These days New Age says that we chose this life and everything that happens to us. I've read (I think it was Seth) where he said that even those who do terrible things chose to do that in this lifetime to give others (perhaps us) the opportunity to learn. The author of Conversations with God has the theory in his children's book that someone volunteered to play the bad guy in our lifetime in order to give us the opportunity to learn to forgive.

I was reading Sylvia Browne's Blessings from the Other Side, and came across something interesting.

"...on this imperfect earth, where we're all at different phases in our spirits' progress withour own lessons to learn, we're all likely to be confronted with an unforgiveable act, committed by someone who's not as far along the path as we are. When and if that happens -- as it has to me -- the answer isn't blaming ourselves, or offering insincere forgiveness that will make the other person feel better while we're consumed with resentment. The answer is whatever allows us to move and and do it productively. If that happens to be forgiveness, great. If it's too big for us to forgive, put it in to God's hands for His divine forgiveness, and then let it and that person go....

We've all known people who cling fiercely to someone who mistreats them, demeans them, and keeps them in a constant state of insecure misery. Just as we sometimes make the mistake of believing God didn't answer our prayer when in fact He did answer, He just said no, we have trouble remembering that some of the most important relationships we chart, from which our spirits profit the most, are those to which we have the strength to say no....

So if we handpick every one of our family relationships, it's a breeze to understand why we choose the positive, nurturing ones. But why on earth would I choose an abusive, sociopathic mother, or would Danielle insist on such obscene and unforgiveable parents? The answer to every question about the negative family members we've chosen is the same as the answer to all negativity we confront in this lifetime -- we put it in our path to learn from it and overcome it, and let it help propel us toward our goals with even more strength and power....

Now, let's get something very, very straight: If you're an abusive parent, or if you're beyond the age of consent and are abusing, or allowing or deliberately ignoring the abuse of, a minor member of your family, there are a few things you can absolutely count on. One is that any success that minor child goes on to enjoy in life is in spite of you, not because of you, so don't even think about trying to pat yourself on the back or diminish the obscenity of what you're doing. Another is that, on the off chance you get through this life without severe consequences, you can read about the Dark Side in the 'Guilt' chapter to find out what you have to look forward to when this life ends if you don't take serious steps to turn your behavior around. And still another is that if you wrote a chart that includes an impulse to mistreat members of your family, you wrote in that impulse so as to overcome it, not to indulge in it, no matter how much effort and help it takes to accomplish that.

If you've been on the receiving end of betrayal by a family member, you know that it cuts especially deep and that the repercussions can cause years' worth of pain and division among relatives whose loyalty and sense of fairness are put to tests they neither asked for nor deserved. And typically, the family bond that the betrayer was so willing to abuse for their own purpose is the same thing they'll try to use as leverage to demand understanding and forgiveness....

...family members taking outrageous advantage of each other and then expecting special dispensation for being 'family' is horribly common....

If you're on the receiving end of a family betrayal, I hope you'll turn to the 'Forgiveness' chapter and take it to heart, including the fact that some acts really are unforgiveable and have to be given to God to handle, even when the betrayer is a family member. Writing betrayal in to our chart means that our intention was to learn from it and ultimately profit from it, so the more we focus on that as our goal, our responsibility, and our eventual reward, and refuse to be held hostage by bloodlines, the less tempted we'll be to instigate family drama.

If you're the betrayer, on the other hand, sorry, but you can't point to your chart and say, 'See, I couldn't help it, it was written in to my chart before I even came here.' Like everything else in your chart, all you wrote in was the situation, the opportunity to betray someone, for you to be either weak enough to stoop to or strong enough to pass up. If you choose to betray a family member, you fail a test you mapped out for yourself and you've set yourself up for a lot of hard, guaranteed consequences ahead. And if there's one consequence in particular that you'll learn sooner or later, no matter how much you might feel at the moment you got away with something: There is no such thing as lasting happiness that has its roots in betrayal."