I’m reposting the karma post for a few of you who would like the ex to “get theirs.” First, this is a normal and natural emotion but don’t dwell there. Second, they will get theirs only you don’t know when and you don’t know how and they might not even know it when it happens.
“And in the end
the love you take
is equal to
the love you make.”
~ Lennon/McCartney
When we’ve been hurt by someone who could really care less that they’ve hurt us, even though they once professed to love us, part of our emotional spectrum is hoping that they get theirs.
Life isn’t fair and it’s not supposed to be fair. But we want someone to pay for our pain and we want to believe that good people get good stuff and bad people get bad stuff. And when it doesn’t work out that way, we hate it and we feel, instinctively, that it’s wrong. And we have trouble handling it.
Rabbi Kushner wrote a book called When Bad Things Happen To Good People and it has been a best seller for 20 years because it attempts to reconcile people’s beliefs in a higher being with the seeming randomness of life. When his own child was stricken with a fatal illness, the good Rabbi worked to sort it all out. His book has been a comfort to many over these many years.
When C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed, he was a fairly famous theologian and his wife had died. His grief tested his belief. He called God a lot of names in the book which is essentially his grief process and his reconcilliation of his beliefs and his pain. It is a wonderful and difficult book.
Okay so I am neither Rabbi Kushner nor am I CS Lewis. I’m not a theologian or spiritual leader so I’m not going to talk about how to reconcile your spiritual beliefs with your pain because I really don’t know how you do that. But these books are some things that have been written because when people hurt they instinctively try to figure it all out…
What each of these books do talk about is how to come to terms with the feeling that life is just $hitty sometimes and very much unfair a lot of other times. And books can help you with the randomness of that…and how life just happens and how it’s not fair.
Because it’s not.
But that’s not what we’re talking about with karma. Karma is different. Karma is a pointed “you did a bad thing, bananahead, and now you are going to get yours” gun at their head. And yes it does go bang eventually.
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HURTFUL DEMON EXES FROM HELL. And the question is: Seriously, do they get theirs in the end?
You know, I think they do. But it’s just not wrapped in the package we’d like it in.
I AM going to talk about the idea of karma, revenge and getting what they deserve. And how I see it after all these years.
I wanted revenge on my ex for the longest time. And someone told me what goes around comes around. And I wanted him to hurt as I was hurting and I wanted his world to be turned upside down.
In other words, I wanted him ZAPPED from somewhere up above where this big finger comes out of the sky, like in a Monty Python skit, and just smote him (whatever that is). That is what I wanted. I wanted the very thing that Rabbi Kushner and CS Lewis say isn’t going to happen.
To me, him getting his was karma. Going around, coming around. He blew up my world and I wanted his blown up. One good blow up deserves another.
And I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.
And not much happened.
He had his puppy love affair while I was writhing around in pain. And then he cheated on her with me (?) and then they had a Norman Rockwell Christmas Eve, complete with my children while I wanted to throw myself in front of a train.
Then they got married.
And for years they seemed to have the normal, regular life. Except all this other stuff was going on below the surface…some of it above the surface and some of it was in court papers that I happened to see when I was at the courthouse looking under his name for my divorce papers for a bar admission. Oops…lots of stuff they probably don’t know I know about. Stuff I won’t write about here because it might be identifying and I’d like to not put all the details here. Many years ago I would have published it to the world but vengeance is not my thing anymore.
But these are two people who started things badly and who completely disregarded absolutely everyone else’s feelings and what was good for my children.
So when you go out into life with that attitude and selfishness things happen and to them they happened. Slowly things happened and slowly the dysfunction that I thought was the two of them started to percolate to the surface…and the maintenance crazy that I talk about on here started to dance all over their lives…only they have no freaking clue how to deal with it…and maintenance crazy lives on. It’s miserable and miserable things have happened but they sorta don’t know it. It’s like they are oblivious to the whole thing. I’m just glad it’s not me.
But it wasn’t the POP POP POP that I had envisioned. It wasn’t the whole kit n kaboodle falling down at once…it was a slow decaying over the years…and the dysfunction sorta collapsing in on itself. And there wasn’t a screaming whining, running down the street like their hair is on fire like I wanted there to be. … Instead it’s been a slow simmer to a final whimper at some point down the line. And in so many ways they got exactly what they deserved: the misery that is each other and her dysfunctional children and their sad lives…
Meanwhile, back at the Suzie Q Ranch….I was in pain…the gift of desperation kicked in and I went everywhere and anywhere to change my life…and I changed it…and I am happy and things turned out fabulous…better than they could ever be…:)
And my children are great and good and wonderful and none of them speak to them. It’s not a spiteful thing…it’s what happened when you treat people like crap and those people happen to be getting raised by your getting-healthier-by-the-minute ex wife. My kids developed standards and boundaries and were not willing to deal with it or him and especially not her.
So Karma didn’t happen the way I wanted it to happen and certainly didn’t happen WHEN I wanted it to happen (when I still gave a crap if it happened). But it happened.
They really really really really have reaped what they have sown. And that’s just what happened.
But not the way I wanted it to happen. Not the way I was champing at the bit for it to happen early on. But it turned out good that it didn’t happen that way.
The BEST thing about it not happening the way I wanted is that had it done anything else, my attention would have been focused over THERE salivating or perhaps still involved in the back-and-forth that was us for so long….but no…because it seemed like it was working out and she knew he was a cheater so she never let him out of her sight, it was boring and I had no choice…I had to put my focus on where it needed to be: on my life.
The simplest explanation of karma is that if you are a positive and loving person, you have positive and loving things come into your life (or if you adhere to the Hindu version of karma maybe the next life) and if you are negative, negative things come into your life.
And I think it’s true.
If you put good and positive energy into your life you get good and positive stuff back.
And if you’re a cheating, lying bastard you get my ex-husband’s wife. :)
Seriously, it does go around but it probably goes around much slower and in a different form than you would like.
And whatever you THINK is going on in someone else’s life is probably not…
So leave karma to the universe and concentrate on your own life. It will all work out. Seriously it will.
Trust the process. Trust the karma. Do good and be good to you.
The bad guys/gals will screw themselves into the ground.
Seriously they will.
Susan
This reposting is so timely and sooo good to read right now. Thank you again for another great post. It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way!
I woke up this morning (before reading this) and couldn’t get back to sleep after having a dream about my ex husband, his wife and their baby. All this anger came up about what he did and after 9 years I sometimes still feel furious that he screwed over everybody in his life here – his employers, his friends, and me and my family. He left me, our 12 month old son (at the time) and left a huge mess behind him, but got the chance to start over in his home country, where noone knew what had happened and he lied to friends and family there – and his new wife – about why our marriage broke down, making me out to be the bad guy.
It sometimes makes me SEETHE with FURY that he didn’t have any of the responsibility of raising our child, who he has seen twice since, that he could freely work and date and have a social life when I felt so constrained by my circumstances. He remarried earlier this year, and while that didn’t bother me too much, he and his wife had a son last year and that brought up emotion in me I didn’t even know was there. It was then I realised that I hadn’t truly grieved the relationship or let it – and him – go.
I also realised that while everything is seemingly going well for them, seemingly is the key word and if there’s anything I have learned over the past few years, it is that you cannot truly know what is going on in someone else’s life or relationship, no matter how well it seems to be working on the outside. So the way I try to console myself is to know that while on the surface my ex may appear to have everything I so want for myself, underneath it may be a big pile of s*** , and considering how he treats me and our son and that he hasn’t changed much since we split up, I can’t help but wondering what his new partner is putting up with from him, knowing that water seeks its own level.
On an aside, my therapist suggested that I sometimes need to physically release my anger. I don’t have a punching bag, but I found an old picture of him that I hated, enlarged it, taped it to a wall outside, and threw a mud covered baseball at his head, repeatedly. It felt really good and after a while the tears came after the anger cooled. Very cathartic!
Michele
Have you ever read ‘Forgive for Good’ by Fred Luskin? If not, I HIGHLY recommend your picking a copy of it up and reading it. That book really helped me a lot. I had a lot of rage in me, not just from ex boyfriends but from a large estranged (former) family. Anyhow, the book showed me how much all of this pain and resentment was hurting ME and not the people who actually had it coming!
That aside, I know that one of my creepier exes is getting his right now – he is (or maybe was) one of those wall street fat cats and I can’t help it, watching the market fall gives me a certain sense of satisfaction, even though my 401K has taken a huge hit as well. Human nature I guess. He richly deserves it though.
Susan, I have been thinking about you, your husband and your family alot (even when I am not posting or able to come to the site). I am sending positive thoughts and energy your way.
Regarding Karma, I believe in it and in the way you mention but also I believe that just because you are good, etc., good things don’t always happen..sometimes we get crap. Life happens with all the ups and downs. It is how we deal with it that determines our life course of being better people, happier individuals., etc. THAT is the challenge (and you have done a remarkable job).
On my side, I probably deserve bad Karma cuz I’ve done some things I’m not proud of…..there were reasons, explanations, etc., but in the end, my behavior was not on par with the value system & beliefs that are the ones I usually promote/exhibit.
The ex did & said some really crappy things but I believe he is, basically, a good a decent person with his own immature neediness, inexperience and growing to do.
And, while the mature side of me can accept/understand this, the child in me is also a bit pleased to see him making stupid mistakes with another. I feel terrible wishing ill or taking any pleasure in seeing someone I care/cared for not being happy but I guess I am not that mature afterall.
I see him everyday at work (with and without the g/f …we all work together) and he is so enmeshed and blind. And she is not this totally sweet, kind, person he thinks….she is controlling, hard, opinionated and close-minded to everything but what she wants/sees. He will do whatever she dictates including dropping all friendships & events but the ones she selects or agrees to. I believe the first time he goes against her desires, he will feel her full wrath! It is a semi-pleasant thought for me even though it isn’t nice of me and it shouldn’t matter to me.
It used to matter to me what they were doing and now it is less and less. Part of me is sad for him but also happy she is the way she is……..(even though he still doesn’t see it….others do and are starting to talk)…..my immature self feels kind of vindicated even though I wouldn’t go back with him. My ego, I guess, needed this.
I know I am not totally over my feelings….but I think they are less about him and really more about dealing with issues from my past that he represented. Wanting to be accepted by my mother and father. He, I believe, represented my father….someone that I loved to be around and who said he loved me but was only in my life when it was convenient for him.
I guess I needed this to play out in front of me, as painful as it is/was…..I’ve had to grow in ways I didn’t even realize.
On one hand I feel like I have wasted 8 years of my life loving someone who, in the end, I knew would abandon me (who actually just used me while in the relationship with me) but on the other hand if I hadn’t had this experience, maybe I wouldn’t have learned what I have come to learn.
Will he get his bad karma like a “pop, pop, pop”……I don’t think it will come to him like that but I do believe he will “get his”…… his “fantasy” will end and he will be faced with the reality of life and the choices he has made….some good, others not so good.
Me…I’m trying to move on…..I AM moving on.
I wish peace and good Karma to each of you!
You know for the last few months I have been LIVID at my ex. Just full of rage and wishing him the worst things ever. I have never been this angry at anyone before. I just really want him to hurt and hurt bad.
So, this post is timely and maybe i need to get zen here and start to wish good things for him.
It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m gonna try :)
Anais:
Rage is not terrifically productive but sometimes it can’t be helped. We’re human after all. Prolonged rage is harmful though, which is why it’s important to try to let it go. I don’t think you have to wish him well either… just try not to focus on him one way or the other… (I know, easier said than done) but whenever you find yourself thinking about him remind yourself that he isn’t worth your time.
You know, I read a column once (or an email, not sure) anyhow, they said that time is like money in a bank account and you only get so much of it and so you need to spend it wisely. Why hand your time over to someone (either wishing them ill or good) when they have already proven themselves unworthy?
Hang in there… :)
I don’t wish my ex-partner harm nor do I want her to pay for the hurt I have experienced. I don’t like what she did in our relationship equation, both in word and action, but I have found that I have empathy and compassion in heart. Not hate. Not revenge. Not pay back.
After sorting out 95% of my relationship and it’s break up, I can only wish her a good life. The 5% remaining is the little stomach twitches of memories of the woman I loved and wanted to share my life with.
And I do forgive her. And I hope she can forgive me for my part in our relationship.
I wished we could have worked on what we needed to…that did not happen. And because of that, I wish her safe space and a good life. That is the only thing I can do or house within me.
Brave Heart:
What a kind and loving soul you are. Though this relationship did not work out, I have no doubt that there is a far better one waiting for you :)
And as for forgiveness, the only person’s forgiveness that can truly make a difference is your own. I believe true forgiveness begins with ourselves, just like we have to love ourselves – as in “Love is an Action” – before we can allow anyone else to…
That said, please do your best to find a way to make peace with all the things you consider your part in that relationship because they truly were and are okay. They are not bad or wrong – they are just different from how you hope to do things today – nothing more, nothing less.
You deserve this forgiveness. You are worthy of it.
Please find a way to give the gift of it to yourself because you are too special a soul to go on without it…
Many hugs,
SmilingAngel
Thanks SmilingAngel,
I am not quite sure about being a kind and loving soul by what I wrote but I do know that I do not hold malice in my heart. I know that we both did the best we could at the time with the tools that we had at the time. We both had very poor coping skills coupled with some family of origin issues that did not help the relationship.
I know in my heart I never intentionally meant to hurt her. I also know that I forgive myself for my part.
I still wish that we could have come together to work out what we needed to continue. If love is an action, I wish we both took action to forgive and to gain the skills and understanding to make our relationship strong and healthy. But that takes two people and a great deal of inner work.
Genevieve
Thanks for the book suggestion – I’ll have a look at that, it sounds great. Cognitively, I know that anger and resentment is hurting me, but letting it go and the forgiveness thing really trips me up sometimes and I’m working hard with my therapist on that. I know (and she knows I know) I need to forgive a number of people, including myself, but when I was trying to do that a few months ago I wasn’t naming or acknowledging and letting go of the anger that was there, and I first had to give myself permission to be and feel angry before I could move past it. I wrote a long letter to my ex a couple of weeks ago, which I ripped up and burned afterwards, and I realised afterwards that at least I am willing to forgive. But I’m not at forgiveness yet.
This has all been triggered by a more recent breakup (2 1/2 months ago) with someone who turned out to be very similar in many ways to my husband. It was only when I found this site that I realised what was going on with the grief process and how I’d never grieved my marriage, just got stuck in anger and resentment, and also never grieved my dad leaving us when I was 16. It’s taken me 20 years to realise the stuff about my dad. It’s been HUGE. I’ve given too much of my time and life away to bananaheads because I never dealt with my stuff at the time. At 16, I didn’t know how and everyone kept telling me I was better off without my dad. Which was true, but I felt like it took away my permission to grieve and to miss him. So I got depressed for 15 years instead and could never understand what was going on.
So now I’m doing relationship inventories on all three, and then I think I’ll be able to start letting go and forgiving.
Thanks again for the suggestion – anyone else – I’m open to reading anything that you might have found useful! I’m reading Melody Beattie at the moment, and have just finished The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner. A counsellor recommended I read the latter about 7 years ago, but at that point I was still so in avoidance and depressed that I didn’t even realise I was angry, so I couldn’t understand why she suggested it! I saw someone else on this site had suggested it as a good book on another post and I went straight out and borrowed it from the library that day!
I guess it was a matter of being able to see it first.
My two cents:
Know why the abusive demon exes aren’t in “pain”?
BECAUSE THEY’RE NERVE DEAD.
I would a thousand times rather the searing, life-collapsing, world-ending pain I had to take – and survive, and triumph over – than the numb, gray, flatline, half-lives for which my exes have all settled.
Pain is the price of clarity. I paid it. They didn’t.
To me, it really is that simple. For me, the pain stopped when the BS’ing of myself stopped. Just not immediately. Hurt a helluva lot first. However, the rewards for tolerating that pain are gifts that afford me a life so far superior to what any of my exes consider acceptable substitutes for actual identites, relationships, and entire LIVES, that it doesn’t matter to me now WHAT kind of pain I had to go through to get here, because “here” is so vastly superior to “there”. “There” being various segments of the bowels of hell, wherein each of them still resides. Frankly, just knowing they’re each stuck in their own twisted, mad, pseudo-realities is itself exceptionally gratifying. They mightn’t know they’re pathetic and laughable. I don’t care. Because now, I know it.
I don’t feel sorry for them, either. They like it there. Otherwise, they’d leave. Like I did.
So I’m in full agreement with Susan. Whether they realize it or not, abusive exes are already paying. They are slaves to their fears, to the gnawing sense of emptiness they keep trying to drown out by controlling and manipulating others, they are consumed by the need to constantly indulge in image engineering because they have no actual authentic sense of self…the list goes on and on, and will do so long as they continue to make the same choices that landed them in hell in the first place. Like the apocryphal boiling frog, they’ve shut off their authentic selves and their actual perceptions for so long, they can’t feel what’s literally cooking them alive. We got dumped into the pot and jumped out shrieking, and have set about treating the 3rd degree burns. We’ll heal. And we’ll be gloriously alive.
Don’t guess one can say the same about them.
I don’t think they are nerve dead. I think they are damaged and for every demon ex person, I would put money on it that they themselves have been privy to unhealthy, unloving, and unusual behaviors.
I work with lots of demons. I see them day in and day out. 95% of the time, these demons have been exposed or created by other demons. This is not to say they have a built in excuse, they do not. But I am willing to say that the demon way of life comes from somewhere…it has an origin.
I don’t think they are nerve dead. They feel. They just do not have the skills, introspect, awareness, ability, tools, and perhaps courage to look within and fix. Instead, they continue very wounded, act out and act in, and eventually harm or hurt someone. And many times, they hurt themselves.
Braveheart -
For better or worse, my experience is that they haven’t any desire to acquire those things, either. When presented with an avenue to same, I have observed a remarkable absence of interest on their part in pursuing it.
That said, I recognize your experiences are obviously different to mine, and therefore your conclusions will be different, as well.
I will note that at one time, my beliefs were aligned with yours. After enough attempts to “help” with the pain were met with full-on campaigns of violence and deliberate destruction, I quit believing they “felt” their “pain”. They didn’t. And they didn’t want to. Which is of course why they took such pains to destroy anyone who had sniffed it out.
Again, I may simply have encountered a “bad batch” in terms of sample population. I’m delighted if you’ve been able to make a difference, genuinely. I certainly wasn’t! Well, not to anyone other than myself, but then that WAS my primary job and I was ducking it! :)
I’m not sure I can say I made/make a difference. What I do know is that we cannot make someone change. That has to come from them. Not us.
As far as them not wanting to feel pain, perhaps. Many self-medicate, others do not even realize there is a problem. Again, I am not making excuses for such folk.
Hateful and hurtful is just that. We have to feel, that’s what inportant. We need to feel that such behavior/actions are not okay and we need to feel that we can take steps to get healthy. Or draw the line. Or set boundaries. Or leave.
My post was not meant to say that we need to feel their pain or help them feel there pain. I am just pointing out that demons are made. Like animals, such a dog, animals can be made and trained to be vicious and deadly. Most dogs brought up with care and love do not show inappropriate aggression. There may be a stray vcious dog or true sociopath in the pool but my point was that they do feel. They just act and behave in a dysfunctional way and sometimes good people get caught up with such individuals. But, very much in sync with Susan Speak, water does seek it’s own level. I believe that healthy folks would run at the first sign of demon.
Genevieve
Thanks again, big time! I’ve had a look at Fred Luskin’s website and the 9 steps of forgiveness. I sometimes do some of the steps anyway but it’s easy to forget and slip back into old habits, or not practice them consistently. It’s good to have them all on one page, I’m going to print it out and put a copy of it in a few different places as a constant reminder. I’ll have to order his book if I can’t find it locally (Australia).
I like what he says about giving up expecting things from others that they choose not to give you. When my ex does something now that gets under my skin, I remind myself that my expectations of how he will treat me and my son ie with respect and consideration, is not the reality of the person I’m dealing with. And my past expectations ditto. I then repeat to myself, the map isn’t the ground (thanks to Susan for that post) – and my map of him (expectations) is not what is on the ground (the reality of his behaviour). Learning slowly.
And as to your creepy ex-boyfriend, I completely understand! I think it is human nature.
This is a great discussion and it’s been good to read everyone’s thoughts on this. It provides me with valuable perspective on my own thoughts about karma and for that I’m grateful to everyone who has commented.
Karma is a loaded word for me. My ex changed her spiritual beliefs as often as she changed her hair color and now is practicing a branch of Hinduism. She bases both her personal and professional life on “love”. For a few years her calling card had a quote from A Course in Miracles that said, “Everything that comes from love is a miracle.”
So it stunned me that such a person could be so callous and contemptuous when she ended our relationship. I’ve never harbored resentment toward other ex’s, but this one completely pissed me off. All of a sudden I saw how self-aggrandizing her spirituality was. Worse for me was that if I’d ever bothered to think about it sooner, I would have seen it.
So I spent a few months wondering if karma is going to get her, wondering in a John Lennon sort of way:
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right in the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon your gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of?
Laughing in the face of love
What on Earth you trying to do?
Fortunately in August I realized I was carrying a grievance because of this. And because of that, I would never move on and heal. I understood at that point I needed to forgive, as Brave Heart has written about so beautifully above. I needed to let karma take care of it’s own business, just like I leave day and night to the spinning of our planet.
But letting go is the best I can do at this point. I can’t forgive in the way I understand forgiveness. I hate that my ex is out there devaluing and acting unloving toward others, both strangers and friends. Some of this is a sense that some things do matter. Maybe some of this is the election America is involved in right now: it does matter who the next president is and it matters if people care, are really thinking about it with the seriousness it demands.
Sometimes it seems as though I’m taking the hard road through this. I’m standing up for what I believe love really is as a result of my breakup, but letting go of the relationship at the same time. I don’t have a problem with my ex leaving me – everyone has the freedom to do that in any relationship. But everything else, the devaluing, the denigrating, etc., those are things that do matter and as I move forward in life, I want to speak out against such behavior.
Maybe what I’m trying to do is let go and forgive the personal aspect of the breakup AND hold onto the universal lessons I learned that are rooted in that very same experience.
Brave Heart:
You wrote: “I am not quite sure about being a kind and loving soul by what I wrote ”
Yet you also wrote in the post before this one: “I don’t wish my ex-partner harm nor do I want her to pay…I can only wish her a good life…I wish her safe space and a good life. That is the only thing I can do or house within me.”
If these statements are not evidence of a kind and loving soul, I don’t know what is…
That said, my 2 hopes for you in this moment are:
1) that you believe and wish the same things for yourself – that you do not wish to harm yourself or make yourself pay for the decisions you made in that relationship, that you wish yourself the safe space and a good life too KNOWING that you are just as deserving of that, and
2) by doing this, you will be able to stop looking back at what you didn’t or could have done differently so that you can put all this loving and precious energy into creating a life that attracts a “Love is an Action” love with someone new – one that begin with truly loving YOU :)
Many hugs,
SmilingAngel
Thanks SmilingAngel, you are making me blush.
I loved this woman. I really did. I can easily say, as can friends that witnessed my feelings for her, that this love was special as for the first time in my life, I allowed myself to be vulnerable and to let someone in.
We both brought some family of origin issues to the relationship. I wanted to work on things with a professional, she did not. I have to respect her stance though through this website, I can honestly tell myself that if she was the One, we would have done the work, both individually and as a couple.
There will always be a place in my heart for this person. Yes, a memory, but a special place remains for her. I can only wish her well and only good come to her as she makes her journey.
Thank you for your kind words. They are appreciated.
Michele:
I’m so glad you found Luskin’s website and 9 Steps to Forgiveness. The book goes into great detail about these and lots of stories about people who have attended his forgiveness training seminars.
For me, the 1st step to being able to forgive was understanding that forgiveness was not about the other person… that made it possible for me.
I borrowed the book from the library but later bought a copy. He also has a CD, which I bought. I listen to it every night.
Good luck!
Alex
Loved what you said about karma:
“I needed to let karma take care of it’s own business, just like I leave day and night to the spinning of our planet.”
That really resonated for me and makes so much sense.
I have read a lot about karma from the Buddhist perspective – it means action – and really, this was a great reminder of those teachings – actions will bear fruit, positive or negative. Once the right conditions in place, the karma – fruit – will ripen and we will reap what we sow. So not about punishment, just cause and effect at its simplest.
It’s so good to get reminders. Dealing with the delayed grief from an old relationship and the fresh grief from a recent one is full on enough. It’s good to remember that I don’t need to put valuable time and energy into hoping my exes will get theirs – karma will take care of that, at some time, in some way.
I also appreciate your candour and honesty in where you are in relation to forgiveness. I’ve recently realised that when my ex husband does things that hurt our son, it triggers old stuff about what I allowed him to do to me. But our son is just a little kid and that’s different – I hate that he’s acting unlovingly towards him and that does matter.
Michele
Thanks for your acknowledgement and thoughts about karma. After I had written my comments I wondered if I was really saying anything or just spinning my wheels. It’s hard to know sometimes.
Being mostly a body-type person, the perspective that karma is action is something I can connect to. It gives it physicality and as a result makes it more real, even if it’s only like wind. I really like that.
And I can relate in my own way to what you wrote about your son. I have a nine-year-old niece whom I adore. My ex also adores her, and wants to always be in her life. My brother (her father) and I both believe my ex is a bad influence for my niece, but haven’t acted to sever the contact because the mother is still close to my ex. It seems to be one of those situations where doing something would create more problems than doing nothing. By doing nothing, I’m trusting that over time my niece will not be influenced in a bad way by my ex. It’s really worries me that my niece could think that my ex is someone to emulate, but like I said all I can do is trust that she’ll see the truth and hopefully one day that relationship will fade away.
Because of this my heart goes out to you and everyone else who has children in the middle of a broken relationship. It’s difficult enough with just one niece and an ex I’ve been NC with since she broke up with me. Having to continue contact and wonder what the child is being exposed to has to make it hard to let go and move on cleanly. I wish you the best with that.
Alex
Thanks for your reply and thoughts. The situation with your niece sounds complex and painful to watch from the sidelines. As you said, hopefully she will one day see the truth about your ex.
My ex-husband keeps in touch with my son via webcam, they talk for about 10-20 mins once a week (if that) and that’s about all the contact they have. His dad often cancels, though not as much as he used to, and that leaves my son angry and disappointed, and I could string my ex husband up for the damage that he’s doing. And it hurts to watch that, but at the same time my son is crying out for contact with him, so to block communication between them, which I’ve never done, wouldn’t help when it’s not enough communication in the first place that’s causing the problems. I can also see that he’s getting old enough now to start to see his dad for who and what he is, and the lack of effort on his part to build the relationship between them.
I generally have as little contact with my ex as I can, and these days it’s all about our son, but still, it does make it hard to not be able to just have complete NC, which I’m doing with my most recent ex. And which I’d prefer. And if my ex husband keeps this up, he will one day find that his son doesn’t want to talk to him either. We were talking about my most recent ex the other day and I asked my son if he missed him – he was very angry at him at first for leaving without saying goodbye. He said yes, and what makes him sad is that we had been talking about moving in together and getting married late next year (dodged that bullet) and finally my son thought he was going to have a ‘real dad’ – not one that lives on the other side of the world. Now he feels abandoned all over again.
Michele
Your comments made me think of the consequences of karma in a way I never have before. If someone treated us poorly in a relationship, then they most likely treat others poorly as well. In other words, our relationship with them was just symptomatic of a larger behavior. So the negative karma that they are sowing is much less centralized than the harm they caused to us. I know this is obvious, but it makes the hurt less personal and for me less difficult to let go of and forgive.
Alex,
For much of what you wrote about your past relationship, we both share a great deal of the same behaviors directed at us by our former partners. Your post above reminded me of something a friend said, which I believe is true. I had the ability to see how my former partner treated her former relationships. What I saw directed to me and the treatment I received was the same they received. I was just one of many. Same devaluing. Same one-sided projection. Same not taking responsibility for their words and actions. Same lack of empathy for others.
There is some comfort that I am not alone as far the beahviors and actions directed toward me. I have empathy for anyone that is/will be treated as I was. And they will be.
I say this not in relation to karma but rather that some operating systems just don’t change. It’s their survival mechanism, especially with personality disordered folks. This is not to say that these folks can’t change with medication, therapy, and a great deal of self awareness and motivation.
Alex
You’re right about someone treating us poorly and it being symptomatic of a larger behaviour. It’s easy to forget that – thanks for another great reminder – and take it very personally. My therapist describes both my ex husband and ex as narcissists, and has said a number of times that I have to realise that their behaviour was not about me, and not to take it personally, even though it’s hard not to. It’s about them and their stuff. When I’m recycling, like I was last week, I tend to get very much into that space of ‘they treated me badly and hurt me (and I allowed them too), I want them to hurt this much and I hope they get theirs’ and forget the bigger picture.
Your comments about karma have really prompted me to go back to things I have read and/or learnt but often don’t put into practice at the time I need them most. I’ve now been thinking about karma a lot over the weekend and journalling on it too. Not karma in the way it’s often represented in West of retribution and revenge, but in the original idea of karma. Of course, karma is tied to a belief in reincarnation – one doesn’t exist without the other in eastern traditions – and I fully appreciate that not everyone does believe in it, so if I have offended unintentionally, I apologise.
The principle of karma the way it is explained in Buddhism makes so much sense to me – it is a principle of balancing the scales. Particularly about why bad things happen to ‘good’ people but also the reverse – why good things happen to ‘bad’ people. Why some people start off life at such as disadvantage and often it continues to get worse. And it teaches that we tend not to see the fruit of our actions in our present lifetime, but in future ones, just as what happens to us in this lifetime is the result of conditions being right for karma from past lifetimes to ripen. Positive and negative. And for me, that explains why I’m going through what I am – the results of my own past negative karma, and me drawing in the right people and conditions for it to ripen and bear fruit – and why I may not see my ex suffer from his actions this time around. Because otherwise it just doesn’t make sense to me. So in that sense, it’s not about blame or retribution, just cause and effect, and yet another good reason – if we needed one – to treat ourselves and others with love, to generate positive karma.
If you’re interested in a much better explanation than my piecemeal attempt – karma is really quite complex – Robin Norwood’s ‘Why Me, Why This, Why Now’ is excellent. And time for me to reread it!
Braveheart
Thanks for sharing your insights with us all. I also can relate to what you wrote:
“I had the ability to see how my former partner treated her former relationships. What I saw directed to me and the treatment I received was the same they received. I was just one of many. Same devaluing. Same one-sided projection. Same not taking responsibility for their words and actions. Same lack of empathy for others.
There is some comfort that I am not alone as far the beahviors and actions directed toward me.”
I didn’t know with my ex husband what I was in for – he’s sociopathic (I’m not using that expression lightly, but clinicians have suggested to me that he is) and so good at lying and chameleon-like that it took me a long time to figure out what was going on. It was of some comfort to me after we broke up – when I was feeling soooo ashamed and embarassed that I’d been played for a fool for so long and not walked away when I first saw the warning signs (major codependency issues on my part) – that he was so good at fooling so many other people too – for that is what sociopaths are so good at, being charming and manipulating perceptions – and it wasn’t just me, nor was his behaviour to be taken personally. Even though I did take it personally, because I was the one who actually married him.
However, I don’t have that excuse with my most recent ex, who has many similar traits, though is not sociopathic, but does lie pathologically and lacks empathy. I somehow, in la la land, thought that with me he would be different, that he wouldn’t treat me the way he treated his ex wife. I could see what he’d done and I went there anyway. And it’s easier for me to walk away from this relationship knowing that it wasn’t just me, and that the next person will probably be in for the same, unless he decides to tackle his own grief and operating systems. And like you, I think it is possible for these people to change, but like the rest of us, they have to be able to see that there’s a problem and then be willing to do something about it.
Brave Heart,
When my mom passed away I was lost and devastated and couldn’t imagine how I’d endure my grief. Then as arrived at the cemetery for the graveside funeral, I realized that nearly everyone buried in the cemetery had lost a mother. That realization comforted me, causing me to see that while I had lost a mom, I was connected to everyone, past and present.
That is one of the reasons I come to this website, to be connected, both in loss of a relationship and to the larger themes of life. Knowing that the experience that brought you here is similar to mine is comforting. Knowing that we’re both able to shed the personal nature of the loss is comforting as well.
Your mention of “survival mechanisms” is particularly appropriate in my case since my ex had a traumatic childhood. It doesn’t excuse her behavior toward me and others — in fact Susan’s traumatic childhood and subsequent determination to heal is living proof that it doesn’t need to be so — but it allows me to be free of the personal impact. Thank you for reminding me of that phrase. It was very important.
Michele
Thanks for the mention of “Why Me, Why This, Why Now’. It defenately looks like a book I should check out since this whole karma thing is been on my mind. Not just because of my last relationship I’m often puzzled why good things happen to bad people, so I’d like to acheive a better understanding of the whole thing.
And Buddhism has been popping up a lot in my life post-ex. I think it’s because of the focus on suffering, clinging, compassion, etc. It’s good to hear that I’m not alone in finding it useful. As far as reincarnation goes, I don’t have any beliefs one way or another. But even taken as only a metaphor, it’s a powerful way to look at the life each of us are living right here and now.
BTW: I really like what you wrote above to Brave Heart: “I think it is possible for these people to change, but like the rest of us, they have to be able to see that there’s a problem and then be willing to do something about it.” Toward the end of my relationship I was hoping that my ex would change into a more compassionate person, but as long as she didn’t see that was a problem, then I was just banging my head against the wall. For some reason it has taken me quite a while to understand this. I guess I want to believe that the person I was in love with was really the person I loved.
When Cat & I were talking about integrity, she mentioned that one thing to talk about integrity in light of is how people feel on the other side of you…what kind of wake you leave as you move through life.
I think that wake sounds a lot like the result of an unhealthy “operating system”, doesn’t it.
If you’re kicking up a lot of waves and swamping things, you know it’s going to affect you eventually when they come back to you.
I’ve mentioned on several threads that I studied with a Buddhist monk for a religion credit for undergraduate. Even though I went to the course for academic credit only, he actually changed my way of looking at everything (in a gentle, soulful way). He was a Zen Buddhist who didn’t believe in a Higher Power or the afterlife. So someone asked him well if there’s not any of that, why be good? And his answer was simply, “Universal law.” It was a compelling moment in my life as I was struggling with all things big and small at the time.
He said universal law is good and if you live a good life and love others, you send good into the universe. It’s like Ghandi’s “Be the change you want to see in the world.” No matter what you believe in, or don’t believe in, these two concepts are relatively easy to fit into any life or any belief system. It simplified everything for me.
One of the reasons I found it so hard to let go of GPYP and helping others after I became a lawyer was because I felt that my inaction and sitting on what I knew and not doing anything (helping anyone) with it was somehow oppositional to universal law as described by my teacher. It really nagged at me. I thought that inaction as opposed to positive action, when you have something positive to share, is even worse than negative action.
I think that the “wake” analogy is wonderful. Leave good things in your wake.
Alex,
My partner had a horrific childhood which spilled into her adulthood. Family of origin issues usually do. I would easily say that my triggers and survival mechanisms did/do too but I want to work on them and gain an understanding and skill set to deal with such. My partner did not. You make a wonderful point about traumatic childhoods, especially what you wrote about Susan as an example.
Part of not wishing harm or hurt to my ex-partner is that she is doing the best she can do. I don’t take what she did or how she acted “personally” as her actions reflected her and any actor could have stood on stage with her. It hurt like hell and I got caught up in the whirlwind until close friends intervened as I lost my inner compass in dealing with her and her reactions.
When I read some of your posts, they were so familiar and I felt a kindred spirit of sorts. One post was eerie as I could have written that experience you described and in some bizarre way, I felt comfort. It validated my experience, more so for me as very few understand until you experience devaluation and lacky of empathy from someone who onced acted in a completely different way. For me, it was heartbreaking and disturbing to have someone who shared a tender love one month move into devaluation where I was acted upon with contempt, rage, and disgust. But, after reading your posts, I know we shared the internal turmoil of having been devalued.
Wow, these post are so enlightening. The book that refers to the Wake you leave is “Integrity,” Dr. Cloud. I highly recommend it.
Brave Heart,
You wrote something that reminded me of what a friend said to me months ago about the hurtful way my ex broke off our relationship: One day you’ll realize she did the best she could do. On one hand, that’s not saying much, like complimenting a contractor for taking an entire day to put up one panel of sheet rock. On the other hand, when I reach that point I’ll know for sure that I’ve truly forgiven her and accepted who she was.
More importantly, thanks for your compatriot words. Wish we could be sharing similarities about something more enjoyable, like surfing or movies.
BTW: I still remember reading a post of yours a month or more ago that expressed so much pain. From what I read in your posts these days, you have really come a long, long way.
Alex
I’m glad you’re finding Buddhism useful, interesting that it keeps popping up for you. I wrote more on my post yesterday that I deleted before submitting it, because I wasn’t sure how much it was appropriate to write about a particular belief system, so I stuck to discussing karma. However, since both you and Susan wrote about Buddhism directly in your posts, I thought I’d submit it now, in the hope that it will be of use.
I’m not Buddhist – and I wish I was better at applying what I have learned more consistently in times of chaos! – but I’ve been studying it on an ad-hoc basis for the past 12 years – when there are teachings that interest me, I go listen, I talk to the nuns I’ve met, and I read the books. I also got the opportunity to study Buddhism academically last year as part of a major in religion and it was so useful to get a real overview of the evolution of the different types of Buddhism and the basic beliefs attached to each, as I’d only come into contact with the Tibetan tradition (Mahayana) and a very little Theradavan or Zen.
Like different types of Christianity, the traditions differ in their teachings, and across the board I find much of what they teach, as Susan pointed out, can easily fit into any life approach or belief system (thanks Susan!) and it is not necessary to take the whole dogma on for it to be helpful. I once heard Buddhism described as the most pragmatic of the major world religions and certainly I find the philosophy, starting with the first precept ‘Do No Harm’ a great beginning point for a life well lived. The Buddhist psychology, with it’s precise science of the mind and techniques for retraining the mind and the way we think has, for me, so much to offer, and some of its techniques have started to become incorporated into Western psychology, as people like Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) who have spent time in the East, have brought back what they’ve learned and used it.
The first book anyone ever gave me, that really inspired me to learn more, was A Path With Heart, by Jack Kornfield, who I think if from the Theravadan tradition. If you are really interested in finding out more about Buddhism generally, it’s a great place to start – a different focus to Robin Norwood’s book. Thich Nhat Hahn is from the Zen tradition and his writings are really accessible too.
A couple of the nuns I talk to also love Byron Katies work, which I thought was funny considering how much formal Buddhist study and training they’ve done. They said it is very Buddhist and very simple in its inquiry into our thoughts, and keep looking for something phoney in what she’s doing, but haven’t found it yet! I find Katie’s work useful too. Again – when I apply it!
This has been a great post – I’m learning so much from what everyone has been writing and sharing.
Alex –
I also wanted to add, thanks again for all your replies and thoughts and your initial comment about karma which really woke me up. Along with the earlier comments on forgiveness, talking about karma has really refreshed my perspective on the nature of the reality of the situation, and what I was doing to myself by being stuck in resentment and anger and wanting my exes to hurt too.
It’s like my son says when I get mad at other drivers on the road “mum, why are you shouting at them when they can’t hear you? ” Exactly! My exes can’t hear me ’shouting’ at them, the only damage I’m doing is to myself, by focusing on their behaviour and them ‘getting theirs’.
I’m also so glad that we’ve been discussing karma because I really have thrown myself back into rereading what I’ve learned in the past. I tended to neglect my spirituality in my last relationship, there was no common ground there at all, but I was the one that was responsible for not tending to my needs in that area. About a month ago I made a commitment to myself to make my spiritual life a priority again and not let it go the next time someone comes into my life, for fear that they might think it weird or silly or whatever.
So this has been, as always, perfect timing.
Hey Alex,
I’ve had some positive movement. I do feel better with time and working on the emotional piece. I would highly recommend Susan Anderson’s abandonment book as there’s a great deal of relevance in her writing to the emotional effects of being devalued or disgarded. I found much comfort and insight from her book.
Devaluation seems to be an added hurtful component to the break up of a relationship. It hurt me to the core. Part of me needed to understand or educate myself to this mechanism and why it hit my core as it did.
Yes, movies and surfing would be more fun. Even a brick against my forehead would feel better than some of the mornings I’ve endured. :)
Thanks for your post! Perfect timing..
My ex boyfriend of 4 years broke up with me 2 months ago and one month later I was stuck with a bed bugs infestation (thanks to my neighbour). Let me tell you that at first I wondered what I’d done wrong to deserve all this… I’m consider myself a good and compassionate person who works hard.
But I realize that these things happen. It just all happened at the same time and had nothing to do with me being a bad person. It just happens. We just have to go through it and gear ourselves up with solutions.
The funny thing is, the bed bugs situation made me realize how to appreciate the day to day life. The bugs are almost gone now, but let me tell you that they will make me appreciate the simple things (sleeping with no bug net hat) once it’s all over. Before the bugs, I sat in my apartment, crying over my ex, not enjoying the simple things. It gave me perspective overall.
So I guess these bugs were a good karma after all – I think!
Michele
Thank you so much for all the recommended books — I really appreciate it. Like you, I let my spiritual side be neglected while in my last relationship. I think making it a priority is an excellent idea, reconnecting with the universal themes and currents so that everything else can be experienced in balance with the infinite and the divine.
This has been a great thread and I’ve already printed it out for future reference.
I am freshly out of a 6 year relationship. I broke up with my boyfriend in late May. We saw each other again on July 4th, thinking that we probably work things out. He said that night to me that he still cared about me. But never in my life did I think he was going to talk to someone else because he said he didn’t have that in mind. He said he needed time for himself, first. Well it turn out that he soon had a girlfriend. He met her in late July, became girlfriends with her in early August. Then comes early September and she’s pregnant. I never thought that, that would break, pain, and hurt me. He lied, to begin with, by telling me he wasn’t talking to anyone. Then he gets this chick pregnant, when he’s only known her for a month. We talked mid September and I said why you do it, why you in pregnate her, he said he was caught up in the moment and he didn’t realize. He said he is realizing how selfish he was in our relationship. And if he could go back that he would start without being with any girl, first…just like he said from the beginning. He also wanted to be friends, he since we couldn’t work things out its good to be friends. But that is not fair for me because I still have feelings for him. If I can’t have him as a whole “what makes you think I would be friends”. I know is so wrong, but because I was so heart broken I told him to abort the kid and he said there is no turning back. I’m still healing and my days get better as they go, but every now and then I go through those tuff moments. I just don’t understand why he keeps popping up in my head. Im here hurting in pain, while he’s over there with his girlfriend having a good time and probably happy about having a kid. I sometimes do want for him to hurt, so he can feel the pain that I went through. But I know he won’t and she won’t either. This girlfriend of his knew who I was and knew I was trying to work things out, but eventually she didn’t care. Now she’s with him and happy. And here I am sad at times because she took what I once had. I just want him to realize he’s made a big mistake with her and that he did lose something real good; that was in front of his face the whole time. But things happen and thats the whole part about life and reality. I am taking care of myself now, I try my best to not recall our past memories, but it’s just so hard not to. I know I am strong about getting through all this and I have the best supporters around me. But I can never forget the pain he put me through!
OMG, I SO needed to read this Karma post.
Need to keep chanting to myself, “Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, good things come to those who wait, good things come to thoise who wait”
Even my friends are rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of the bad karma heading the way of my narcissistic ex and his lovesick mistress. They say, “I can’t wait to see them fall apart” and “I’m booking a front-row seat to sit back and watch the fireworks!”.
However, I’m now going to do as you did Susan – get on my with my life.
I am sure that any relationship like theirs which is based on lies, deceit, selfishness, fantasy, arrogance and no remorse for the people (including their own children) they have trampled on and hurt to get what they feel entitled to has as much chance of being happy as my ex-husband has of finding the capacity for empathy.
Neither of them are fit to lick the boots of the people they have emotionally slaughtered. I pity them.
I believe in Karma, I too wish/wished it would happen like “pop pop pop”. As I read these comments, I feel so confused…one minute I say let Karma happen, the next I tell myself let it go…take MY life and make it MINE and move on. It’s such a rollercoaster when divorce is in the midst of happening after so many years (25 years). But I read an email recently of “Things I’ve Learned”. Someone at 49 years of age said, “I’ve learned that sometimes life gives us a second chance”. Take that anyway you want to…I am trying to choose to take that as my open window since my impending divorce is the now closed door.
I can choose to be happy or miserable. And I cannot change him …. and as he once said “I am the same person” then he will be the same with her (GF)
I want to be the best me I know how to be…I now have a second chance in life…and I want to embrace it .
I wish each of you PEACE!