought [she] was my life partner, so my identity was attached to her," he said while sitting inside a lodge during a 96-hour breakup retreat in Philo, Calif. "When I lost that, I lost myself and I was like, 'I need help finding who I am.' We live together. We have a dog together. We have a business together. We share friends. We share everything. Our lives were completely entangled, so it just felt like too grand of an undertaking for myself. I just knew I didn't have the tools to get myself out of this."

The day after their separation, Molina, who lives in Los Angeles, began searching for wellness retreats. He came across Renew Breakup Bootcamp, a twice-yearly retreat for people who've gone through heartbreaks or struggled to find romantic partners.

"Some people would think this was a waste of money, but it's because we value material things," Molina said. "We don't value ourselves. We don't value our mental health."

Retreat founder Amy Chan launched the retreats in 2017, starting with a focus on women. This year, she decided to welcome men and nonbinary people for the first time.

"I don't think it's as taboo as it once was for a guy to go to therapy or to go to a wellness retreat or to attend a community or men's group," said Chan, 40, who has been a relationship columnist for more than a decade for a Canadian newspaper, HuffPost and her own blog. "In fact, it's kind of cool."

Chan, who lives in Vancouver, said demand from men wanting to attend the retreats rose during the pandemic and after the release of her 2020 book, "Breakup Bootcamp."

The retreat Molina attended included four men and 17 women ranging in age from 22 to 61. Some had been through recent breakups, while others were navigating custody battles with ex-spouses. The fee for the retreat included three nights of lodging in a cabin, three meals per day cooked by a private chef and a busy 12-hour day of programming (such as therapy sessions) and activities (yoga). In addition to being drug- and alcohol-free, the boot camp was digital-free.

There were two ground rules that Chan made clear early on: No bashing of exes, and no one was to give unsolicited advice.

Chan's own breakup inspired the boot camp: Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her with one of her co-workers, and it took Chan more than two years to heal from their split. She went to a yoga retreat in Mexico after her breakup, but when she returned home, she realized that she hadn't started the deep interpersonal work that can lead to healing.

"I didn't learn anything about what I was going through," she said. "I just had a relaxing time. So I felt great, but I was procrastinating my pain. ... I wanted something where I would come out a little different."

Exercises during the retreat include doing primal screaming and ecstatic dancing to release grief, anger and other emotions; a burning ceremony in which participants toss letters they have written to their exes in a fireplace; practicing how to discuss boundaries with loved ones, and doing breath work.

Not everyone at the retreat had been dumped. Some were the dumpers, but that didn't make the emotional fallout any more tolerant.

Andy Heil, 50, whose wife died from cancer in 2018, is the one who decided to pull the plug on his recent romance. Having lost the person he thought was his "life partner," the San Diego resident worried that every relationship was destined to end in pain.

"That's on me," Heil said of the failed relationship. "I wasn't secure enough to say, 'Hey, this is where I'm at.' I was functioning on fear, and when you make decisions based on fear, it never works."

Melissa Sharp, 41, wanted to attend the retreat after dating a man for several months before discovering that he was married with children. She had started reading Chan's book but stopped a quarter of the way through because she wanted to learn more at an in-person retreat.

"I understand what he did was not right, but what did I do to contribute to this?" she said. "Could I have made a better choice? I had a bunch of questions. I think that I can control myself, but I couldn't control him."

She learned more about herself and how to date in a healthier way, which was Chan's goal for participants of the boot camp. For those reasons, Sharp said the retreat was worth the price tag.