Legally sane for 19 years and running.

The other day my girlfriend and I were chatting on the bus when an interesting thought experiment came up. My question went like, ‘If you were to hire a marriage counsellor, whom would you choose?’ I proffered four options: A married man, a married woman, a divorced man, or a divorsed woman.

Her choice was a married man. “If he knows how to keep it, then he’s more familiar with it, and he can probably advise on it. And it’d be a man because then I would better understanding the guy’s viewpoint.”

My choice was the polar opposite, a divorced woman. Since she’s been through it all, she would be able to teach me what not to do or how not to lose a spouse. Once again, it’d be a woman so I can at least see the opposite viewpoint.

Then we reasoned, if the counsellor is divorced, it’s possible that he sucks at this whole marriage business and really doesn’t know anything about keeping his relationship intact. By the same token, who knows how many times he’s already been divorced?

So we eventually reached a pseudo-compromise, but not before we added some qualifiers: It would have to be someone who has undergone several divorces, but has now been happily married for over 5 years. A mix of negative and positive experience, doesn’t hurt to get the best of both worlds, don’t you think?

The crucial question it boiled down to was, What is the best way for a professional, in this case a marriage counsellor, to market themselves? What personal experience would sound the best to potential customers? I thought and advertisement like ‘Happily married for 30 years’ would sound pretty effective and credible… but my girlfriend thought otherwise (“Does a psychiatrist advertise that she’s been sane for 30 years?”). At any rate, I figured, it’d sound a lot better than ‘Divorced more than 30 times!’. Though I suppose someone in that situation wouldn’t need to work as a counsellor… She’d be rich.