I've often pondered the question whether or not choosing one's mate, presumably for life even though we all know that our best intentions in this respect may not play out as we wish, would be more successful if we meditated and took into consideration any past lives we feel we shared with that soul/entity, what we learned then and what we may be choosing to learn now by another relationship.

I'd rather see us not get into that over-hyped issue of how to find your soul mate and live happily ever after largely because too often I see people speaking of soul mates in the same sense as finding one's Prince(ss) Charming and living happily ever after.

If someone is intent upon discussing the role of soul mates, fine by me, but start your own thread for that, please. I'm largely opposed to such discussions because I've found that people think that everyone understands what a soul mate is, and I think it's a term too often vaguely understood without people realizing that's so.

Okay...drawbacks aside, probably the the relationship from which I learned the most about my personality in this lifetime and the flaws in my upbringing that contributed to my getting into toxic relationships would be my second marriage. Hoo boyee! Talk about heavy karma weighing on that relationship! I'd have to say that I think we both wanted it to succeed and tried as best we each knew, but there were too many factors against us.

I find myself wondering how valid my insights into our shared past lives actually were since we had both regressed to a close and loving one before we married, but afterward, the only ones I discovered were those of control and resistance. Did I learn about those past lives to help me understand issues we needed to work on? Or did I concoct those past lives to bring to the fore a subconscious need to focus attention upon those issues in a less threatening manner? If I believed them to be karmic, because that tied in so heavily to my spirituality, then it might be easier to deal with them as that manifesting than if I thought myself co-dependent or some other present-day catchphrase. To this day, I'm not sure.

And I had to ask myself both then and now if personal anguish is at all a useful measure of the possible impact of karma. Did I feel it must be "heavy karma" mostly because I didn't know what I could do to make the relationship stronger or better?

Do you think that awareness of past life associations is useful when considering commitment to a relationship? Have you had instances where you accepted or rejected commitment because of what you felt you'd learned about past lives you'd shared with this person? Did you find anything surprising which skewed your decision in a direction you didn't anticipate?

And at bottom, how much do you think past lives ought to be considered when getting into or deciding to terminate a relationship? After all, if there truly is a karmic element, you'll have to deal with the karma at some point in the future. When is it better to do that rather than suffer along sacrificing the happiness you sought when you began the relationship? 

Certainly hope that mercury retro will quit messing with us soon, NHT. I, too, have had numerous communication glitches recently. I blame it, also. An easy scapegoat, eh?

I find it difficult indeed to relate possible karmic influences to highly charged emotional relationships which is part of what fueled my asking these questions. I have enough difficulty analyzing my own behavior as it concerns other people oftentimes. Trying to discern whether or not karma is part of the difficulty is generally beyond me, truth be told.

Besides, I'm always doubtful that those of us who've not reached a high level of insight into the workings of karma ought to attempt to determine whether something or other is affected by karma. It's as dangerous as dismissing things we don't understand by labeling them, "God's will," IMO.

Yanno what I'm saying?

Glad you find my questions intriguing, Mike, and thanks much for your very thoughtful reply.