Will You Ever Marry?
By Donna Cunningham
This is an excerpt from Donna Cunningham's ebook, Outer Planet Aspects to Venus and Mars: The Outer Planets and Inner Life, Volume 2. It appears here with permission of the author. Donna Cunningham, an internationally respected astrologer with over 40 years experience, is the author of 15 books on metaphysical topics and has a Master's Degree in Social Work from Columbia University. She teaches writing by teleseminar and correspondence course, as well as a correspondence course and seminars on astrology. Visit her award-winning blog at skywriter.wordpress.com
So many astrology clients want me to tell them whether they'll ever marry or not. Having followed many clients' and friends' charts' over the past 40 years, I've come to believe that astrology isn't the best predictor of whether an individual will meet and commit to a partner. HISTORY is a better predictor, and the astrologer who doesn't get a relationship history from the client is likely to prove inaccurate. What I've observed is that there are relationship-prone people and people who are not relationship-prone.
The person who isn't relationship-prone could have transits or progressions that look ideal for love and not meet a soul, much less a soul mate. Relationship-prone people can have either the worst or the most piddling aspects for romance, and they fall head over heels and hook up with a partner. Go figure. That said, the chart does tell much about the romantic obstacles to be overcome.
In particular, there are differences among the outer planet aspects to Venus in their degree of willingness to commit to a partnership. Venus-Uranus types above all else want freedom and independence, and so they often engage in a seemingly endless series of short-term attractions until they find someone who can give them room to keep growing and exploring themselves and their potential.
Like most aspects involving Pluto, Venus-Pluto people can fit into one of two extremes, either totally, compulsively joined at the hip with a partner or - having been badly burned - totally turned off to the idea of having a relationship at all. Venus-Neptune types don't just want to commit, they want to merge, so they can become addicted to love and immerse themselves in one codependent relationship after another. Libra is the sign most driven to form committed relationships, but having the outer planets in Libra can present challenges in the quest for a lasting partnership.
Neptune in Libra, the sign for a generation of people born between 1942-55 -- is similar in its effects to a Venus-Neptune aspect. The tension for the Neptune in Libra generation has been one on one partnership versus universal oneness with everything. Their ideal of love is to experience complete oneness with the partner. The quest is very painful for them, as their paradigm for love is the 1950's Hollywood romance-we are shaped by the culture around us as we grow up, as reflected by the outer planets' signs.
The generation born with Pluto in Libra (1971-84) was the first to experience widespread fragmentation of the family. As they grew up, divorce statistics gradually reached as high as 50% in some areas of the U.S. With Libra as a keynote, many of those with Pluto prominent labored to keep peace between their warring parents. They were often caught in the middle in a bitter aftermath, suffering through stressful situations such as dual custody, their parents' serial marriages, multiple step-parents, and fathers who moved away and lost contact following the divorce. As a result, many of them are fearful of getting involved in adult partnerships.
For the Pluto in Libra generation, physical attractiveness, even perfection, is a talisman against romantic woes. Though this particular talisman works no better than most, these people can be obsessed with looks and with costly, ever-changing fashion. The incidence of anorexia and bulimia continues to rise, and breast implants are a growth industry, even among teens. From childhood on, the media has bombarded them with the message that the only way to find love and social acceptance is to be beautiful. Not all Pluto in Libra people are fashion slaves-Grunge and Goth exist in part in protest against these values.)
People with Venus-Saturn aspects are gravely reluctant to enter into a partnership for several reasons. For one, they would find it a binding agreement that entails a lifetime commitment and tremendous responsibility. Second, they are extremely conscious of roles in general and the traditional male-female roles of spouse and parent in particular, and so in committing to a partner they would also be committing to a role that they may or may not wish to fulfill. For many of them, their career represents a deeper level of soul commitment and entering into a relationship and parenthood would detract from it. Finally, Venus-Saturn individuals believe that you have to earn love by working hard at it and generally don't believe that they are inherently lovable. To avoid the rejection they anticipate, they may retreat behind walls and focus on a career.
When an individual fits into the not relationship prone category, healing work is often needed to change a decision about relationships that they have made at a very deep level. One major barrier to a relationship in this lifetime is a vow of either chastity or eternal commitment to a particular soul. Such vows may not be conscious ones, but they hold great power and need to be revoked consciously and explicitly in some form of ritual in order for a new relationship to be possible.
For instance, I often find that at a very deep level, people with Venus in Virgo or Virgo planets in the relationship houses (7th, 8th, and 5th) take their wedding vows extremely seriously and remain faithful, even long after a divorce. Doing a conscious revocation of the vows can shift the situation so that they are once again available for a commitment.
If you suspect that you are still bound by vows that have outlasted their relevancy to your life, you may need to make a conscious re-decision about that before you can allow yourself a second marriage. To do so, you might use the technique of writing a canceling-out and reprogramming statement 70 times a day for 7 days--something like, 'I revoke the vow of eternal fidelity I made to my mate.'
Would you like an in-depth interpretation of your own Venus and what it says about your relationships? A consultation with a professional astrologer--preferably one with a psychological or counseling background--can prove enlightening.
  
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