What kind of Karma have I created?

When looking back at my life there was this critical period in my life where I had to cut people loose, people I would under normal circumstances not have let go off. They would try to object and keep me in their lives. I was at the time effected by an ex's continues cruelty and he was going through people in order to try to get to me. I use to see this ex as equal to panic attacks and I was afraid to get sick again because of him. I never thought I could get that way. He did not respect my wishes to be left alone.

One of the people I too cut loose was my first love who I had began seeing again in a romantic way shortly after the break up from the cruel ex. He was getting his life in order and he looked well. In the past when we had been a couple before he had been miserable at work and he had been going through grief and began to drink more, and his drinking got to be this issue between us, even if he did not treat me badly. The only person he was treating badly was himself.

Except for the drinking part the years we were a couple before I had not been unhappy. I had loved him and believed he loved me. I had thought it was us for life. He had been very close to me.

Now the second time around I was ashamed of myself with the panic attacks. I think I at some level was afraid my cruel ex would find out about us and do something to him, or us, and I could not cope with the idea that the life he had now built for himself would be ruined because I had wandered back. He was sober throughout. He liked where he worked then. It was wonderful to see him like that. There was this problem with his family in the past as they did not think he needed professional help, Rehab, but I did, and my family stood behind me on that (them too caring about him), and somehow I got to look like the villain. I think they had a different culture on how they looked at drinking than we had. I think too this was a genetic issue and a co-dependent issue, and the family would be ashamed had he gone to Rehab, while I thought we had empty all other resources and I knew that was the only way. He had tried to stop on his own before. The longest he was able to do it was I think for about 6 months. I had been his one and only witness for years the evenings at home with him when he drank, but regardless of that I was still patted on the head. I think before that he wanted both. He wanted to keep me or get me back and for me to accept him and his family, and I knew I couldn't do that. On one part I think he knew he was in trouble, but in another was in denial and it felt as if his family was in denial with him.

The second time around, back to when I was seeing him after the cruel ex, I think I was afraid to allow myself to love again, remembering the hurt of the past, with him, with his family and I basically took off.

I had apologized (more than once) and too apologized for him even having to witness me having a panic attack. He had still been very supportive and wanted me to give us more time before I made my decision, but I did not give us that. There was so much fear in my system.

Later on I was to learn he was back to his drinking, and he was to end up in Rehab. He would still say I was the love of his life.

I can't help but wonder if I had stayed, If I was not the poison I thought I was to him at the time, would he have been able to stay sober and then not later on crashed like that? He would have other girlfriends now and then but nothing long lasting, and they said he was in the habit to walk out.

I don't think he was able to handle things, like our break up the way I did before, because he was drinking instead. And maybe that was why he was stuck.

I was to miss him, and I still miss him but not in a romantic way. I think we had so much history together and we simply got each other in ways I think others didn't. I did not have to say much in order to be understood.

He would say back then that I was the love of his life and please not do this (cut him out, again). He would say he could handle it (my panic attacks) when I told him I could not even handle it myself so how could he and that this was not his problem. I was so ashamed of myself back then. I felt like running - and I ran.

I did not want to hurt anyone or not treat them right but I had to get away.

I know I made one attempt to go back to my cruel's ex's world with some of the people in it only one time after several years of absence as they had found me and missed me and said they wanted me to be there. Even if he was not there - the whole nightmare began again as he knew, apparently, and that was the last I saw of them. In order to keep him out I knew then I had to keep them out as well.

So cutting people out of your life that you would under normal circumstances still have and you had nothing against - what is the karma on that one? In my mind I have tried to say that I am sorry about that, and I am. I don't know what else I could do. I get especially stomach ache from just recalling how I was with the ex (not the cruel ex). Last time we had spoken though he called me from Rehab, or around the period he did rehab, and asked of my forgiveness, and I forgave, it was a good call. I wished him well. They said he was never willingly out of my life, and I had to be the one telling him I loved someone else, and we couldn't stay friends, even if he then said he wanted that. We needed to move on with our lives, separately.

[FallingLeaves]

in my life, a lot of things seem mirrorred. If I act a certain way towards others I can depend on them acting that way back in another time/place... drives me crazy... so sometime maybe the shoe will be on the other foot? You'll want him and all he'll know to do is drive you away because he feels too bad and that is the way you taught him to act?

it is a vicious cycle.

[lostsoul13]

Doubt you will have karma unless a real deeper connection was there… and circumstances would bring you back again (together) or mirroring one and other or just getting each other’s attention? Only the future would know…

I hate that about the future if there’s something or someone you overlooked… you would think there would be signs or significance that brought you back, I’ve done it in the past..

Thank you both for your thoughts. yes that is typical.

I've been emotional ever since I made this thread.

When i was to do the work to remembering the cruel ex and deal with that once and for all nothing came at first but what did come to surface was this brief period with my first love. Even if it made me feel ashamed I think they came because they were more safe for me to remember. Back in the day once I got better and free from the panic attacks I thought I had acted like that because I had not been right in the mind, that the normal me would have known I would not be able to make it with my first love.

I know I could not believe it that he told me he had saved the ring(we had been engaged before) all this time. To just know his financial state had not been so great, he could easily have sold off, he knew I was with someone else (and we too were engaged), and still he had kept...I felt so ungrateful.

I had always blamed him 100% to cause our initial break up, and then the drinking part I couldn't cope with.

I knew I wanted him to take accountability for what he had said to me and to stand up, take my side, against his family's belief, but that was not gonna happen.

When I had done him wrong in the past: I had apologized. I did not understand how hard it could be. One time I threw my engagement ring through his "smoke"-window during a fight (about his drinking, again one and the same fight over and over - the drinking). I was emotional and said before "See this!!!" and held my engagement ring and then off it went. The second after I understood what I had done. He stared at me. I stared at him and then I ran outside (barefoot) to try to find it. I could see him lurking by the window but he would not come out to help me which was unusual. When I had found it and quickly put it back on and was about to go through the front door he had locked it. I couldn't believe it. I rang. He took his time. Then he opened. He said "...you are?" as if he had forgotten who I was (it had taken some time to find the ring again) and I said I was his fiance, and I was so sorry, and he would say "No...I don't think I have…(a fiance)" and my heart was about to sink, I was nervous and still I knew he was just teasing and punishing me at the same time. Neighbors could me by and see me stand there barefoot and him not letting me back in. And he said but wait a minute, there was someone here, yes… and he then mimicked what to me looked like a goblin and he would mimic me being the goblin in the fight before and him as if he was an innocent bystander, "....and I said...". When he was done, I again said "I'm really sorry", and he said he accepted and let me in.

But when he caused our break up, for real, and he showed up the next day or so I was first naive to think he would apologize but he didn't. I know I at first even if I was angry, hurt, confused, felt this ray of hope, but when he came out of the car he did not look apologetic or humble. I figured if you say something like that you are basically on your knees begging for forgiveness but he didn't. I thought he had some nerve. My family who had to "overhear" us, especially one, said was happy he wasn't him (my first love) the way I screamed at him and he began to scream back which only made it worse. I remember he said at the end "Fine!" after I had screamed "Get out!". In my head I would hear him say that over and over "Fine!". I was so let down and hurt and everything. I could tell he had a hangover but did not have the energy to even ask him about it.

On our first date he had said he had had a temper and that he was known to be very stubborn, I said I was the same, he leaned towards me and said "This will be fun!". Well, it wasn't so fun back then. Maybe we were too alike in ways we shouldn't be as well, and not just the other good stuff.

Even when I told him my version of what had happened he would later on say (when we say each other again) that "I would never do (say) that to you" and that there had to be "some misunderstanding". He did not take accountability. I asked him what would I have gained from making it up? No answer. I had asked him before what did he remember exactly and he said he had only very few glimpses. I then wondered why he couldn't just believe me what I said had happened, what he had said. But to that was this silence. Things were complicated because of the drinking. I didn't even ask. I suspected he had as he looked as if he had a hang over back then. Later on I was to learn he was back with his old ways. I thought now he has the freedom and now his family is going to support him to replace me. He was my first. He had had girlfriend/s before me, and now I figured he would have after.

I think i wanted that guarantee from him that it would never happen again and when he did not take accountability and he got crazy there for a while with the drinking, even a stalking period, which didn't help, etc I only wanted to move on and tried to do that.

After my break up from my first love I would keep myself very busy. Me keeping busy before was me thinking that and time would make all this go away.

When I was with the cruel-ex the cruel-ex would tell me about his ex now and then, even if it was in neutral terms, and I don't know if that is what sparked me to have my own flashbacks of my first love, but they began to appear. I would not talk to the cruel-ex about my first love at all.

There were few times during the relationship with the cruel-ex my first love would find my number from someone and call and I would not recognize the number so I would take it to then find out it was him. It could be very short calls, like him saying he had heard a joke and wanted to tell me. He would keep it friendly while I would tell him not to call (as I did not want to make the cruel-ex think something was going on when it wasn't). It was when my first love got drunk and called and would end up saying "my..." which was what he use to say to me and my name after when we were a couple. That was a clue he wasn't over me and there was something so heartbreaking about that, the way he said it and I know one time tears just kept streaming down my cheeks and I would pretend I had not heard him say it.

Later on I was to let known he and his boys would come up (this was idiotic, I am not proud of him on this one) with nick names for his ex/es and they weren't flattering ones, and when I asked but what was mine then, I had to have one (I could think of one or two on the top of my head) I was told that was the trouble, he would always call me "my..." and my name after. I did not think anyone knew about him saying "my..." before and it was this echo. That nobody made this up. They said he had me on this piedestal, I couldn't do no wrong. He could get sharp with others, if he did not like you you knew it or was about to. People either loved or hated him it seemed, no middle. The ones I could later tell had something against him were people with not such a good energy, flow to them, and it was as if he could see through people. The ones who had something to hide or show off did not like that.

I have thought if the whole thing with the cruel-ex - if that happened, him talking of his ex and me shutting up about mine (but having the flashbacks of him) meant that I would appreciate my first love more, and return to him?

I think some energies work for us and some against and that there are these pin-points moments like a road with side ways to it that show up now and then, and that was such a side way. It is the whole could have would have should have scenario. A left over from my time, mentality, with him that has now surfaced.

And if that would have been our shot - if only I had given us more time the way he said, would that have been our happily ever after?

I know I got the typical symptoms of co dependency with someone with a drinking problem and the guilt is part of that, but still...

At the time with the cruel-ex finally causing me these panic attacks, was when I got sick of having been pushed around enough and I began despite my fear to push back. I did not ever want to show my cruel-ex I had been afraid of him, and def not with the break up and the aftermath of it. But I was. And even if I did not want to go there, I began to fear if the cruel-ex was in his head for real thinking I was still his, and he would find out about my first love and me now seeing each other... I would not be able to live with if something had happened to my first love, he was finally doing good. I had felt tenderness for my first love during the relationship with the cruel ex as it stood so clear to me what a good guy he had been and how the cruel-ex was not.

My first love wanted us to get more serious and for us to be seen together (except to just hang out in the park etc) and I felt such panic about that. Again - afraid the cruel-ex would see us. I did not tell my first love about stuff about the cruel-ex (I was afraid too).

Perhaps it is even more so that because first of all I got the chapter where he really was the best boyfriend/fiance you could ever ask for and I have tons of good memories of us that make me smile even today. Then I have the dark side of it. And then I have the part where he was as a friend. As a friend I feel quilt about not getting back to him too last time he reach out to me but I hope he knew I still cared, somehow.

About the friends that were loyal to me from the cruel-ex world I feel so ****ty to too but hope too that even if that would be sad that they would discover of their own what the cruel-ex was all about and take distance, and then perhaps understand my move and why it had to be so drastic.

There is no escape from karma, so I know what will be will be, but still on a spiritual level I hope they know I meant no harm, if this is now coming my way or not. To live with the guilt too feels like karma but understand too if it is not.