this is perfect! :)

Every business has policies and most don't condone relationships in the workplace as it distracts and can cause issues in priorities. You should always read a rule book or policy list that are always issued to new employees. That could also be bad for you since he was your boss. Now if you need s recommendation, he may give you a bad one.

Generally, any relationship between a supervisor and subordinate is considered inappropriate. There's the possibility of favoritism, a hostile work environment, and slew of other issues that can be considered detrimental to company morale. The higher ups would rather avoid this, if they can.

I live in Southern California and all of the jobs I've had do not allow employees to date. That is covered during Orientation and they also cover sexual harassment. This still doesn't stop coworkers from hooking up and breaking the rules. And what's ridiculous is that the HR department encourages its employees to report the employees who are dating. Yeah right, even the HR department knows who's dating who. It's best to just let those people do their thing unless they were giving OP a hard time.

Problem is, the OP did not specify that it was subordinate or a co-worker. He said "counselor." That could mean a number of different things. That's why I think this needs more context.

From what I've seen, Supervisors and Upper Management try to hide that they're dating coworkers at first and then just don't care because if HR investigates, they simply deny it. OP thought he was working for a Company with an Honest and Just HR department. OP was sadly mistaken.

Based on the information that OP gave, it's clear the relationship was not allowed at their workplace. The rules don't state that Management can't date coworkers without a management position. They can't date any coworkers regardless if they're managers or not. Everyone working for the company must not be allowed to date. But these rules don't stop people from hooking up.

I don't get where you take from the FML that they weren't allowed to date "anyone", this really needs more context. I worked in small companies where there was absolutely no written down policy about dating, but "informally" they would either encourage it or discourage it by word of mouth, through managers. If there was any official policy in this case, then he would be in the right position to sue the company. (As a sidenote, even if he does sue and gets his job back, would he really want to work there anymore??) But if there was not, than he was just being an asshole and the company retaliated.

OP did state the relationship was inappropriate. A manager and a counselor. I don't think the rule would be that managers can only date managers and counselors can only date counselors. The rule is employees are not allowed to have a relationship whether it's on the clock or off the clock. But that rule does not apply to all companies or workplaces like in your case. But even with this rule in place, many people don't follow it no matter what position they hold.