Manifestation Manifesto Staff asked 9 years ago
Dear MM:
I have been married for 15 years and we have 3 kids ranging in age from 6-11. I know the marriage has run its course. I am trying to deal with not feeling guilty, but I know for a fact it is time for me to move forward. I can feel wonderful things (energetically) waiting for me. I also feel like this is a karmic issue… One my husband and I have faced many times in prior lives. Clearly we haven’t learned the right lesson yet so we find ourselves in this situation in another lifetime. I don’t even know how I know this.
Do you have any ideas on how I can let go of guilt holding me back and how I can try to learn and leverage past life lessons that I don’t remember?
Signed,
Karmic Chaos & Confusion
Dear KCC,
Thank you for sharing your issue with me. I recognize that this is a very painful decision for you to make. You will look back on this time in your life as a turning point, one of great transformation. I wish you, your husband and your children pure light and love as you embark on this journey together.
We have many soul mates. We do not have contracts with just one soul: We have contracts with many souls during one lifetime. Relationships are our greatest teachers. However, we tend to look at being a couple as the lesson, and we forget that the dissolution of a relationship, and how you relate to each other after the transformation of the relationship, is also part of the lesson. In other words, your lessons with another aren’t exclusively about coming together and being a couple: The lessons are sometimes also about growing apart and knowing when a relationship is no longer helping you evolve.
Let me start by saying that I’m concerned that you feel guilty. Guilt is anger toward oneself. You need to release that anger and move on to higher vibrational thought. Is the guilt you feel about no longer feeling fulfilled in your marriage and choosing to end it rather than sticking it out? If so, keep in mind, when the concept of legal marriage was created, humans were not as evolved and we had shorter life spans. Now that our souls have been around the block so to speak, we have unfinished business and contracts with far more souls than we did before. Granted, I’m not saying to use this as an excuse to walk away from a marriage before trying everything you can to save it, whether through marriage counseling or personal, one-on-one counseling. But when a relationship has run its course, you know it deep in your heart. Punishing yourself by staying in an unfulfilling situation is NOT part of anyone’s Divine plan.
Or do you feel guilty because you feel you may be letting your kids down? I believe it’s Dr. Phil who says, “Kids would rather be from a broken home than an unhappy home.” I have to agree with that. Besides, what kind of a role model would you be if you accept a life of misery over your own happiness? And how do you think your kids would feel knowing their mother is staying in an unhappy situation because of them? Both scenarios make you look and sound like a victim. Not to mention, your kids are victimized as well. Not the message you want to send to the Universe about how you see yourself. You’ll just get more of the same handed to you on a silver platter.
Regardless, I just want you to really figure out why you feel guilty. You need to forgive everyone in this situation, including yourself. This guilt needs to be addressed because until it is looked at honestly, it can get in the way of manifesting a new life and relationship more in line with your soul’s purpose. Mind you, the guilt can be gone the minute you address it. I don’t believe it should be a long-drawn out process. Forgiveness can happen in a moment or it can happen over the course of many years. That’s completely in your control.
OK, so let’s address the issue of karma, as you also brought up in your original message. Don’t think your karma with your husband is over once those divorce papers are signed because your lessons together will continue long after your marriage ends. For starters, he will remain in your life through your children. Your relationship with him will need to remain on the highest vibration – for your sake and for the sake of your kids.
As for your kids, they are in on your karmic agreement with your husband. This divorce is part of their souls’ lessons and evolution as much as it is yours and your husband’s. They knew before they even incarnated that divorce was a part of their parents’ karmic lessons.
I’m of the opinion that divorce is a necessary function for the evolution of some souls. In your case your two souls may have very well completed what they came together to accomplish. This doesn’t mean your souls won’t come together in future incarnations. It simply means that whatever lessons you both needed to learn, about whatever aspect of relationships you came together to heal, was accomplished to the best of your abilities in this incarnation.
If in fact you have accrued even more karmic lessons with each other this time around, and are leaving the relationship before resolving those issues, rest assured they will be worked out in this or future incarnations. I’m not convinced you must work those lessons out with the same soul, however. I’m going to go out on a limb and say you can work out the bad karma from one relationship by balancing that karma somehow in your next relationship. I could be wrong. It’s one of those things you won’t know for sure until you return home, so to speak.
One thing is for certain: You create further difficult karmic lessons by letting bitterness, anger, deceit and all of the ugly emotions associated with divorce seep into the relationship. Remember, you don’t exist in a bubble. Your actions not only affect you on a soul level, but they also affect your soul family and your kids. You don’t want your behavior to trigger any new relationship patterns to trickle down through generations. You see, no relationship exists in a bubble, and the effects of a relationship have a butterfly affect on everyone it touches, especially throughout your familial lineage. It’s part of a spiritual and earthly legacy that transcends both you and your husband.
If you don’t know what I mean, take a look at any “dysfunction” in your family. There’s a chance that very dysfunction has played out in many different ways with many different people in your family history. Well, someone had to start those patterns. And breaking patterns is a lot harder than starting them.
You want your legacy to be that of a mature, peaceful, kind couple that is parting ways because they both know that their marital relationship has run its course. You want to recognize that your relationship will not end after divorce; instead, your relationship will transform into something different. You are still responsible for that relationship. That’s how you keep your karma clean and healthy.
I can’t tell you what the “right lesson” is for you both, or why you came together in this lifetime. And it may take you many, many years to figure that out and for that answer to be clear. But if you are unhappy and no longer in love, and if you feel you have tried everything to work it out, hanging on to guilt is a waste of time and energy. Never let your ego beat the crap out of your heart for asking for what it wants. The heart will not give up, you know. The ego can call the heart all of the names in the book, but the heart wants what the heart wants, so to speak. The heart is also the keeper of your destiny, so its urges and whisperings must be heeded. I wish you light, love and much luck.
Blessings to you and your family,
MM