[mikemhg]

Good questions, and no, I don't mind at all.

To be honest, a family/marriage councilor is often times simply an arbitrator -- someone who is impartial and can listen to both sides in a disagreement, and offer a non-biased solution (or one would hope). That's primarily their role, for the most part they won't reinvent the wheel for you.

I found he helped us understand each other's mindsets better, and so highlight implicit bias that we both carried in certain disagreements. He really pushed the idea of simply learning to understand how we both tick, and how we may see things differently at times, and how that's not a bad thing. We can all have our own opinions, and that's not wrong to disagree. That kind of stuff.

In terms of what drove us apart, really just time. We started dating when I was 21, at that age (and much of my 20's), I was a total gasser. I partied a lot, went out with my buddies, meeting girls all the time, hooking up and coming home late. Much of that lifestyle broke the trust, and thus there was always a seething resentment on her part, most deservedly. Over time in the relationship that lifestyle certainly changed (especially in my now 30's), but the damage was already done.

We had become akin to roommates in the last years, good friends, we'd travel together and have good times, but the passion was long gone. Though we wouldn't fight often, but when we did, it just cut differently, deeper, we both knew we had clocked out on one another. The intimacy had long declined, the spark was gone. We discussed breaking up numerous times in the last few years of the relationship. Resentment is a killer -- once trust is lost and water under the bridge accumulates, it's impossible to ever bounce back.

Near the end of the relationship I went on vacation to the Philippines with my father as a bit of a bonding thing, during the trip I had cheated again. When I returned, I fessed up and confessed to what happened, she had a feeling and had known it would happen. At that point it was over, and we ended things amicably. To this day we're still friends, and we do meet up from time to time in order to catch up.

She'll always be a friend to me, and I'll always have her back for whatever she needs, I do love and care about her still to this day. Had we met in our 30's, things would've been certainly different, we simply met at the wrong time.

It goes to show her maturity and levelheadedness that we can still be amicable, and friends to this day, as I certainly don't deserve it, I'm just glad that she's learned to forgive me.

Long winded, but that's the abbreviated story there.