Will my divorce meddle with my job as a marriage counseler?

Would you go to a dietitian if they were obese?

A divorce is not a sign that you are bad at your job. Marriage counseling is not only about trying to fix a marriage, it’s also about knowing when to get out.

can you keep it from your patients?

Wouldn’t it make me more qualified?
Nobody goes to marriage counseling unless they are getting a divorce.

@qualitycontrol – Would you not go to a physician just because they have had the same disease (from a sore throat to cancer) as you before?

I’m sure if an arguement breaks out and you try to interect some hot headed husband or wife might take a jab at you about it. No worries though, no ones perfect, and that just proves that it’s easier to look out than in, no harm no foul mate.

I would NOT go to you if I REALLY wanted to keep the marriage together.

EDIT: I would think to myself “she gave up instead of working at it”, even if it wasn’t the case. I’d want someone who was still married.

Do you trust an old Master Sergeant who’s been through war and survived to lead you through battle or a Lieutenant right out of officer training?

@loofa, but I would feel the analogy is “an old Master Sergeant who FAILED”.

I would argue that your experiences with your divorce will make you MORE knowledgeable in your career area.

To answer your question: yes I think it will “meddle” with your job. I think it will cost you clients who would have gone to you otherwise.

I don’t think you should hide the fact from your patients. It is important that they can trust you. (Although you don’t have to actively point it out either).

Would you want your kid to be treated by a doctor who treated his own kid with the same disease who died?

Should people always stay married?

Absolutely not. I’m talking ME. I’m not even talking “rationale”. I would think twice about using a counselor to save my marriage who was herself divorced. Other people would WANT someone with divorce experience. Some people don’t care if the lawyer lost the last case. Other people do. Or if the doctor lost his last patient, yada, yada, yada.

Why do you have to share your personal life with your clients? They are there to receive council from you. I believe that it will only interfere with your work if you let it.

They’ll ask her.

I think @Mr_M you had a good point. Why go to someone who just didnt work out in their relationship (good or bad not taking sides).

Then these analogies to other professions, marriage counseling seems to be a pretty solid one where if youre not married, why would people trust what you have to say? Not to be mean but how can you tell someone how to fix something if you cant.

And yes if i was a mad husband in there and i found out my counselor had a divorce id jab as much as i could.

I think it will make you better as it will give you another perspective, more situations to relate to.

Situations like
“should we get a divorce?”
“yeah i did”
$$$$$$$$$$

Situations where people are wondering about what divorce is like, where they are dealing with major issues (I could see a downside to someone being a marriage counselor who hasn’t gone through a divorce—thinking his/her marriage has been so problem-free how could he/she possibly understand my problems?).

But the fact that she’s married doesn’t mean her marriage was problem free. It could mean it was loaded with problems the couple resolved.

I think most people seek a marriage counselor to REPAIR a marriage, the way people seek a Fortune Teller to get GOOD news. Would you go to a Teller who gave everybody bad news? I don’t think people go to a Marriage Counselor to see if she feels the thing is worth saving. Not usually.

@Mr_M if people used that type of thought they would never find a counselor who they were comfortable with. A single counselor? “you don’t get it, you’re not married”. A divorced counselor? “you are a failure yourself so you don’t know what you’re talking about”. A happily married counselor? “you’ve obviously never had problems as big as mine”.
The couple in counseling has no right to expect to know explicit details about the counselor’s marriage. Basic questions, ok.

To ask if the counselor is married or not (especially a marriage counselor) is not an inappropriate explicit detail, and before people go into ANY therapy, they ask (AS THEY SHOULD) questions about the therapist. I bet YOU know whether or not your therapist is married, if he or she is gay, etc.

Her divorce will not be important to everyone, but it WILL be important to some.

Let’s ask @Loofah!
Do couples ask you whether or not you’re married?

@Mr_M I clearly said basic questions such as “are you married” are acceptable. You don’t have a right to know private details.

I completely agree with every word elijahsuicide has contributed here.

Now I guess it’s safe to believe her? :)

Actually, I do too. But I think it’s fair for the divorce question to be asked and in hiding it, the therapist implies that it is something that needs hiding. It gives her divorce more weight then it has already. I’d be open with it and let the chips fall where they may BUT it will matter to some people. I’m not saying it should or shouldn’t. Just that it WILL.

If I were a therapist or counselor, I don’t think I would be discussing my personal life with my clients.

Do you think the gay counselors who deal with gay clients don’t? They do.

>Nobody goes to marriage counseling unless they are getting a divorce.

That assertion almost made me gasp. I thought marriage counselors tried to help people decide if a marriage could be saved and would begin by trying to find out what it would take to save it, and then guiding the process if it looked salvageable. If a counselor’s assumption at the start is that a couple would spend their time and money going there only to preside over the death of a marriage, I wouldn’t trust his or her commitment to my case no matter what his or her marital status might be.

But yes, I would think a divorce would hurt a marriage counselor’s credibility and interfere with his or her ability to counsel clients wisely and impartially even if it made the person more empathetic. I would worry that it would make the person biased toward one party or the other, depending on his or her personal circumstances.

When you are a counselor you are supposed to set boundaries. One of those boundaries could be (and probably should be) not talking about your own relationships. Your clients do not need to know that you have been divorced. That is just one way of looking at things. Although I prefer this next idea.

Most A&D counselors have been through recovery. It is not uncommon to find counselors who have been through the thick of things. Your divorce will only give you another demention when it comes to counseling. You may now understand even more deeply how important counseling can be and avoiding divorce. Or you might understand now how divorce can be healthy and useful in some circumstance. Perhaps both. It just gives you more life experience to pull from. And if your clients ask (and it is within your boundaries to respond) you can tell them exactly that. Yes you’ve been married and yes you’ve been divorced. You’ve seen both sides of the spectrum and it has given you the life experience to help others avoid divorce (or choose it when appropriate). I don’t think it should impair your counseling Practice at all.

I think it’s pretty ironic, but I agree with @elijahsuicide that helping people work on their marriage and knowing when to get out of your own are different things. I would assume that because you are a marriage counselor, you knew the tricks to try to make things work, and they obviously didn’t work, so you had no other choice.

@Jeruba – Marriage counselors do play that role, at times. They do help the clients try to figure out what is the best option. Is it better to stay married or, for both parties, is it better to divorce. Going through marriage counseling (first marriage) the therapist did get to a point where he laid it all out for us and it was very clear that we were so far apart on where we were, and where we were going, that we really didn’t have a future. Now, had I actually listened to the man, things would have been a lot easier!

I’m trying to figure out why your personal life is being discussed – I guess I see the question coming up, but still – you can set those boundaries that leave your personal life, off limits.

On one hand, it could hurt you. You’ll run into those that won’t want to see you because to them, you gave up. I don’t buy the “giving up” part, though. It takes a lot to really make that final decision. On the other hand, you understand what it feels like, the true impact of the action. Not just what you learned, now you see how painful it really can be. That alone can make you more accessible to your patients. They may feel closer to you.

It’s just going to depend on your clients and how you handle it. I don’t think there is a perfect answer.

I think there might be two ways of reading the question. Will the counselor’s own divorce interfere with the counselor’s job? I answered from the point of view of the client: yes, I think it would hurt the counselor’s credibility and impartiality in the eyes of the client. But from the point of view of the counselor, it might give the counselor a better understanding of what the clients are facing. So maybe the answer is—yes and no.