Would you hire a marriage counselor who has never been married?

[coachTanthony]

****BONUS**** QUESTION

Would you hire a marriage counselor who had a failed marriage?

sure

nope

[Screenwriter]

You have no idea what kind of relationships that marriage counselor has had in the past that might have included a long-term SO. Marriage isn't the do-all of relationships.

And on top of that, if this counselor has experience talking through issues with couples, I'm sure those issues repeat ad infinitum from couple relationship to relationship. She or he has training from at least six years of schooling and working in a practice.

And failed marriages happen all the time. People fall in love and one or the other finds out problems with the partner that are too imbedded to overcome.

Some people are experts at hiding serious flaws that take years to uncover.

It's experience that counts. And success rates. This doesn't mean this counselor solves all the problems of every couple he sees, but that the clients are satisfied that the counselor listened and thoughtfully evaluated what they heard.

No counselor solves the problems they hear. They offer a host of solutions that the clients must enact. If the clients don't use any of the tools offered, you can't blame the counselor.

In addition, to remain a counselor, you have to continually take classes to keep abreast of what studies and new information is available to counselors to help their clients.

[Yoursweetgirl]

It's about professionalism and knowledge, if it was about experience, every married couple could be a councelor

[JacobJordan]

You don't ask a drug addict how to avoid drugs. You don't ask an alcoholic how to avoid alcohol. You don't ask a person from a failed marriage how to have a successful marriage. You ask someone who is happily married how to have a successful marriage you ask a sober person or a recovering alcoholic how to avoid alcohol. you ask a sober person or a recovering drug addict how to avoid drugs. Now yes one can know how to do all these things in theory without being apart of any of them. But they haven't lived it so the best they can give is a theoretical approach. For example I have never done drugs so I would say just don't do them avoid people that do them etc. All well and good but a lot of people do them. Not doing drugs comes from within takes a certain type of character and moral strength.

[msc545]

You dont have to have been married in order to do marriage counseling any more than you have to have had broken bones in order to treat the problem in others.

[OlderAndWiser]

Would you take your car to a mechanic who has never owned the type of car that you need repaired?

BONUS QUESTION:

Would you hire a dating coach who has had a series of failed relationships?

I'm just sayin' . . .

[coachTanthony]

If he trained to work on my car but doesn’t own one sure and failed relationships are good experience for the dating coach because he can offer advice from training and anecdotal history

[Avicenna]

That doesn't mean that they can't help you

[sage2021]

No way! To be any kind of effective counselor you can't just learn how to be a good one from just studying from books.
You have to have walked in their shoes or sandals and have hands on experience.
My experience with counselor's is you tell them all your problems, and they respond with no help. They, for the most part are married and have a family so they secure. They really can't imagine what you are going through.

I was having a bad spot in my life. I couldn't find a job, and my son ended up in the ICU with bacterial meningitis.
I had told her I could feel something bad was going to happen. She thought I was full of it until one day I walked into her office and reminded her very loudly that I told her I felt something bad was going to happen. Sure enough my son was in the hospital basically dying. He was deathly ill, and on life support.
When I would tell her before that I'm so stressed out, she would try to help me with what her family does when they're stressed out about things. She said the go up to the mountains and drive around. She was so out of touch.
Gotta have hands on experience.

[Jkgordon]

Marriage counselor is a useless occupation. If a marriage doesn’t work it’ll simply means they are not compatible simple as that.
Now if they use astrology I give them props. The secret to a lasting marriage is compatibility and astrology is the key to that.
Astrology is the characteristics of one’s behavior. I’ll give example of good matches:
Gemini female & Sagittarius Male - Gemini females are usually smart and love learning
Aquarius female & Libra Male
Sag female Scorpio male
Also race plays a part too
Cancer men on average is very successful whether it’s with an employer or they have their own business
Sagittarius are excellent money makers including Capricorns but cap mean have mean streaks
Pisces men love getting married and having another life across town don’t sleep on them could be heavy drinkers and drug abusers like the pisces female
Now they are a piece of work very annoying controlling sneaky bitches BUT guys can treat them like shit drag them through the mud a Pisces female would murder her parents for inheritance don’t sleep on them
Leo girls are also clowns they need a man also will get abused can never be single
Aries black men are the worst they love looking for women with money to take care of them liars con artist love to brag think they are gods gift to women very conceit
I can go on but these are some traits from self observation
Cancer women are boy crazy and can’t keep a secret
Virgo females are either successful or losers
Can be very lazy when vibrating low & very hoey

[Paul09]

Lol you religious nuts, the believers of nothing , scare me.

[RebelinSteel]

They are doing a job as a counsellor. Would you go to a counsellor that had not experienced what your issue is? Counsellor dealing with rape, must have been raped, counsellor dealing with drugs, must have been an addict and reformed, counsellor dealing with alcohol…. Etc. Also you go to a marriage counsellor that is not married, every single marriage is different, throw in if the marriage counsellor is religious but the couple are not religious, what about a marriage counsellor who is on 2nd marriage, would they be worse, okay or better. Mediation, understanding the need for communication, ability to listen etc means far more than being married. What if they are gay and married?

[abc3643]

My friend is that; she is a professional counselor, including marriage and divorce, but was never married. However, her experience in contract, communication, and negotiation in the business world helped her prepare for her transition to this profession.

[wiltingrosepetal]

Counsellors don't use lived experience to do their jobs, they use the knowledge they've been told. It's like saying 'would you hire a heart surgeon who has a perfect heart?'

Although there is a portion of the job that requires lived experience, it's not everything.

[Bricealan]

Why sure coach, we hired a marriage counselor that we found out later had killed her husband, hacked his body up and stored it in a suit case in a down stairs freezer.

I later saw my wife at an appliance store looking at a large freezer ... I filed for divorce and moved out the next day 🤷‍♂️🤔🤔🤔🤔

[HawkPerception]

It's much easier to to see the problems when you're looking from the outside (The Hawk Perception 😂). It's always better to get an unbiased opinion when either the guy or girl rants about their issues in the relationship.

I would also add that some people are more intelligent and have more common sense to handle scenarios in relationships than others. For example, OlderAndWiser would be an excellent marriage counselor because he's more intelligent and has more common sense than most people and would be able to easily address and come up with a solution to a couple's issues. You don't need to have been in a marriage to understand how to communicate with your partner effectively and have good problem solving or compromise abilities.

[molonski2]

He / she is trained , and smart enough to have never married , whether they are married or not has nothing to do with how they perform at their job , plenty of sports coaches have never played professionally , same thing.

[Red_Arrow]

Yes. Many people responding are making the mistake of thinking that marriage counselors tell you how you should act in your marriage. It is not that way. The marriage counselor helps a couple communicate with each other and find solutions to their problems. They are trained to facilitate those kind of conversations, not to judge and direct the people. The conversations help the couples to see their SO's point of view and be more understanding of each other.

[IslaTheWitch]

I would hire a good specialist.

There is a reason why psychologists don't do therapy for family members. Failed marriage of marriage counselor doesn't prove anything.

[hahahmm]

I wouldn't hire any kind of counselor. There was some story in the news a few years back of a famous guy who went for marriage counseling with his wife. Counselor encouraged him to get a divorce. Later found out that the counselor was banging his wife. Sucker.

[jshm2]

Most of these American shrinks, therapists, and counsellors get their overprices degrees from happy meals.

They are no better than a self help book you can pickup for a few bucks, instead.

Hence you should look for a European counsellor, as they will be actually qualified and experienced. Where an American one is going to tell you whatever, to keep you as a customer to pay their debts.

[msc545]

Yet another person who has never been to college and resents the hell out of those of us who have...

[DJB72]

If you've never lived through something your theories are worthless. I don't listen to child-raising "experts" with no kids either. Come back once you've successfully raised an emotionally stable, responsible child through adolescence to adulthood without having a nervous breakdown and we'll chat then.

Until then, FUCK OFF!!!

[LazerBean]

Nope and nope. Wouldn't hire anyone who counsels for marriage or dating if they are not married, if they have been through divorce, or even if they are married and have had 3 failed relationships.

[electromagnetic]

I most certainly would not. How are you going to advice on someone’s life without having experience in the field.

[Anonymous]

Nope, tried one before and she had no clue what she was doing. By the time we were done with her the only benefit was that we bonded more over how much we disliked her ineffective and horrible advice and moderating. That being said, even married ones can suck. Especially the men. They just kept acting bored and saying get divorced or implying the wife should just submit. We could not find even a single good marriage counselor who gave helpful advice and was not biased.

[douride2]

A marriage counselor who has never been married would be like getting medical advice from your mechanic.

[katiesmuff]

That doesn't sound like the place where you would get the best advice with your marriage issues. One should have to live with it to learn the ups and downs and to able to judge, teach or give advice about it.