by John F. Kendall

Created on: July 10, 2009   Last Updated: July 27, 2009

Returning to an Ex Repeatedly: Karma or weakness?

I) Finding and keeping love.

Finding love is the one great adventure all people share. Love is essential to survival and growth. Babies thrive when given love and the misfortune of not finding love is the most common reason for any individual not living up to his or her potential. So strong is the desire for love that if divorced, widowed, or otherwise left alone, most individuals will join clubs, go to dances, or take all available avenues to meet that special someone.

During this quest it is common for couples to meet who offer the promise of a primary relationship but over time reveal themselves as simply being two incompatible individuals. Most of these failed attempts are obvious to the friends, family, and even the participants. No one is surprised. Finding love is a process that demands patience and thoroughness. When the outcome of a choice is going to affect two entire lives, serious effort and thought is definitely called for.

Unfortunately, however, there are those attempts at finding love that are very near misses. The reasons for these are legion: one person cares more deeply than the other; one issue means more to one of the couple than to both; one of the couple has a family that objects to the union on religious, cultural, or other grounds. Often, in such a case, one of the people finds themselves continually going back into the relationship. Compared to the stress of meeting yet another new potential mate, arranging dates, and risking another failure, the older, ex becomes more and more attractive.

A cycle of reconciliation, short elation, discouragement, and breaking up begins. This, in turn, increases the stress and the individual finds it harder and harder to reason. In the resulting emotional fog every individual begins to look for a reason for his or her behavior. Am I too weak to resist? Am I making some sort of mistake that I cannot see? Is God or an angel trying to lead me and I'm being stubborn? Is all of this returning and leaving of my ex my weakness or is it simply karma?

Like many of the buzz words that now inhabit the pages of tabloids or the dialogue of television shows, karma is a term that is bandied about without truly being understood. In the popular mind, it is often used as a synonym for destiny or fate. The true meaning is much more complex. Destiny and fate are things that exist separately and outside of the control of human beings. Karma exists as the

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