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What If Your Marriage Is a Spiritual Debt and Not True Love?
By Master Hien
Before getting married, it is easy to say, “I will love this person for the rest of my life. I would never betray them.”
Maybe you mean it with your whole heart when you say it. But let me ask you something: Can you still say it years later, when life is difficult and the person beside you is no longer the person you imagined they would be?
That is a much harder question.
People change their minds. They get tired. They become disappointed. Sometimes they meet someone else and begin to wonder whether they chose the wrong person. We have feelings and desires, and we do not always control them as well as we think we can.
That is why I tell people to think carefully before marriage. It is easy to make a promise when you are in love. Keeping it when you are unhappy takes a much stronger mind.
But there is something else I want you to think about. What if love is not the only reason you married that person?
Marriage and Spiritual Debt: Why This Person?
You may have an idea of the kind of person you want to marry. Perhaps you even have a list: how they should look, how they should act, what kind of life you want to have together.
Then one day you meet someone, fall in love, and believe you have found them.
I am not saying that love is imaginary. What you feel is real. But I believe there can be a deeper reason the two of you found each other.
To me, marriage is connected to karma from past lives. Maybe you and your spouse knew each other before. Maybe one of you helped the other. Or maybe one of you caused the other pain. You may have been a partner, a friend, or someone who was trusted and then betrayed. Something happened between you that was never settled.
In this life, you meet again.
You may think, “Out of all the people in the world, I chose this one.” But perhaps your destiny was also leading you toward this person all along. You feel the love in this life without remembering the connection that came before it.
That is what I mean when I say marriage can be a spiritual debt.
Why Do Some Couples Struggle So Much?
Look at the marriages around you. Some couples seem to have an easy life together. Others face one problem after another. And sometimes, in the same marriage, one person seems to suffer much more than the other.
Why?
I believe each person comes into this life carrying their own karma. Husband and wife share a home, but they do not necessarily carry the same debt. One may have more karma to face. In another marriage, both people may have a great deal. The troubles they experience can come from what happened in past lives, from what they do in this life, or from both.
That is also why we should be careful about judging someone else’s marriage. You may see a couple arguing and think you understand their problem. You may see someone living comfortably and assume their life has always been easy. But you are only seeing what is happening now. You do not know everything that brought them to this point.
There are many things to consider when looking at a person’s destiny. I would not say that every difficult marriage has one simple explanation.
Does That Mean Nothing Can Change?
No. Please do not hear the word karma and think, “Then I just have to sit here and suffer.”
What you do in this life matters.
If you lie to your spouse, betray them, act cruelly, or keep hurting them without taking responsibility, you create more karma. You can make a difficult marriage even more painful through your own choices.
But you can also do good. You can be honest. You can admit when you are wrong. You can treat the other person with patience and earn virtue and merit through the way you live. When both people make that effort, they may find that some of the difficulties between them become lighter.
This is why I say heaven is fair. You are not judged only by something you did in a life you cannot remember. Heaven also sees what you choose to do now.
Think of it this way: If you owe a debt, would you keep adding to it? Or would you begin to repay it?
What About Divorce and Marrying Again?
When a marriage becomes difficult, some people begin to think, “I chose the wrong person. If I leave and marry someone else, I can finally be happy.”
Sometimes a marriage does end. But I want people to understand that a new relationship does not automatically wipe away what happened in the first one.
If you hurt your spouse, refuse to look at your own actions, and then move on to another marriage, what has really changed? You may carry the same behavior with you. The karma you created does not disappear because you have a new partner. You may even add another layer of problems to your life.
This is one reason I take marriage so seriously. Before giving up on it, a person should be honest with themselves. What is truly happening between us? What have I done? What can I change? Am I trying to resolve a problem, or am I hoping to escape it and start over somewhere else?
At the same time, I want to be very clear about something. No one should tell a person to remain in a violent or abusive situation because of karma. If someone is hurting you, you can seek safety and help. The person causing that harm is responsible for their actions. Karma is not an excuse for cruelty.
Think Before You Make the Promise
I do not expect anyone to know every part of their destiny before getting married. You cannot look at someone and see everything that happened between your souls in a past life.
But you can slow down and think before promising them your whole life. Are you prepared to keep that promise when things become difficult? Can you be honest with your spouse and with yourself? When something goes wrong, are you willing to look at your own actions instead of placing all the blame on the other person?
And if your marriage does bring suffering, do not only ask, “Why is this happening to me?” Also ask, “What can I do with the life I have now?”
You may not remember the karma that brought you and your spouse together, but you can work toward paying that debt in this life. Follow spiritual morals. Treat others with care. Take responsibility when you cause harm. Keep earning virtue and merit through what you do each day. As you change your actions, the suffering connected to your karma may become much lighter.
Maybe love brought you together. Maybe karma did too. What matters now is how you choose to live with the person in front of you—and whether you leave this life carrying more debt or having paid some of it back.
Do you think marriage can carry a spiritual debt from a past life?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
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