Breaking up is hard to do. I've just been through a big one...with my therapist.

I've had plenty of therapists through the years, but we always parted ways for reasons beyond our control. Either I moved out of town (twice), or my therapist did (once).

I broke up with one therapist because I could no longer afford him. He didn't take insurance and the weekly $75 sliding scale fee was too much on my non-profit salary. I told him goodbye, he told me what a shame because I clearly had much work to do around my relationship to money. I didn't really buy it.

This time was different. I worked with Alice for two years. She celebrated my triumphs and honored my heartache like no one ever had, and I learned to embrace my feelings rather than bury them deep. She practices the same meditation as I do, vipassana and metta, so these became tools in my toolbox that we could talk about and play with.

When she stopped leasing space in a Boston office once a week and started seeing clients only at her home office in the suburbs, I adjusted schedule to make the hour-long trip to keep seeing her.

We finally parted ways because it felt like our work was done. When I first went to her I was discontent and anxious, but I didn't know why. Soon I came out of my isolation and re-established ties with good girlfriends, buoyed by the practice socializing in her office.

I discovered I had been denying the dissatisfaction in my marriage to Rob. I stopped feeling like a hurt and needy child when my mother neglected me, and I learned to feel compassion for my ill father, who never treated me well but who now needs my help.

When I realized both the extent of my progress with Alice, and that she couldn't help me further with the central question in my life — whether I should stay married to Rob — I knew we reached the end of the journey on which we had embarked. So, goodbye to Alice. You were a great therapist and counselor. I've got it from here.