photo credit: Thirteen Of Clubs
The people in our lives are there by design, especially our lifemates. You could even say that they are handpicked to play the role they play in our lives. Whether we like it or not, whether we approve of the way they live their lives or handle money, regardless of how we feel about them, they are in our life because our vibrational frequencies match. We attract and are attracted to the people and situations that reflect our thoughts/beliefs (both negative & positive) back to us. That means that what we judge as unacceptable in our mate will be a reflection of something in ourselves that needs our acceptance and forgiveness.
The world and every single person or situation we encounter, is a mirror for us! There are no mistakes. The people in our lives, and most especially our mates, show us the reality of our relationship with ourselves. This is their purpose. Our partner mirrors to us our own unresolved issues, fears and negative judgments (as well as more positive qualities). They are our teachers. Our level of resistance and judgment towards them indicates the degree to which we are out of right alignment with ourselves.
When we shift our consciousness from an external orientation to an internal one it changes where we put our focus in relationship. Rather than focusing on how they prevent us from having happy lives (r.e. feeling victimized by them), we learn instead to use our judgment of them to find our negative judgments about ourselves so that we can move towards self-forgiveness.