Regarding Maria and the end of her relationship to Al…

I believe it was Al that realized that he, having saved Maria from the fire felt a strong and empathetic compassion towards her due to their joint ordeal. When ever we endure something with someone to this degree there remains a bond that too often, though in the foundation is a form of love, may not be actual male to female relational love. To have this love, I believe you must first have a strong desire to get inside your partner, to know their thoughts, their feelings, their ambitions, their fears, and their strengths…. You desire to know these things so that you can be all things to that person you love when they need it and how they need it. You cannot do this without dedicated love for ever aspect of the individual, both the good and the bad, the strong and the weak… For without this soon the smoldering embers of love’s thought illusions prevail leaving one hopelessly out of love.

The old saying, “Life Goes On” is real, and yet how it goes on in the midst of a great loss will always determine the character of both the winner and loser in such affairs.

I was reading a book called Vohu Esfoma and came to a section that asks this very question on love and broken relationships. This book is very old and holds to traditions beyond the mere societal conceptions of forsaken love’s cause and effect. The thought is that Love is the foundation of all life; it is enhanced through human relationships which are shared as a learning experience, and an individual’s ability to perceive love is “supposed to be, as it were” learnt through the physical relations of love between a man and woman. However, the emphasis on the reading below is more on the graduating evolvement of love for each person into a more cosmic and universal contemplation of love’s place in all things.

I found this piece below, thought provoking. There is no room for judgement in anything in life as all lessons have a meaning and are determined in the growth of the individual.

QUESTION 1.— If a person ruins a married woman’s life by bringing about a permanent estrangement between her and her husband, by which the husband does not become unhappy because that is to his liking (that is he wanted to avoid the wife), while the wife’s happiness is completely shattered, how would the wrong-doer be punished in the next life by way of retribution?

ANSWER.— The conditions stated are common ones in every land and illustrate that primarily, where
marriage is concerned, insufficient thought is given either to suitability or desirability. Too often material
interests are allowed to subordinate the higher and more vital aspects for which true marriage should stand.

The question commences with a judgment. Is that judgment correct? No, it cannot be, for what type of husband is it, that permits an outsider to bring about a permanent estrangement between himself and his wife?

If, as is also implied in the question, he becomes accessory to his wife’s unhappiness, then is his primary error of commission rendered worse, by reason of his position as husband giving him the powerto free his wife from the conditions in which she finds herself.

It follows that the husband cannot evade his responsibility nor can the outsider escape the shared consequences
of association therewith.

In the next life, payment has to be rendered by a restriction of liberty and a compulsory association with grades of life which renders their lives joyless and burdensome.

This process goes on until they are compelled, through the agonies endured, to call for the aid of the angels of Light, who (dependent upon the grade) may, or may not, be able to come and give relief for a long period of time.

When they do come, relief and elevation can only come about by a labor of redemption, which again consumes a long period.

Finally, complete redemption cannot be attained until she who was injured has herself risen to a grade which provides for her responding to the call for elevation, and this step can only be attained by virtue of a love far transcending that which, on earth, was deemed essential for the conditions of
marriage, but which, in the new phase, has no relation to the individual.