Does Karma Mean We Must Accept Painful Relationships?

Someone speaks to you harshly. You spend the evening replaying their words, wondering what you did wrong.

By morning, you have almost decided to speak up. Then another thought arrives:

Perhaps this is my karmic account with them. Perhaps I am supposed to endure it.

The thought sounds spiritual. It may even bring temporary relief, because it gives your pain an explanation. But it also leaves an important question unanswered:

Has this understanding helped you respond more wisely – or made it harder for you to protect your dignity?

This is where I believe a conversation about karma must become more careful.

Spiritual understanding should help us see our relationships more clearly. It should not become a reason to stop questioning what is happening inside them.

The opening situation is illustrative, not a particular client’s story.

01 / Meaning without surrender

An explanation is not an obligation

When people come to me with relationship concerns, the question they ask is often about the other person.

Why does my partner behave this way? Why does my parent never understand me? Why do I keep giving so much and receiving so little?

Sometimes, beneath these questions, there is another:

If I could understand the deeper reason, would this become easier to bear?

Wanting an explanation is natural. Uncertainty can be painful. It is difficult to understand why someone we love can also become a source of distress.

For someone who believes in karma, the possibility of an older connection may offer a framework for reflection. But there is a difference between finding meaning in a relationship and deciding that we are obligated to accept everything that happens within it.

“There may be something for me to understand here” is not the same as “I must allow this to continue.”

Even when a person interprets a relationship as karmic, that interpretation does not remove either person’s responsibility for present-day behaviour.

A spiritual explanation does not make humiliation respectful. It does not turn control into care. It does not make violence an expression of love.

02 / Recognising your own needs

What is the relationship actually asking of you?

Imagine someone who has spent years keeping the peace at home.

They have learned when to remain quiet, which subjects to avoid, and how to recognise a change in the other person’s mood. Before making an ordinary decision, they rehearse how to explain it. Even a small personal wish begins to feel like something that requires permission.

From outside, people may describe them as patient.

Inside, they may feel that they are slowly disappearing.

This is an illustrative situation, not a particular client’s story. But it raises a question worth sitting with:

When does maintaining peace become abandoning yourself?

I do not believe that every disagreement is a reason to end a relationship. People misunderstand each other. They make mistakes. They carry pressures that they do not always express well. Relationships need room for honest conversations, accountability and repair.

But repair requires participation.

If one person is always expected to understand, forgive, adjust and remain silent, we should examine what is being called “understanding.”

Is it mutual effort – or an arrangement in which only one person is allowed to have needs?

03 / Reflection, not judgment

Karma should not become a verdict against the person who is hurting

 

One of the most troubling uses of spiritual language is the suggestion that suffering proves someone must have done something wrong.

“You must have hurt them in a previous life.”
“This is your punishment.”
“You have to repay it.”

These statements can sound certain, even when there is no basis for that certainty.

Past life regression experiences are subjective. A scene, impression or perceived connection arising during a session should not be treated as independently verified evidence that someone deserves what is happening to them.

More importantly, a person’s pain should not become an opportunity to pronounce judgment upon them.

If someone is already struggling to understand why they are being mistreated, telling them that they earned it may deepen the very burden they came to discuss.

My focus is different.

Rather than asking someone to accept an explanation as a sentence against themselves, I want to help them examine what they can understand and influence now.

What is happening? What keeps repeating? What do they fear would happen if they responded differently? What support or choices are available?

These questions bring the conversation back to the life the person is actually living.

04 / Compassion with boundaries

Understanding someone’s pain does not excuse their behaviour

There is another difficult situation: you understand why the other person struggles.

You know about their childhood. You know they have experienced rejection or disappointment. You have seen their vulnerability, perhaps in moments nobody else has witnessed.

Because of that, you keep making allowances.

They are not a bad person. They have suffered.

That may be true. Their suffering may deserve compassion.

But compassion and accountability do not cancel each other out.

We can recognise that someone carries pain while also recognising that the way they express it is hurting others. Understanding their history does not make us responsible for absorbing every consequence of it.

Sometimes, the most honest response is:

“I care about what you have been through. I also need you to take responsibility for how you treat me.”

A relationship cannot become healthier through explanation alone. There has to be willingness to change how people behave within it.

05 / Forgiveness and trust

Forgiveness and access are different decisions

People sometimes speak about forgiveness as though it has only one possible outcome: everything returns to the way it was.

But forgiveness, reconciliation and trust are different matters.

A person may choose to work toward releasing resentment without restoring the same closeness. They may wish someone well while limiting contact. They may remain open to repair without pretending that repair has already happened.

Forgiveness does not automatically restore trust. Trust needs something to rest upon.

An apology may begin a conversation. What happens afterward matters too.

Does the person listen without turning the entire discussion into your fault? Do they respect a boundary after the emotional intensity has passed? Is their effort consistent, or does the same pattern resume once they feel certain you will stay?

These are present-life questions. They deserve attention regardless of what someone believes about past lives.

Nor should anyone be pressured to forgive on someone else’s timetable. Naming what happened, seeking support and establishing safety may need to come first.

06 / Recovering the ability to respond

Responsibility is not the same as blame

My own life has repeatedly brought me back to a principle:

We cannot control every circumstance that arrives. We can keep asking what is possible with the choices, resources and support available to us.

In a painful relationship, however, this principle needs to be expressed carefully.

It does not mean that you caused another person’s harmful behaviour. It does not mean that leaving is always simple, or that everyone has equal financial, family or practical freedom.

Sometimes a person needs support before they can make a change. Sometimes the next step is not a dramatic decision but a private, honest conversation with someone trustworthy.

Responsibility, as I understand it here, is the gradual recovery of your ability to respond.

Not: “Everything is my fault.”

But: “My needs matter too. What is a realistic next step?”

Where there is violence, coercion or fear for personal safety, spiritual reflection should not replace practical safety planning and appropriate professional support. A confrontation is not always a safe first step.

07 / Connection without ownership

Freedom also asks something of us

There is another side to this conversation.

We may want freedom from someone else’s expectations while holding tightly to our own expectations of them.

We may say, “They should let me live,” but struggle when a partner, parent or adult child makes a choice we dislike.

We may call our own demands concern, while describing their demands as control.

This is why one principle remains central to my work:

Freedom is not one-sided. To receive freedom, we must also learn to give freedom.

Giving freedom does not mean accepting harmful behaviour. It means recognising that another person is not our possession.

We can express a need without claiming ownership. We can disagree without humiliating. We can decide what we will participate in without insisting that another person must become exactly who we want them to be.

Sometimes inner freedom begins when we stop confusing love with the right to control an outcome.

08 / A different way to respond

Perhaps the lesson is not to endure more

 

When someone asks, “What if this relationship is karmic?”, I do not think the most useful response is to claim certainty about an unseen past.

I would rather ask:

What is this belief helping you do in the present?

Is it helping you become more honest, compassionate and responsible?

Or is it making you afraid to question a pattern that continues to hurt you?

Within a spiritual understanding of karma, there is room to consider that learning may involve responding differently – not repeating the same response indefinitely.

Perhaps what needs examination is the fear of being alone. Perhaps it is the need for approval. Perhaps it is our own habit of trying to control someone. Perhaps it is the belief that our worth depends on how much we can sacrifice.

The answer will not be the same for everyone.

That is precisely why guidance should make room for exploration rather than hand out a universal instruction to stay, leave, forgive or endure.

For me, spiritual insight should deepen responsibility – not replace it.

And understanding a relationship should help us live more consciously within our circumstances, not persuade us that our dignity is the price of spiritual growth.

For readers & podcast hosts

A conversation worth taking further

 

Karma, attachment, forgiveness and boundaries deserve more than a dramatic claim or a short motivational answer.

They deserve conversations that allow difficult questions: Can we love without ownership? Can we forgive without returning? Can spiritual beliefs help us recognise our choices instead of surrendering them?

These are subjects I welcome exploring with podcast hosts and thoughtful audiences in Hindi or English – bringing together lived experience, my background in psychology, and a spiritual perspective focused on inner freedom.

What I bring to your podcast

A meaningful podcast needs more than an interesting subject. It needs a guest who can communicate clearly, hold a thoughtful conversation and help listeners connect an idea with their own lives. That is the contribution I aim to bring.

This article offers spiritual reflection, not a determination of anyone’s karmic history or a substitute for individual medical, psychological or safety-related support. Past life experiences and interpretations should not be treated as proof that a person caused or deserved mistreatment. See the website disclaimer.