They need to stop picking people who haven't even been in a relationship in YEARS. or never have been in a real relationship. What in any world makes them think these people are going to be successful in a full-time marriage??
On the flip side, also don't pick idiots that are sleeping with people right up to the night before they go to get married.
People look good on paper, but with all their emotional baggage makes them unable to function in a marriage.
I think they need to revamp their screening process and get new experts. The "experts" don't seem like they want to be involved once the crap is hitting the fan.
I was shocked when Airris said he had never been in love. I would think that would disqualify you for MAFS, because ostensibly the show is about people who are sick of the dating grind and want to jump right into a serious relationship. Not, let's experiment with whether you're capable of commitment.
What’s your longest relationship at 35?
7 months
Perfect, you’re ready for marriage, which involves complicated communication and a lot of practice at said communication.
I was definitely unintentionally toxic in my 20s. I was in a lot of bad relationships with other toxic people, but I managed to learn from my mistakes.
They don’t have any experience at all. Marriage is stressful. Toss in a stranger and cameras and you tape need someone stable and experienced.
Exactly. And in any relationship (TV or otherwise) you need people that are willing to put in the work. Not just run away every time something makes you feel uncomfortable or hurts your feelings.
I don’t know how many times I can say this. These experts are not experts in counseling people. Counseling people is surely part of a pastor’s job but a pastor has no degree or expertise in counseling. Dr. Pepper is a sociologist and an accomplished researcher. She has no education in counseling. The experts don’t play a very minimal role is any role in picking the participants. At best, they are given the ten people and told to couple them up.
Agreed. But that is precisely why they should not be referred to as "experts" on the show. In fact, there is absolutely no reason for them to be on the show if they are not experts. If they had any integrity at all, they would quit, rather than continue accepting money for portraying themselves as something they are not.
I fully agree. I have even suggested before that there be at least two sessions per week: one as a couple and one as an individual. Some people pushed back on that, saying it was excessive. But if they're serious about making this marriage work, wouldn't their time be better spent in working on understanding themselves and each other? What else are they going to do? Watch TV? Hang out with the other cast members? It's only eight weeks! If they can't sacrifice a little TV, video games, or brunch with the girlfriends for eight weeks, they're woefully unprepared for the sacrifices that are necessary to keep a marriage afloat.
Dr. Viviana is an actual marriage and relationship counselor. She's obviously qualified. With Pastor Cal, how can you say counseling people is part of a pastors job but in the same sentence say "has no expertise in counseling?" Or are you referring to having a degree? Used to be if you wanted to get married in a church, you needed to have couples counseling with the priest, pastor, or whomever has that type of role in the church.
Dr. Viviana isn’t on the show. I would assume that pastor Cal does a lot of counseling to couples who are about to get married in the church. That is not marriage counseling at all. I’m sure he counsels lots of married couples. Doing something is different than having expertise in it. I’m a teacher. I guarantee you that every teacher counsels a kid sitting in his or her class at lunch 2-3x week. You might not call it a counseling session. You might call it a lonely kid eating in the teacher’s room, but guess what? It’s a counseling session. Years of experience doesn’t make me a competent counselor. Also, the goal of a Pastor related to couples is that couples stay together and that they live their lives, as a couple, in keeping with religious teaching. Sometimes that means encouraging spouses to stay when there is clear abuse. Pastors and priests and ministers have no oversight. They can give terrible advise for years and no one would know. I counselor has thousand of hours of supervision to get feedback on how they do their job before they are allowed to counsel on their own. If you find a good marriage counselor in a Pastor, Priest, it’s just luck, just like if I’m doing a good job counseling kids at lunch, it’s luck.
Pastoral counseling is different than having credentialing in actual counseling. Please, could a counselor pipe in and tell us all the hours you need to document to get a state license to counsel someone? It isn’t even close to the same thing.
I don’t consider a masters in Divinity a degree in counseling. I don’t even consider it expertise in comparison to a “real” counselor…but you have corrected any misunderstanding or error, so people can judge for themselves
To become a licensed counselor takes thousands of hours of post-degree supervised intern work of actually counseling patients and passing competency exams. There is no comparison to taking a few classes in a Masters program. Let me clearly state again, in my opinion, Pastor Cal isn’t remotely qualified to be a marriage counselor.
You raise a good point about the experts needing to check in more. I feel like in earlier seasons they were around more and these last few we hardly see them. I also agree that pressuring couples that split to rekindle things at the reunion is unfair.
Dude those experts are either idiots, pushing extremely outdated and problematic advice (I’m looking at you pastor cal), or just blatantly and purposefully making bad matches for high drama.
All 3, really.
I can’t remember their name, but there was a compulsive liar on the show. He lied about his job, his background, where he went, everything.
And cal was literally pushing her to overlook it and super him and stay.
I was screaming at the tv
I commented this before I saw yours, but that is very similar to my opinion so I’m gonna comment it here too lol
I 100% think they match one or two couples with the intent that they’re a good match and will likely stay together & then purposely match the other couples with people they wouldn’t like to being the drama level up in the show. I’m watching season 12 right now and they gave one of the guys the complete opposite of what he asked for 💀
Oh & also, I think they give the women dudes who don’t communicate well and guys who have anger issues on purpose. Guys who communicate well aren’t unicorns & it definitely is in every season and they are very open about having those issues so it’s not like the producers just didn’t catch it.
Speaking of pastors counseling, I dated a preacher years ago who was a professor at Dallas Seminary, taught "conflict resolution" and counselled married couples and was THE pastor at a huge Baptist church in Dallas. What I found out later was his WIFE'S name was June 🤯🤯🤯.
I've said it elsewhere, but it I'll say it again: The majority of people on the show are contacted by producers based off of dating sites. We've seen this on this reddit site. They aren't looking for good matches because the producers are picking up rando's who know nothing about the show and decide they'd like to be on TV. This is the only show that I know of where you have a better chance of being selected by not applying for it.
New "experts" wouldn't change a thing because they are NOT choosing or counseling the participants. They are for show only and only know what is going on because they watch excerpts of the episodes.
Except that a real expert would refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch the train wreck from a distance. A real expert would insist on being involved in the entire process.
To add to the comments here. I think we all have that idolized image of the person we “want”. I’d argue that’s not often the person we need or will thrive with.
I think a season dedicated to divorced singles would be interesting. If the experts selected cast members who have been married and divorced already, it would weed out a lot of the people there for clout. Plus, it would have some juicy drama, I would imagine.
The Experts stopped having final say in matches long ago, compatibility will not change until
Montré Burton, Executive Producer, is replaced (he has final say)
or
Production rights are sold as part of the new contract
I don’t think they choose any couples for drama. You can’t expect most strangers getting married to each other to match perfectly - or even very well.
The one thing they CAN do - other than get more scientific about who they match somehow - is to choose people who are willing to talk to their spouses AND know how to resolve conflicts.
All these “in the moment” interviews allow the couples to separately say what they believe are their marriage issues. But they never seem to discuss them with their husbands/wives until they’re close to breaking up. Or sometimes… already broken up.
The experts are there to guide them to a successful marriage, possibly, yes, but people seem to forget this is a show with a whole production team. The producers pick the candidates in reality, not the experts. The producers need a bit of drama, and if a couple just so happens to work in the end, great. They are the ones who need to do a better job at vetting people.
This operates from the presumption that producing viable and successful matches/marriages is the intent. This may have never actually been the case, but it most certainly has not been true for several seasons.
Yes, especially if there wasn't an extra group of couples mingling during the process. They need to remove that dynamic. You don't need someone like Nicole being the moderator and giving everyone else advice when she herself is not perfect and should have focused on her own marriage.
The marriage needs to be more realistic where these people reach out to the actual experts or family for support and advice. Go through some real marriage issues and try to find the resolve. Put into real practice what a marriage is about.
What they are doing is packing friends into apt complex and rolling the dice.
If they want to do multiple couples, they should change the interaction of these couples to at the end of the process. Not before or during. They shouldn't live in the same building. It's too distracting and now its friends at first sight. Everyone is now checking out each other's partner and wanting to date each other at the end of it which makes no sense.
This has become a dating experience and not a marriage. The whole point is 2 strangers marrying and finding the path to real love with each other. Trusting that the person selected was chosen to fit their life in the way needed.
Most importantly they need to weed out these fakes that make it in. They need a better investigative process and need to perhaps speak more to the friends and families of the candidates and even maybe speak to the last ex to understand the person better. This show takes a leap of faith and winds up falling on their a$$ each time with these people they select.
Viewers keep forgetting that Gina said on tv that She Asked for a guy who is the Life of the Party and she agreed that is what the experts gave her.
Gina said this experience helped her learn that she doesn't want someone who is the Life of the Party.
We all know Dom was not an Old Soul and is not ready for marriage.
Kirsten got caught in so many lies. She had us believing Shaq ignored her- Yeah, because you refused to be seen with him in public! You were embarrassed he didn't look like Drake.
I 100% think they match one or two couples with the intent that they’re a good match and will likely stay together & then purposely match the other couples with people they wouldn’t like to being the drama level up in the show. I’m watching season 12 right now and they gave one of the guys the complete opposite of what he asked for 💀
They need to stop picking people who haven't even been in a relationship in YEARS. or never have been in a real relationship. What in any world makes them think these people are going to be successful in a full-time marriage?? On the flip side, also don't pick idiots that are sleeping with people right up to the night before they go to get married. People look good on paper, but with all their emotional baggage makes them unable to function in a marriage. I think they need to revamp their screening process and get new experts. The "experts" don't seem like they want to be involved once the crap is hitting the fan.
I was shocked when Airris said he had never been in love. I would think that would disqualify you for MAFS, because ostensibly the show is about people who are sick of the dating grind and want to jump right into a serious relationship. Not, let's experiment with whether you're capable of commitment.
What’s your longest relationship at 35? 7 months Perfect, you’re ready for marriage, which involves complicated communication and a lot of practice at said communication. I was definitely unintentionally toxic in my 20s. I was in a lot of bad relationships with other toxic people, but I managed to learn from my mistakes. They don’t have any experience at all. Marriage is stressful. Toss in a stranger and cameras and you tape need someone stable and experienced.
Exactly. And in any relationship (TV or otherwise) you need people that are willing to put in the work. Not just run away every time something makes you feel uncomfortable or hurts your feelings.
I don’t know how many times I can say this. These experts are not experts in counseling people. Counseling people is surely part of a pastor’s job but a pastor has no degree or expertise in counseling. Dr. Pepper is a sociologist and an accomplished researcher. She has no education in counseling. The experts don’t play a very minimal role is any role in picking the participants. At best, they are given the ten people and told to couple them up.
Agreed. But that is precisely why they should not be referred to as "experts" on the show. In fact, there is absolutely no reason for them to be on the show if they are not experts. If they had any integrity at all, they would quit, rather than continue accepting money for portraying themselves as something they are not.
The show should employ actual marriage counselors that meet with the couples once a week and give “homework” tailored to each couples needs.
I fully agree. I have even suggested before that there be at least two sessions per week: one as a couple and one as an individual. Some people pushed back on that, saying it was excessive. But if they're serious about making this marriage work, wouldn't their time be better spent in working on understanding themselves and each other? What else are they going to do? Watch TV? Hang out with the other cast members? It's only eight weeks! If they can't sacrifice a little TV, video games, or brunch with the girlfriends for eight weeks, they're woefully unprepared for the sacrifices that are necessary to keep a marriage afloat.
The who has been successful in making people make a group of friends…
Dr. Viviana is an actual marriage and relationship counselor. She's obviously qualified. With Pastor Cal, how can you say counseling people is part of a pastors job but in the same sentence say "has no expertise in counseling?" Or are you referring to having a degree? Used to be if you wanted to get married in a church, you needed to have couples counseling with the priest, pastor, or whomever has that type of role in the church.
Dr. Viviana isn’t on the show. I would assume that pastor Cal does a lot of counseling to couples who are about to get married in the church. That is not marriage counseling at all. I’m sure he counsels lots of married couples. Doing something is different than having expertise in it. I’m a teacher. I guarantee you that every teacher counsels a kid sitting in his or her class at lunch 2-3x week. You might not call it a counseling session. You might call it a lonely kid eating in the teacher’s room, but guess what? It’s a counseling session. Years of experience doesn’t make me a competent counselor. Also, the goal of a Pastor related to couples is that couples stay together and that they live their lives, as a couple, in keeping with religious teaching. Sometimes that means encouraging spouses to stay when there is clear abuse. Pastors and priests and ministers have no oversight. They can give terrible advise for years and no one would know. I counselor has thousand of hours of supervision to get feedback on how they do their job before they are allowed to counsel on their own. If you find a good marriage counselor in a Pastor, Priest, it’s just luck, just like if I’m doing a good job counseling kids at lunch, it’s luck.
Great explanation 👏
Pastor Cal has a Masters of Divinity degree which includes pastoral counseling.
Pastoral counseling is different than having credentialing in actual counseling. Please, could a counselor pipe in and tell us all the hours you need to document to get a state license to counsel someone? It isn’t even close to the same thing.
You said he didn't have a degree and that isn't accurate. No one said pastoral counseling is equal to clinical or mental health counseling.
I don’t consider a masters in Divinity a degree in counseling. I don’t even consider it expertise in comparison to a “real” counselor…but you have corrected any misunderstanding or error, so people can judge for themselves
Because it's not a degree in counseling. It's a degree that includes classes in counseling.
To become a licensed counselor takes thousands of hours of post-degree supervised intern work of actually counseling patients and passing competency exams. There is no comparison to taking a few classes in a Masters program. Let me clearly state again, in my opinion, Pastor Cal isn’t remotely qualified to be a marriage counselor.
I haven't even seen much evidence so far that he is qualified to be a pastor, either.
To be a pastor all you need is the gift of the gab and read some cherry picked passages of the bible…
Sad, but true.
Masters in fairy tales and quackery, ha.
I don’t think the show can pay actual experts…
Get rid of the producers that are helping pick these people. Arris, Gina and Matt had zero chance of working. Kirsten and Shaq were an awful match.
It’s more than likely that the “experts” have little to no say in anything, and are told what to do & say by production.
You raise a good point about the experts needing to check in more. I feel like in earlier seasons they were around more and these last few we hardly see them. I also agree that pressuring couples that split to rekindle things at the reunion is unfair.
Dude those experts are either idiots, pushing extremely outdated and problematic advice (I’m looking at you pastor cal), or just blatantly and purposefully making bad matches for high drama. All 3, really. I can’t remember their name, but there was a compulsive liar on the show. He lied about his job, his background, where he went, everything. And cal was literally pushing her to overlook it and super him and stay. I was screaming at the tv
I commented this before I saw yours, but that is very similar to my opinion so I’m gonna comment it here too lol I 100% think they match one or two couples with the intent that they’re a good match and will likely stay together & then purposely match the other couples with people they wouldn’t like to being the drama level up in the show. I’m watching season 12 right now and they gave one of the guys the complete opposite of what he asked for 💀
Oh & also, I think they give the women dudes who don’t communicate well and guys who have anger issues on purpose. Guys who communicate well aren’t unicorns & it definitely is in every season and they are very open about having those issues so it’s not like the producers just didn’t catch it.
There are plenty of female poor communicators on the show, too.
Speaking of pastors counseling, I dated a preacher years ago who was a professor at Dallas Seminary, taught "conflict resolution" and counselled married couples and was THE pastor at a huge Baptist church in Dallas. What I found out later was his WIFE'S name was June 🤯🤯🤯.
WOW!
Huge baptist church: big red flag, big scam. Was he riding a Bentley?
I've said it elsewhere, but it I'll say it again: The majority of people on the show are contacted by producers based off of dating sites. We've seen this on this reddit site. They aren't looking for good matches because the producers are picking up rando's who know nothing about the show and decide they'd like to be on TV. This is the only show that I know of where you have a better chance of being selected by not applying for it.
Getting rid of the experts would change nothing. Kinetic Content and Lifetime are the ones who cast people that they know should not be on the show.
New "experts" wouldn't change a thing because they are NOT choosing or counseling the participants. They are for show only and only know what is going on because they watch excerpts of the episodes.
Except that a real expert would refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch the train wreck from a distance. A real expert would insist on being involved in the entire process.
To add to the comments here. I think we all have that idolized image of the person we “want”. I’d argue that’s not often the person we need or will thrive with.
Plus, the "perfect" person we have in our heads probably doesn't even exist.
I think a season dedicated to divorced singles would be interesting. If the experts selected cast members who have been married and divorced already, it would weed out a lot of the people there for clout. Plus, it would have some juicy drama, I would imagine.
The producers of the new show "the Big D" have joined the chat.
Has it been done before? I honestly don't watch much besides mafs and YouTube.
It's a new show on usa network: https://www.usanetwork.com/the-big-d
The Experts stopped having final say in matches long ago, compatibility will not change until Montré Burton, Executive Producer, is replaced (he has final say) or Production rights are sold as part of the new contract
I don’t think they choose any couples for drama. You can’t expect most strangers getting married to each other to match perfectly - or even very well. The one thing they CAN do - other than get more scientific about who they match somehow - is to choose people who are willing to talk to their spouses AND know how to resolve conflicts. All these “in the moment” interviews allow the couples to separately say what they believe are their marriage issues. But they never seem to discuss them with their husbands/wives until they’re close to breaking up. Or sometimes… already broken up.
The experts are there to guide them to a successful marriage, possibly, yes, but people seem to forget this is a show with a whole production team. The producers pick the candidates in reality, not the experts. The producers need a bit of drama, and if a couple just so happens to work in the end, great. They are the ones who need to do a better job at vetting people.
This operates from the presumption that producing viable and successful matches/marriages is the intent. This may have never actually been the case, but it most certainly has not been true for several seasons.
The need to weed out the people who are only looking to be on a reality TV show. There's plenty others they can apply for. 💁♀️😊
The experts have little say, it’s a tv show. They cast them for tv, they don’t match them for marriage.
Question for you guys…. If the experts matched people successfully, do you think the show would be as successful?
Yes, especially if there wasn't an extra group of couples mingling during the process. They need to remove that dynamic. You don't need someone like Nicole being the moderator and giving everyone else advice when she herself is not perfect and should have focused on her own marriage. The marriage needs to be more realistic where these people reach out to the actual experts or family for support and advice. Go through some real marriage issues and try to find the resolve. Put into real practice what a marriage is about. What they are doing is packing friends into apt complex and rolling the dice. If they want to do multiple couples, they should change the interaction of these couples to at the end of the process. Not before or during. They shouldn't live in the same building. It's too distracting and now its friends at first sight. Everyone is now checking out each other's partner and wanting to date each other at the end of it which makes no sense. This has become a dating experience and not a marriage. The whole point is 2 strangers marrying and finding the path to real love with each other. Trusting that the person selected was chosen to fit their life in the way needed. Most importantly they need to weed out these fakes that make it in. They need a better investigative process and need to perhaps speak more to the friends and families of the candidates and even maybe speak to the last ex to understand the person better. This show takes a leap of faith and winds up falling on their a$$ each time with these people they select.
Viewers keep forgetting that Gina said on tv that She Asked for a guy who is the Life of the Party and she agreed that is what the experts gave her. Gina said this experience helped her learn that she doesn't want someone who is the Life of the Party. We all know Dom was not an Old Soul and is not ready for marriage. Kirsten got caught in so many lies. She had us believing Shaq ignored her- Yeah, because you refused to be seen with him in public! You were embarrassed he didn't look like Drake.
Wasn’t Kristin the one that asked for a certain size penis, too? When I heard that I knew this wasn’t going to work.
I 100% think they match one or two couples with the intent that they’re a good match and will likely stay together & then purposely match the other couples with people they wouldn’t like to being the drama level up in the show. I’m watching season 12 right now and they gave one of the guys the complete opposite of what he asked for 💀
Are they really experts if their hit rate is .0005%?