We all have free choice. We can marry Mr Wrong, or divorce Mr Right. We have to take accountability for choosing a partner, even if things didn’t work out.
However, when a marriage ends in divorce, it’s not to say that it was not supposed to be in the first place. Together with the belief in free choice, we also believe that whatever happened in the past was supposed to happen. And so you wed the person you were destined to marry. It was meant to be. And in retrospect it was destined to end.
This is the paradox of faith: What I am about to do is my freedom. Once I have done it, it was meant to happen. I am responsible for my actions. I made the bed, and I am required to sleep in it. But now that I did, I couldn’t have slept anywhere else.
As painful as the experience may have been, your divorce was integral to your soul’s mission. We can only guess why.
It is possible that the ill-fated marriage was a rectification for something in a past life. It could be you have a soulmate from your former incarnation that you didn’t marry the first time around, as well as a soulmate from your current incarnation, and so you have to wed both.
Perhaps you were required to bring a child into the world who otherwise would not have been created.
Or perhaps it was a necessary step in your journey of learning, bringing you closer to your true self, and your real soulmate.
Who knows?
We don’t take it lightly when divorce happens. It is a tragic last resort when all other attempts to mend a toxic marriage have failed. And sometimes it isn’t in your hands. But if it has happened, you have to trust that this is your soul’s direction. May G-d give you the strength and wisdom to navigate the next step on that path…
Menachem Mendel Bluming and Rabbi Moss