I’m a marriage guidance counsellor happy to declare
That soon I’ll be retired and will at last vacate my chair,
Leave the job behind me and finally take my pension;
How I've stuck the job this long’s beyond my comprehension
Truth be told, on my career the lustre’s somewhat faded,
Arbitrating conflict noon and night has left me jaded;
For twenty years I've listened to their tales of strife and woe,
I’ve been made all too aware of the toxic depths below
The wives complain their husbands never hear a word they say,
The husbands tell me other things that some might think risqué;
I hear of his and her affairs and sexual dysfunction,
They hurl vulgar insults, dish the dirt without compunction
Like ‘She doesn’t understand me when I suggest we swing’;
‘He’s never learned to tolerate my customary fling’;
She says how she’d like to try some intimate device,
At which he protests loudly and complains about the price
He accounts her shopping sprees with surgical precision,
She says ‘It’s like living in the Spanish Inquisition!’
I’ve seen and heard it all in the course of my career
And cracks are now appearing in my self-possessed veneer
I’m really up to here with their matrimonial issues,
They’re costing me a fortune in jumbo Kleenex tissues;
The love life of a marriage guidance counsellor’s much tougher,
They’ve no idea how through the years the counsellor must suffer
I don’t ask for sympathy, but the job sure took its toll
On my own relationship, over which I’ve no control;
My wife and I aren’t getting on, she drives me round the bend,
We need some marriage guidance – now, who do you recommend?