Is It Just My Observation Or Not Everyone Is Destined For A Fulfilling Romantic Life?

Is it just my observation or not everyone is destined for a fulfilling romantic life?

As much as we are conditioned by media, literature, songs, our own anima/animus to desire being in romantic relationships, unfortunately I have observed that not everyone is meant for one. It is truly luck that some people meet willing partners who are interested in romantic relationship, working things out, making it work, loving and supporting each other. While some people meet partners who are emotionally unavailable, manipulative, liars, unwilling to work relationship, taking partner for granted.

Mercury is indeed an indicator of a friend like, youthful energy, optimism for life, conversationalist partner. This is the partner who wants to be adventurous, go travel the world, watch latest movies, go outdoors eating.

Venus is indeed an indicator of significantly beautiful, sensual, pleasant to have in life, charming partner. This is the partner who likes to purchase new clothing, food, wine, dine, meeting pleasures of senses. Music, food, comfort, beauty, sex.

Saturn is indeed an indicator of serious, hard working, not fun attitude towards life and kinda pessimistic. This is the partner who has seen fated ups and downs in life, believes in long term planning, avoids short term gratification and does not have fun with his money. Life is a responsibility for him.

Ketu is indeed an indicator of a detached, disconnected, peculiar, unique, wandering, lost in thoughts, spiritual, not interested in material life partner. This is the partner who will fulfill superficial social expectations of relationship but remain emotionally distanced, disengaged, less talkative, not romantic.

Rahu is indeed an indicator of a social climber, high status, clout chasing, power chasing, fame chasing partner. This partner creates a persona or image or illusion of a perfect relationship for the world to see. It does not matter to him if the actual relationship is hollow so long as the social image is that of a picture perfect marriage.

Sun is indeed an indicator of authoritarian, fatherly, dominating, controlling, egoistic, daddy type partner. This is the partner who likes to take decisions in relationship, be the sun of the relationship, adds life to relationship and is actively involved in the relationship.

Mars is indeed an indicator of a hyper, short tempered, energetic, controlling partner. This is the partner who hates monotonous, chill life. This partner wants sports, physical activity, passion, aggression, heat in the relationship.

Jupiter is indeed an indicator of a wisdom seeking, teacher like, studious, not romantic, dharmic marriage, dutiful partner who considers relationship to be a duty that he has to perform dutifully.

Moon is indeed an indicator of an emotionally attuned, emotionally invested, sensitive, feelings driven partner. Doesn't mean that this partner is super romantic but has the potential because of feelings driven personality. This is the partner who will poetry, do acts of service, is emotionally available to partner.

See how different planets, their signs, their placements, conjunctions, aspects will bring different partner in your life? If you expect to find a romantic, sexy, passionate partner but your relationship houses are occupied/aspected by Saturn or Ketu or Jupiter or their signs that is Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, then you are bound for disappointment. You have to mold your expectations to meet your destiny. If your 7th house is occupied by Ketu or aspected by Ketu, you have to expect and accept that your emotional and romantic needs will be unfulfilled - conversely you have to channel this desire into spirituality and self work. Ketu rules scorpio sign and 8th house. But Ketu is not a planet, though it can change the chemistry of your relationship.

So this is how, not everyone is meant for picture perfect romantic relationship. What we see in movies or songs is simply a work of art. I used to get very frustrated thinking why my life was not like the movies, until I realized that my birth chart, my expectations and my reality are very different from what I consume in media or literature or stories.

I hope it makes to someone. I hope I am not the only person who set her romantic expectations based on what I saw in media.

Astro observations about Aries ascendant/ 1st house/ Aries sun/moon/mercury/venus placements:

Disclaimer: Don't get triggered if you don't relate to or like this observation post. Not every post is meant to touch your heart. And, hopefully we all know that a birth chart has many other placements, so take what feels right to you.

I have seen a lot of Aries placements with a sense of self importance. Even if their attributes or achievements don't warrant it, they display a sense of superiority over others.

Their confidence is interesting. Even when they commit wrong, they don't back down or go in hiding. They either deny that they can do no wrong or come back with full force the next day.

With self importance comes entitlement and selfishness too. It is in the sense of wanting what others have, wanting all the thing to themselves, not caring about needs, wants, rights of other people.

If the fire energy is not balanced with water signs or water placements, such a person can go full Narcissist unfortunately. I met an Aries 1st house stellium who had at least 3 or 4 young girlfriends, 1 long term girlfriend and who did not like to take any responsibilities in life. Despite his wrongdoings, he refused to admit that he was wrong.

Their confident persona is not actually healthy either. Healthy confidence is rooted in awareness of strengths and potential, while confidence of Aries is just overwhelming, arrogance and depends on external approval.

Funnily enough, men with Aries placements can keep beard to showcase their masculinity. Everything they do is image maintenance. They create an image of who they are even if they are not that. I am water energy+earth energy, so I find them pretentious and really superficial. And they are! Imagine living your whole life just to impress others with a persona. The validation comes from within.

Since their confidence is consistent and unwarranted, society rewards them with material success. Aries find it easy to socialize because people fall for their arrogant persona. They can sell a scam if they want. The arrogance is in their favour. People also perceive them as capable, confident and proud. These qualities are associated with trustworthiness, leadership and strength.

Do they have insecurities? Sure yes they do. Who does not? Unfortunately, if they are not aware of their feelings, unlikely they will overcome their insecurities in this life. They will do everything to appear like a genuine person (persona) even though they feel like crap behind the mask in private life.

That is to say, aries placements can be very nice actors. They can give the appearance of something they do not feel. They can even convince you of something they are not. Their confidence makes them unabashed and often manipulative.

Relationship with an Aries unfortunately is not going to be deep or fulfilling, if you are looking for that. They can be go-getter with their persona and confidence.

Getting them to apologize or admit their wrong can be hard. Since they consider themselves superior to you for no reason at all, they can't even imagine scoring low or making themselves look weak. They must win every battle, no matter who is the wrong party.

If you want a super confident friend, Aries is the one for you. Since they will do everything to avoid looking into their faces, you are to find someone who does not show their insecurities or vulnerabilities. And no matter what happens, always stand strong and confident. This can actually be good for someone whose work is to deal with people because people like confident and charming persona. They also care a lot about their appearance. Perhaps a good deal of famous people do have Aries placements since it gives them the need to draw attention to themselves anyhow. They will always hold the upper hand in social situations. They always want to be the one with more power. The self proclaimed king or queen. Even more than leo, I have seen Aries with the overt me, me, me king narrative.

The need for self importance is strong. In one story, I met an Aries native who called himself "Ubermensch" (coined by Friedrich Nietzsche) even though his character was pathetic. It was just about him and his ego. He was all the great things without actually doing any work. This can be actually deceptive because we trust people at face value without looking deep into their lives. We actually get to know someone with time and observation, so they can get away with a lot of things in the short run.

Why as an 8th house native I no longer believe that "the world is a wonderful place".

Having moon and venus in 8th house and being Scorpio ascendant, I have a crazy emotional world. Extreme sensitivity to tone, words, behaviour; dread betrayal, deception and pretentious behaviour and my own obsessions and ruminations that are that of Borderline Personality Disorder.

8th house not just brings extreme emotions but also extreme, sudden, unexpected, out of nowhere, "what just happened" type of twists and turns to life. When I say extreme, I mean my parent dealing with life threatening disease type of extreme. I don't remember ever having a smooth year in life; every single year of my life so far has been bearer of life changing transformations. Sudden downfall and sudden improvement, just like that.

Me being scientific and atheistic had a love-hate relationship with occult. I was embarrassed to admit that I began exploring astrology as a child. Being judged and called superstitious, backward, uneducated, not modern -- I refrained from using occult to research my life issues but secretly had a fascination and strong attraction to occult subjects naturally. For a long time, I kept doubting myself why would I believe in astrology? And dismissing myself by saying "it is just coincidence, it is just science, there is no mystical meaning involved" and fear of being ridiculed and memified by people, I repressed my occultist desires.

Over the last 4 years, life showed many revelations to me. First, my perception of the world was distorted. I was damn emotional and naive. I was surrounded by narcissists and sociopaths, and oh - I was a people pleaser! It is different than movies. In movies we clearly know who is the protagonist and who is the villain but in real life the evil villains pretend to be heroes. It felt so unfair and unjust. When I could no longer change the outer situations, I was compelled to change my inner life. The only path left to me was to do my own shadow work and to do self realization.

I recall a movie "In this corner of the world" in which Suzu deals with many misfortunes in the event of war and bomb attacks in Japan. She loses her brother, her right hand, her niece, houses around them are shattered, they take shelter underground to protect from bombs, there was shortage of food groceries, they were always afraid of bomb raids and warnings, always afraid of next attack, trying to help those wounded, trying to keep shelter from problems - buckets of water to relinquish the fires, tired and exhausted and frustrated by problems they did not choose but are forced upon them by fate. Her parents die eventually and sister is sick from side effects of bomb. When everything is chaotic, people console themselves by looking at the bright side of life in any way possible. "I am glad... things are not as bad", say people around her. Suzu says to herself  "I don't know what I should be glad about." Suzu goes from a smiling, happy-go-lucky girl who tries to make the best out of a bad situation, to a stone-faced, emotional wreck who can no longer find happiness in life. In the end, she finds "acceptance". Just acceptance of whatever happened. Made peace with her past.

Reference: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TearJerker/InThisCornerOfTheWorld

Venus in 8th house & relationship trauma

How many lovers have you had and how many did not give you trauma? When did you start dating, btw?

When it comes to venus in 8th, what comes to my mind is a sex magnet, obsessive and devotional. Stop losing yourself in your lover's hands. There is a desire to merge with and consume their lover. The best way I can think of to describe is like cellular fusion in biology:

Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyogamy

There is a lot of intense energy looking for an outlet. If not romance, she will direct this energy in spirituality. But before she will know her spiritual gifts, she will go through relationship trauma.

It can be seen that the most traumatizing lovers were similar to each other. I met the first one at age 13 and next one at 21. Both were similar in appearance & life identity. The first one ruined my teenage years. The last one gave me mental breakdown. Both these "lovers" were the most traumatizing points in my life. I was OBSESSED with both of them. Both were "secretive" and I met them in dark ways suddenly without warning. Both were predatory and manipulative. I idolized them both and put them on a pedestal. I did a lot of ego massage & codependent wife like treatment.

In my mom's bloodline, there is history of mental issues and emotional chaos. When I was 13, I hardly knew anything about life. But when I was 21, my life had evolved and I had a career, family life, hobbies. But I was infantile in the sense that I was impulsive and irrational. I could not stand being single and was OBSESSED with romantic relationships. This trauma was an opportunity to heal my generational trauma & psychological inheritance.

After my mental breakdown, I came across this content:

Some quotes from this book:

Romantic love always consists in the projection of the soul-image. When a woman falls in love it is animus that she sees projected onto the mortal man before her.

No aspect of the human psyche can live in a healthy state unless it is balanced by its complementary opposite. If the masculine mind tries to live without its “other half,” the feminine soul, then the masculine becomes unbalanced, sick, and finally monstrous. Power without love becomes brutality. Feeling without masculine strength becomes woolly sentimentality. When one side of human nature grows out of balance with the other, it becomes a tyranny in the soul.

One of the great paradoxes in romantic love is that it never produces human relationship as long as it stays romantic. It produces drama, daring adventures, wondrous, intense love scenes, jealousies, and betrayals; but people never seem to settle into relationship with each other as flesh-and-blood human beings until they are out of the romantic love stage, until they love each other instead of being “in love".

Jung once quoted a medieval alchemist who said, “Only what is separated may be properly joined.” When two things are muddled together they need to be separated, distinguished, and untangled so that they may later be rejoined in a workable synthesis. This is the correct meaning of “analysis” in psychology; to analyze is to separate out the entangled threads of one’s inner life—the confused values, ideals, loyalties, and feelings—so that they may be synthesized in a new way. We analyze romantic love, not to destroy it, but to understand what it is and where it belongs in our lives. Analysis must always serve synthesis in order to serve life; what is taken apart must be put back together again.

I unlearned all the default things I learned growing up. It was a complete rebirth in the sense of 8th house transformation. The source of my romance obsession was a deep need for self actualization and spirituality. It was a need for looking within and understanding "myself". I talk about "high value woman" but I automatically became a high value woman once I started self actualizing. I was more confident, more assertive, more stable, in control of my emotions, took time to read books, rationalized my feelings rather than be impulsive, analyzed my values, beliefs, character, flaws, failures, weaknesses. I know my insecurities and know how to handle them. It was a journey from a fucked up person to somewhat rational person. I still have my days of chaos but it gets managed.

This is what I suppose 8th house venus looks like. Self destruction and self development. However, is this the last time we go through this.......

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT SERIES: 8th house and psychosis. Trigger: mental health

This is my understanding of "psychosis" that happens to 8th house natives. I have venus in 8th house & I experienced psychosis. Carl Jung had sun in 8th house, his psychosis is well known. Friedrich Nietzsche was scorpio rising with rahu and moon in 1st house & sun in 12th house in libra. More on this later but today let us discuss psychosis. From my understanding, it is triggered by two things: planet and time period of the house ruler. Venus in 8th psychosis is triggered by romantic relationship. Sun in 8th house by father? Moon in 8th house by mother? My understanding on this is not clear but I have definitely experienced the relationship and mom connection (venus + moon in 8th house). Next comes, time period of 8th house ruler. My 8th house is ruled by Gemini and my psychosis was triggered in mercury antardasha because it probably activated the 8th house. Someone with pisces ruling 8th house will be activated in Jupiter mahadasha or antardasha etc.

What exactly happens during psychosis? Since 8th house is to do with intense emotions, these natives go back and forth highs and lows to the extreme levels throughout the day. Psychosis occurs when they are overwhelmed by the unconscious content and have a weak & insecure ego. It happens either in early youth years or when they have not dealt with a challenge before in life or unprecedented misfortune. For eg, if venus in 8th house is in relationship, she will be her usual rollercoaster emotional ride. 8th house will bring a not suitable person to life. Native is her usual intense self but the romantic lover causes many emotional and mental issues by lying, manipulation, inconsistent behavior etc. This gradually drives the native to emotional distress. There comes a flood of negative emotions in them like extreme anxiety, fear and panic. They start obsessing about the whole thing to the point of mental breakdown. Since they are young, naive, early age or inexperienced, this emotional distress is too mentally and physically draining to live in. It gets harder and harder to live life in a hyper emotional state every day. This is when native starts to isolate herself.

Then occurs psychotic break. It is when the native starts to perceive reality differently and lives in delusions. For eg, delusion like I am pregnant or I am being stalked or somebody is trying to hurt me, seeing mental images of people hurting them and ridiculing them. The last one happened to me. This is very frightening and confusing to native. She does not know how to explain the strange things happening to her.

Then happens spiritual awakening. Something in her pulls her to occult and related things or psychology or therapy or hospital or anything else as per life path. Next step is the reordering of her psychic world which blends delusion and reality. Which means she has to face the trauma from her past and heal herself. Synchronicities begin to happen. Unlearn the trauma and relearn new things. 8th housers are called BRAVE SURVIVORS for this reason.

Depression and psychosis wipe her memory clean. Time to integrate the parts of herself now coming to consciousness. What parts? Shadow, animus, parts of herself she did not know she was, changing the old habits, changing the hobbies, career etc. These things are very crucial to mental development. We often hear "eh school sucks, I hate democracy, why do we have to do job.." but try living in jungle doing nothing & you will realize how system, rituals, patterns, routine, order are very important psychological needs. They are not just manmade institutions but strong psychological impulses.

Time to fix what is broken. Make peace with your childhood trauma. Acknowledge everything you hate in yourself and give it time (months, years) to integrate and heal. Read more about it in books because I cannot go into detail here.

Also, strengthen your ego. Intense women lack strong ego. Ego means self identity. Assertiveness. Stand up for yourself and your rights. Ego means to achieve or try to achieve your highest potential. There is no other way to live a fulfilling life. Ego means to putting yourself first, not being doormat and clingy.

This psychosis is life changing, catastrophic, sudden, unpredictable, similar to death and rebirth. It is the shedding of previous reality and creation of a new reality. It is why 8th housers say "I have lived so many lives in one lifetime."

Once they have overcome this psychosis, their ego is better able to handle next bouts of intense negative emotions and handle them positively with physical, intellectual, mental efforts. They also attract better quality of people in their lives because people can sense their maturity and character. 8th house still brings sudden twists and turns but they are able to handle that.

I personally went from browsing nonsense porn to turning pages of philosophy books. It is total life changing self development work. Painful but very rewarding.

Some thoughts on the 7th house placements:

i am reminded of something Barbara Bush (scorpio rising, sun and mercury in 7th house, venus and mars in 8th house, moon and jupiter in second house) once said. Barbara Bush said of the war in Iraq, 'Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'

Barbara with seventh house sun was a true housewife. She is known for her marriage to Mr president. She was called the first lady and first mother. She had a long and successful marriage, albeit her husband's secret affair that made her very depressed. I recall reading an interview once where she said "i was so depressed that once while driving i thought i would lose control... i still wonder why didn't George leave me?" We hear that her husband never confirmed the affair and after many years of turmoil, they got back to their married life. This is what we see in media, news and gossip articles. But we being astro students can tell a lot more about behind the scenes and between the lines from reading their birth chart. I myself have scorpio rising and sun, mercury in 7th house so I was quite fascinated by Barbara Bush's story and life path.

7th house is the house of other people. It is not just the house of relationship but also the house of your shadow self. Everything you see in others but do not recognize in yourself. Others are a mirror to you because they show you things that you cannot see in yourself. If you are aware of the human psyche, you would know that how we perceive others is subjective. We project our own traits on others. This is how anima and animus projection works in men and women respectively when they think that their partner is all that exists in themselves. If your animus is undeveloped, you would be attracted to men who you think have the same personality as your animus regardless of the reality. Your undeveloped animus will also show itself as self esteem issues, not being able to accept those parts of yourself and not having a relationship with your own animus. This can be remedied with shadow work, active imagination, journaling, dream interpretation, psychoanalysis, constant self introspection. Carl Jung is an authority on these subject matter.

While 1st house placements show a definite impact of the planet in the personality of the person, 7th house placements show the same personality traits hidden in the shadow of the native. For eg, sun in 1st house is bold, confident, ego centric, self promoting, me first, self proclaimed king type who finds it hard to dim his own sunlight to see and introspect themselves because they are strongly identified with their ego and wonder why do other people not see them as the king they are? On the other hand, sun in 7th house gives all these personality traits in the shadow self. Ego, confidence, self assertiveness, boldness, me-first attitude, life of the party attitude is hidden in the shadow self. It is hidden from the physical eyes.

If you understand what i said above, i will come to the next point. Sometimes back in an astro observation, i said that "7th house sun are their own worst enemy because they sabotage themselves so much". Sun is vitality, it is the energy that gives us light and life, it is the yellow light of liveliness. In astro, it is father, ego, confidence, arrogance, boldness. It is the power that makes a rockstar who say "yes i am the best.." or a politician say "yes i am the best leader for this country.." It takes that ego to say that "I am the GOAT, i am the best.." That is Sun. You must have met many such people in your life who will proudly beat their own drums "I know i am the best. i know i am smart and confident and successful.." While Sun in 7th house is the exact opposite of it. Since their confidence and ego are repressed in their shadow self, what remains in front is the insecurities. Ego and insecurities go hand in hand. Someone with 1st house sun will have a big ego and insecurities in shadow. While someone with 7th house sun will have insecurities in front and ego in the shadow. I hope it is making sense. Since sun in 7th house gives a repressed ego, these natives are completely aware of their insecurities. They internalize the insecurities of other people as their own. They flinch when they see their insecurities in other people. They internalize the projection of insecurities in themselves. Since 7th house sun gives a shadowy ego, they dont know who they are unless they are surrounded by other people who work like their mirror. 7th house sun finds himself through other people, especially their identity, ego and confidence. They are also very attracted to confident, bold, dominating, arrogant people because they fulfill their own scarcity of ego. This is why they can be massive people pleasers because they are a sucker for confident people and lacking their own confidence, they are eager to please others to fulfill their need for self identity.

But this is not the case if they have 1st house placements as well. Barack Obama has 7th house sun but also has 1st house placements so he does not have an egomaniac personality but also has the triats of 1st house plcements. He appears quite "humble". Steve Jobs had 7th house sun with empty 1st house and he had a hidden ego. He must have been very damn aware of each of his insecurities. I see this in Jobs movie that he was very self critical (7th house sun) and visionary (8th house moon). Jobs also went to psychic healers to cure his cancer which is such an 8th house moon thing to do. BUT you guys should not follow in his footsteps. Serious disease like cancer needs mental intervention. Jobs did regret not going for surgery earlier because his cancer was curable but by the time he realized it, it was very late. He distributed "autobiography of a yogi" to his people before death so that sounds like something to think about.

I am reminded of an Indian astrologer P V Narasimha Rao (sun in 7th house, virgo rising, mercury, venus, mars, saturn in 8th house) who writes on his website the following. You can clearly see he has a fascination with sun since his own sun is in the 7th house which must give him a weakened ego.

Next i would like to talk about mercury in the 7th house. Contrary to popular belief that 7th house mercury are good speakers, charmer, socially intelligent, it is rather quite the opposite. Whatever goes into 7th house loses its properties into the shadow. Remember this rule. If mercury goes into 7th house, the personality traits of mercury go into the shadow. He is an awkward speaker and is painfully aware of how he eats a lot of his words in the shadow. He also internalizes the words of other people and risks becoming gullible and manipulable. Since his own street smartness and communication akills are hidden in the shadow self, he is attracted to people who are good with words with a sharp tongue to activate his own dormant traits. 7th house mercury is rather talkative and talks a lot with other people because it makes him aware of his own hidden intelligence, how else would he know who he is? Carl Jung had mercury in the 7th house and he is known to be a psychiatrist who was involved with many people.

More interestingly, Adolf Hitler had Sun Mercury Mars and Venus in 7th house in Aries sign. This is homework for you to think about his personality, motivations and what he did in his life.

Side note: I retrieve birth details of famous people from astro.com and use vedic astrology to create their vedic birth chart.