Does the gender of your marriage counselor affect the outcome of it?

InspectionOk3946 · 2025-01-30T02:23:51+00:00

F off ask chat gpt. Nobody should answer your ignorant questions. Read more books.

Farmearth · 2025-01-29T23:11:42+00:00

I ended a 30 yr relationship and we had gone to many counselors over that period, both men and women. Our marriage could not be saved in the end by anyone because neither of us wanted it to be and that is the biggest factor. The fact of them being a man or a woman doesn't matter, how good they are at their job. Like every profession, everyone isn't an A+, everyone isn't as flexible as they think they are. There is also a big factor in fit and personality. My ex and I are strong people that don't take BS. A weak counselor didn't work for us and we both knew it. In one case after the first session we walked out and both said that will not work for us. Find someone that fits both of you that you feel comfortable with and have confidence in

MonarchistExtreme · 2025-01-29T17:57:25+00:00

I saw a therapist who did counseling for mental health/relationships but also for people going thru medical issues. My wife saw her for mental health, I saw her for a chronic issue I was going thru. One night my wife called me and asked me to pick her up from the therapist's office and I was ambushed with a marital counseling session. Even though I started that session under bs circumstances...it wasn't all bad. She was female but she was fair. She kept pointing out that my wife was reacting to her feelings when I said something and not what I actually said. She pointed out that my wife seemed to believe I felt different than the feelings I expressed. I was pretty impressed with her. My wife caught the brunt of it that session (and I believe for good reason). My wife refused to go again and that was the end of it. I should have pushed for us to continue but oh well...the marriage finally crashed. The writing had been on the wall for a decade. But my one and only experience was with a female counselor and I didn't feel I was treated unfairly.

AvacodoCartwheeler · 2025-01-29T17:02:39+00:00

I think therapists suck at listening to understand.

An example was XW bitching about money and how broke we were that month (XW had spent all our money on Christmas and not paid the house note...). Therapist went on and on questioning if I was withholding money from her, and if finances were something we fought about, me being controlling with money, etc.

Finally XW was like "You aren't listening to me. He is not controlling with money. We were broke because I forgot to pay the house note."

The therapist looked at her for a few moments, confirmed that she was mad at ME because she made us broke, then... just changed the subject... like WTAF.

Grafixx5 · 2025-01-29T16:25:30+00:00

Honestly, it all depends on the counselor and what is put into it by BOTH parties. A good counselor should be able to see through the biosphere if one or both parties spews it during any or all sessions.

I have been to both, male and female. I had a good female and a very bad female. The male listened and gave ideas on ways to fix things or different ways to approach things. The one female did the same, even let me just go in and unload everything on her. Then the one female, after talking with my wife and I in the same room turned to me and was like, “I know what the problem is. And the problem is solely YOU! You have to change everything about you for her.” I got up and walked out.

Strange_Try7496 · 2025-01-29T16:19:12+00:00

My wife and I had a marriage that ran 23 years too long. We've seen every type of counselor.

It was a toss up on gender for me. But my favorite was a guy. He wanted to teach what he felt was the foundation of marriage, respect. She wanted him to referee while we argued.

And I think that's the biggest change in outcome. Some counselors teach skills. Some let it turn into a cage match and play referee. And I think the referee type tend to subconsciously favor based on their own meandering through life.

HoyAIAG · 2025-01-29T15:40:11+00:00

We had a male counselor and he saved our marriage

No_Pace2396 · 2025-01-29T15:07:31+00:00

Most therapists are women. Most are not very good at separating what they think you ought from what you/your family are. Of family court therapists, not necessarily marriage counselors, all women, all useless. Of 4 female marriage counselors. 2 made things much worse immediately, 1 could have helped sooner, 1 discerning counselor who was objective, didn’t assign blame, ex hated her.

Rezae · 2025-01-29T15:01:35+00:00

I have a sample size of 1 so it doesn’t mean much, but we had a male counselor in a faith based clinic (although we could and did request to keep religion out of it) and I felt completely double teamed and firmly believe it accelerated us to divorce. (I acknowledge this is a bias opinion coming from my POV)

She brought up her issues with me, I acknowledged, would come back to next session explaining what I did to work on them, and then there were new goal posts from both of them. Meanwhile my concerns about lack of time together, lack of perceived effort from her (I continually stressed it takes both of us to work on things to get to a better place), the lack of essentially any emotion, physicality, or even wanting a date night to reconnect.. all ignored. If we each had 5 things we wanted the other to work on, the focus was always on my 5, and then a new list for me if I addressed. Discussions at home would always go nowhere because we “need to wait and see what Steve thinks about it”. So yeah, fuck Steve.

mrbiggles64 · 2025-01-29T14:36:42+00:00

I'll add my two cents for what it's worth. In full disclosure, I'm not divorced and have been married for 16 years. We have gotten very close to divorcing a few times over the years. All that being said, we have been to counseling, and I'll never do it again. I found a good counselor. He was on his second career and his first career was in business. He was also not a faith a based counselor. These were my two criteria when I chose a therapist, and honestly, it was very difficult to find one. As you mentioned, most are women and in my part of the country, most are also faith based. We attended a handful of sessions with him, some togehter and some independently. When it comes down to it, I'm of firm belief that there are things from our past that need to stay in the past, and not everything needs to be brought up and re-hashed in detail. I'm also aware that I'm in the minority on this. I do believe that having a male counselor helped my wife understand some of my points of view from another male perspective and one that is also un-biased. He also agreed with most of my thoughts and the work I had done on myself, and was brutally honest with both me and my wife. Not sure any of that helps.

guy_n_cognito_tu · 2025-01-29T14:26:17+00:00

You're operating from a weird set of assumptions, friend.

The best marriage counseling I ever got was from a woman. Conversely, the worst therapist my ex ever had, who basically advised her that everything was my fault, was a man.

There are some terrible therapists out there, and some with massive biases. But picking one on gender alone isn't likely to suss those out.

General_Aspect9947 · 2025-01-29T14:22:37+00:00

Title	Does the gender of your marriage counselor affect the outcome of it?
Author	Kaezumi
Upvotes	7
Comments	18
Date	January 29, 2025 1:58 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1icubx6/does_the_gender_of_your_marriage_counselor_affect/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/does-the-gender-of-your-marriage-counselor-affect.1542480 https://theredarchive.com/post/1542480

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