A newlywed couple walk down the stairs after posing for pictures at the Bund in central Shanghai. (Photo : Getty Images)
Which is more difficult, and costlier, to do: filing for divorce or saving a marriage?
Moneyed wives who are struggling to save their marriages opted to spend stacks of cash, which could never be a problem on their part, on hiring marriage counselors to create novel ways of removing the third party completely out of the picture.
Marriage counselors or “affair exterminators” would typically charge their heartbroken clients 200,000 yuan, and it could be higher depending on the success rate of the work plan, reported China Daily.
Ming Li, a 46-year-old Shanghai-based marriage counselor, told China Daily that clients should never worry about the fees because it could all be worth it. Making the third party end his/her affair with the husband/wife concerned may involve months, possibly even an entire year or more, to make it happen, which means a lot of planning and stage-managing on the part of the marriage counselor.
Weiqing Group, where Ming is presently connected, is an agency offering marriage counseling services. It operates in more than 40 cities in the country.
Ming, who has already spent 15 years trying to save marriages, said that being a marriage counselor is comparable to that of “being a spy.”
According to Ming, she would assume a certain identity and take steps that would make her become acquaintances with the target individual. Soon enough, after several carefully planned staged encounters, she and her target become friends.
Ming would then resort to other tactics such as kindly gestures in the form of gift giving and dinner treats to get emotionally closer with the target. Ming would subtly convince the target to end his/her affair with the client’s husband/wife.
In 2012, it was estimated that 2.87 million married couples in the country got themselves a divorce, according to About.com, an online source of contents covering different topics.
According to the Social Service Development Statistical Bulletin, 13.5 million couples got married in 2013. That same year, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, 3.5 million filed for divorce, reported South China Morning Post.
There were some 3.63 million divorce cases in 2014, reported What’s On Weibo.
Shu Xin, Ming’s co-worker, told China Daily that affair exterminators like him and Ming normally have experiences as divorce lawyers, marriage counselors or psychiatrists.
