Just Because You Know What's Wrong With You, That Still Doesn't Make It Go Away.

Present.

I’m discovering as I learn more that I must have one of the unluckiest natal charts you can get. Not ONLY do I have Saturn square my Sun, Moon, Mars, AND Mercury, but I also was born with my midheaven right on top of the Weeping Sisters, and throughout my entire childhood I experienced a really awful phenomenon called “Saturn Chasing the Moon.” (It didn’t end until I moved out of the house and got away from my BPD mother. Isn’t that appropriate??)

Who the FUCK has all that? Not to mention: Saturn yod with Neptune and Uranus, and Saturn is the highest planet in the chart, the “handle” of a bucket formation.

Hmm.

It is said that the Weeping Sisters guarantee you a life with lots to weep about.

No shit.

Something else just occurred to me. Anne Ortelee, when she looked at my chart, told me I’d have met and married someone else by October 2017. I don’t know what she was looking at—Well, yes, I do. She was looking at Chi! But I looked at the same chart and transits and saw me hearing from Chi again. So did Alice Portman, and when I went to class, my teacher pointed out some additional indicators of something Big and Fateful happening then.

At first I thought, well, I can forgive Anne, she didn’t have both our charts. Then, I remembered: Yes, she did. She told me Chi was eight years old emotionally. (Now, that I can believe.)

I was right, over a big practicing professional Manhattan astrologer.

So I guess I’d better pay attention to what I see now.

Except … (and I’ve been through this once already, so I guess that will help.)

This, like last fall, is where I go: It’s May. Regardless of the accuracy of our charts so far, free will trumps charts every time. Here’s where it doesn’t happen, and I never see him again. And even though I know how horribly dangerous this relationship is, how unhealthy this person is from a bad childhood, and how resistant he is to doing the work required to get well … I’m still hideously depressed. Really, really hurting.

I already know I’m supposed to be grown up. Not needy for relationship, not fused with other people, just taking care of what I have to do every day, humming to myself and in a happy or at least even frame of mind, like everyone else. But something’s just plain wrong with me.

I know that this place where my heart just hurts and hurts is really just that baby and young child from 45 years ago, squashed by sick parents and rejected by cruel schoolmates and let to cry all alone. I know. But I still can’t make it stop, and I still can’t make it go away.

And I really need to get over this, because I see now, from the time my husband died, I was going to be all alone in my life for at least ten years, no matter what, and possibly even longer than that. I may have the power to barge in and change what’s going to happen. If I insist, I don’t have to be all alone for the next ten years. But if I do that, there’s hell to pay. 

Basically, I can choose to be all alone in my life now, or I can put it off until I’m seventy-one. 

I’m wayyyy better off doing it the right way … doing it now. If I grab at the relationship now, because I’m too lonely and weak and sad and scared to just walk away and accept that I might be alone forever and ever more, it’s a sick enmeshed codependent relationship. The same things happen in that relationship that have happened so far in theirs. I’m Rory, and he’s Chi. Nobody learned anything. Nobody got well. And it ends horribly at an age when NOBODY wants their relationship to end horribly.

Clearly, that just can’t take place. So I’m left with:

Scenario One:

He shows up on schedule. He’s still codependent, of course, because he sure as hell wasn’t doing anything with his recovery last fall, and I didn’t see much chance of that happening anytime soon, not with the attitude I was hearing and the people he spends time around. I still have to send him back home, and request once again that he address his own problems, not everyone else’s. We wouldn’t be back in each other’s lives for keeps in any case before 2023 (and there’s more in his chart supporting that.) And maybe Rory wakes up along the way and 2023 never happens. Because if she makes ANY change for the better at ALL, he stays. He doesn’t want to upset his adult children and his family. And that's the way it should be. Iff she wakes up and does better.

Scenario Two:

Something’s happened. He’s too codependent to even try ever getting out of there no matter how miserable he is, or Rory woke up and they fixed their marriage, finally. Summer goes by and he’s just, gone. Even if my transits are right and some relationship shows up in five years—it’s just with someone else—I’m STILL alone for five more years. The only way not to be alone for a total of ten fucking years is to accept an illicit affair with Chi this summer—and that turns out bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Even though we have a Davison with very good potential. As I said, it seems that the reason good Davisons don’t turn out good is: Somebody’s being an asshole.

And what do we usually call people who have an affair with a married person (among other things)?

Although, I have to say: that 2023 relationship is reflected in all three sets of charts and transits. AND progressions. That speaks pretty loudly to me.

Whatever happens, I’m alone for at least five more years, and possibly even longer than that. Alone with the housework, alone with the laundry, alone with the dreariness of life.

It’s not like I haven’t met new people in five years. It’s just that they’ve all had emotional problems, or none of them fit like the relationships I always needed and USED to have.

This is when I go right back to thinking, Those were the good times in my life, and now they’re over and today sucks. There’s no point reminding myself that the company of a stuck, unhealed, self-loathing codependent wouldn’t help. He’d just yes me and resent me, yes me and resent me, then talk about me behind my back and attract another affair instead of risking and showing up and connecting and being authentic and being real, and the relationship would LOOK wonderful and BE fake. (Just like their marriage.)

I know. And it isn’t helping.

Why can’t I just be healed and live life like other people? What is it going to take to change my feelings and get me there?

**************************************************
Shortly after I wrote all that, this thought surfaced ... 

(coming next week ...)

Twenty-two General Principles for Dealing with Codependency

FUTURE

At night, when the stars come out, if I'm outside, usually in the car, the first one I see, I always do that little "Star light, star bright" prayer. 

What do I wish for? Always the same thing. "If Chi isn't going to get well, please don't let him come back. I don't want to see him again if he's never going to get well." 

Doesn't mean I don't miss him. I do get so caught up sometimes in all I've learned about codependency and the negative consequences of the behavior that I forget the good stuff.

And there was good stuff. If these guys were absolutely no good for us at all, they'd be easy to forget, right? This guy was so sweet, so sharp, so smart. We understood each other so well. He was so funny. We could talk forever about so many things. Once upon a time, Chi posted a joke on his Facebook that was so brilliant and so funny, it was just the epitome of why I fell in love with him and thought he'd be The One, that long-ago someday before Simon ever got widowed and asked me out. (Only I thought Simon would be The One, too. Odd sensation, that. Just look at our horoscopes ... they think the same things!) I can't post the joke here. I wish I could. It's just emblematic of the mind the man has. 

I have a pretty limited, specialized field of knowledge. I've spent so much time with my nose in a medical book, an astrology book, or a psychology book that I really can't tell you much of anything about classic movies, classic books, classic music. But he can. One reason I think Chi knows so much about everything but his own problems is that his inquisitive, brilliant, far-reaching mind has seized on all these other amazing things the world has to offer as a way to distract himself from thinking or learning about his problems. And, yeah ... so does his natal chart. (Sun conjunct Neptune. Moon square Jupiter.)

It's had the side effect of making him absolutely brilliant. And a kindred spirit I still miss very much. 

It's hard to lose the two loves of your life.

And I wonder why I feel so lackluster in life now. When you've had the best, and then you lose it, life isn't going to feel the same ever again. It just isn't. Maybe I should just quit dumping on myself for feeling bad about that and just accept it. This is life. Oh, well.

So, what happens now?

Well, the astrology for the end of this spring and this summer is pretty darn clear. It would smack any idiot upside the head.

If it doesn't happen, I have to assume Chi is just going to stagnate and never, ever get any better, and I don't need to feel bad about losing him. The consequences of a relationship with a codependent this stuck are so clear to me now that I'll know I've dodged a big, bad, bullet.

If the charts call their shot once again, though ... there's where things will get interesting. Let's put it this way: Just because he shows up again does NOT mean he will eventually turn the corner, put his back into it, and become healthier; but the only way I will see him ever again is if that is a distinct possibility. If he's just going to stagnate, he's going to do that at home, or with someone else just as sick and stuck.

Will I follow my own damn common sense, or relapse and do something DUMB? Will Chi ever engage his own problems and get better?

Tune in next ... (For reasons I can't write here, I'm betting the end of the month.)

To that end, I composed the following:

 

TWENTY-TWO PRINCIPLES FOR DEALING WITH CODEPENDENCY

1.)    The truth always comes out. The truth always comes out. The truth always comes out. The truth always comes out.

2.)    That’s because it is, in fact, the truth, and truth is supreme in the universe.

3.)    The longer the truth takes to show itself, the worse the outcome is, and the greater number of (and the worse) people get hurt.

4.)    For these reasons, any and all relationship must always be grounded in the truth.

5.)    Hiding the truth from anyone, including yourself, in any way or for any reason, is never an acceptable thing to do, even when you’re scared. Even when you think you are trying to be nice or kind. Even when someone might get angry.

6.)    When in doubt about this, start at Number One and repeat.

7.)    If you are thinking or feeling the words, “I have no choice because someone might get upset,” or “Someone will get upset, so I have to ...” it’s codependent posturing, you're just groveling to get approval from other people, and you’re not displaying the real truth to yourself or to other people.

8.)    The truth is that you are a human being like all other human beings, with feelings like any other human being, born to unfold YOUR unique needs, talents, and potential, just like any other human being.

9.)    It doesn’t matter if your parents treated you as if you were not a human being because they needed to continue drinking, using drugs, being mentally ill, or whatever it was that they were doing. Even though you were born to people who shouldn’t have been entrusted with the care of precious, vulnerable, tender young children, the truth is that you are still a human being, with the same worth, feelings, rights, and needs to be yourself as any other human being.

10.) It doesn’t matter if you then picked out more relationships in which people treated you the same way your parents did. Principle Eight is STILL true.

11.) While it is true that human beings should not act out aggressively toward other beings or inflict injury to get what they need or want, it is also true that acting, pretending, lying, and turning one’s own feelings and needs down so as not to hurt anyone else is just as deeply painful and hurtful to the self. Refer again to Principle Eight.

12.) If this is hard to understand, start over at Principle One, paying special attention to Principle Eight.

13.) When any person is injured, or when truth is ignored, there are always consequences, and they are usually bad. In pondering this fact, please again review Principles One and Eight.

14.) When we ignore those consequences and repeat the same mistakes, the consequences happen again, and they are usually worse.

15.) When we are codependent, or we have low self-worth, we haven’t acquired a good grasp of the first fourteen principles.

16.) Therefore, the consequences take many years to show themselves, because we are acting, pretending, lying, and fundamentally dishonest in character. So, when the consequences happen, they are exceedingly bad. Life-ruiningly bad, in some cases.

17.) When people have emotional problems, the only thing that will fix those problems is their own determination to do so--their own reading, learning, and study, and their own hard work. Past the teenage years, the time when emotional problems can be altered by treating the sufferer differently is OVER.

18.) For this reason, the best way to help a person with emotional problems is to stand firm and demand that this individual do his own reading, learning, and therapy, and his own hard work. You cannot heal or mature an adult by babying him.

19.) Therefore, the truth is that trying to help an emotionally disturbed person by accommodating yourself to their problems and pain is a solution that never, never works, and this practice must be stopped.

20.) Those who fail to heed these principles will pay a price, usually a very big and very nasty one. It is quite possible to ruin lives by the failure to learn and practice these principles.

21.) The fact that our parents and our early life taught us something other than these principles, or implied that we were bad  or unlovable children if we acted on them when they wanted something else from us, does not make these principles any less true.

22.) Humans are not supposed to spend miserable lives in codependency and low self-worth. We are supposed to work, heal, and get well! So do that. NOW.

The Rory Post I Promised...About the Different Outcomes In Your Life Showing Up In Your Transits.

PRESENT...An Astrology Post.

So, here's how I discovered this. I'm walking through Rory's transits for the next six months, and I see a lot of what I expect given mine and Chi's, and also given the fact that she is still in the position I saw her getting promoted to in her transits this time last year. 

There's something about a sudden freedom from a restriction of some sort...that she may experience the arrival of a person into her life who's going to teach her something...that she's experiencing a time of good social relations with other people...more about confronting inhibitions and restrictions placed upon her by herself and other people...a need to break away from an established order...that she's inappropriately idealizing important relationships in her life...more about receiving a spiritual teacher or guide figure...the need to work very hard to accomplish a task. All of which I expected to see, given what I see in my transits and Chi's over the next two years.

And then...right there in the middle of this mostly ominous stuff...here I find a find a great big ol' Saturn trine Venus. Right smack dab in the middle of what is at great risk of becoming Chi's affair year.

(Some background: I recognized the Saturn trine Venus right away because it was part of the reason I so badly misjudged what was going to happen with Chi and me three years ago. I had this, which often augurs the advent of a very successful and happy relationship, plus a number of other very pleasant transits that promised the same. And, at the same time, I saw several that made me blink and think, Huh? That sounds like he's with Rory! I didn't know what to think. But, Chi asked me to trust him, and I loved him and promised to, and all three therapists believed the marriage was likely to end. So, I had three pieces of evidence leading me to believe the wrong thing. I've wondered about that for three years. What were both sets of transits doing there?)

Now, when I've heard from Chi again right when Alice Portman, several important transits, and my astrology teacher saw that I would, and in the middle of a shitpile of transits suggesting we end up in a real affair...Rory has a Saturn trine Venus.

WTF? Why is that there? What am I supposed to make of that?

I pondered this for several days, and suddenly it all made sense.

Remember several posts back, when I remarked that around two years ago Rory had all these transits telling her it was a good time to dig into her childhood problems and do some very deep and cutting psychological work? That it was a very good time to straighten out some problems that were keeping her from living the way she really wanted to?

She had them, I saw them then, and I knew he was in therapy and they were in marriage counseling. Naturally, I thought they were getting top-notch help (see Avoid the Below-Average Therapist), and I assumed they would both work hard and make real progress. She had these good work transits when she needed them. I assumed she would make good use of them. Therefore, I expected they'd save their marriage (as most marrieds in this situation eventually do). I'd lose Chi forever, and I was correspondingly depressed.

Then I heard from Chi again, and I heard what had actually happened.

Rory did NOT make good use of those transits. Here where she could have entered individual therapy herself, made progress herself, and saved her marriage...she elected not to make use of this opportunity.

Now it hits me--if she had, this is where the marriage would have started to work out! This is where things should be getting easier, and where they'd start to be happier and recommitted to one another on a healthier and more honest basis.  If that had happened, she'd be living that Saturn trine Venus in her marriage right about now!


But she didn't...and I'm living all the UNhappy ones instead. The ones that are talking about the need for deep psychological work and introspection, and the need for me to stay out of power and control. The ones coming up in the next few months that are calling me a control freak and telling Rory she's about to receive a spiritual teacher in the form of an enemy whose controlling nature is going to wreak havoc in her life.

THERE REALLY ARE TWO TIMELINES DEPICTED IN HERE FOR EACH PERSON.

Holy toledo!!!

The reason this is of extreme importance in the coming eighteen months or so:

ALL of those good psychological work transits Rory just finished with, are now coming up in Chi's chart.

Now he's getting them! HE now has the opportunity to work out unresolved childhood issues that Rory just had and elected not to pursue.

And I know, from reading ahead in his transits and mine--confirmed by everything I know about codependency and enmeshment in relationships--what happens if he does not do the work, and I've already detailed it before in this blog. He stays hideously codependent, flip-flops between two women for some FIVE YEARS (tearing the living shit out of everyone involved), as I detailed in The Missing Piece One and Two. He finally leaves the marriage, but his next relationship (unfortunately reflected in my transits) is unhealthy. He begins codependent behavior almost immediately, and in a few short years finds that, once again, he's agreed to things in the relationship that he doesn't really like, and once again is afraid to speak up for himself.

Then crisis hits the relationship. His relationship partner has something going on in her career that takes her eyes off the relationship for a time. Chi, being emotionally fused and still codependent, goes into a tailspin. "I KNEW I wasn't lovable!" He finds someone else and has another affair, and the relationship is never the same, and ends HORRIBLY about ten years later, when we're 71 and 81.

IF you follow his leg of bad transits.

In actuality, starting right about now and picking up steam after 2019, there's a good leg of transits, showing a person who uses the opportunity coming up in the work transits this year I've just told you about. This leg shows a person who works hard and makes a good recovery, and whose life goes much, much better from then on.

Now, what makes the difference between Bad Leg One, and Good Leg Two? In Bad Leg One, why doesn't Chi take advantage of those good work transits, dig in, do the work required, and get the fuck well??
 
Because he's having an affair with me instead.

Because I didn't put all this together, didn't get over my childish need for emotional fusion with someone else (see the post that's coming next week for details), and didn't hold off, hold his feet to the fire, and absolutely refuse to be with him if he doesn't take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to free himself of codependency and low self worth, work his little ass off, and HEAL.

Because I was afraid I'd lose him if I did that, and decided to have the affair and see if I could tempt him away from Rory.

I wasn't farsighted enough to see that if I did that, all I'd get was a very sick, STUCK codependent who would turn around and hurt me the way he does himself (and, eventually, everyone else.) Just like my mother. Just like Jane. I didn't fucking learn anything, and turned around and picked yet another one...when I could have put my foot down, and maybe he'd have worked and gotten well!

And, whaddya know?? Look at MY transits right now!

Another split!

Out of six big transits going over the next six months:

One talks about being noticed in a career.

One talks about having big ideas tempered with common sense, and knowing what I can and can't do.

Here's Robert Hand writing about the third one on the good leg:

Pluto trine Pluto: Up to you 

Beginning of February 2018 until mid-December 2019: This is a period of stability, in which very deep and perseverant energies lend themselves to you. Whether you make use of them or not is completely up to you. However, if you do decide to use them, there will be potential for inner growth. From this position you can gain deep insights into the functioning of your psyche which might have shocked you at other times. This is a time for simplification and for finding out what is really meaningful to you. It is a period when you are not only able to, but should, make changes. It is a time when you are able to eliminate the old and outworn elements of your life with relative ease because there will be little in the way. It may even seem so easy that you are not aware of its being an issue, but you should not rest on your laurels. Take an inventory of your life, your friendships, your possessions and other attachments and involvements. See which of these support you and at the minimum allow you to grow. These should be preserved. But do not struggle to preserve anything that does not serve you, especially if it seems to want to pass away. This is most important, because whatever you do not eliminate from your life now that does not serve you could become a cause of difficulty during more stressful times that may come along later.
 

And the last three, the bad leg, is talking about a spiritual teacher that will come into my life, who doesn't look like a spiritual teacher, and a transient, bad relationship that's very challenging and likely to end fairly soon. Right through the middle of 2020, which is when Rory's transits sound like Chi is back, and mine sound like I've been very painfully dumped, and more brokenhearted than I've ever been.

(And considering the last four years I've spent, that's really saying something.)

Now: Astrologers typically read only two or three years of transits at a time. If I had done that, I would never have been able to make sense out of all of this. To make sense out of all of this, I needed all three charts, and I needed to look at ALL the transits over a period of some twenty-five years!

But now that I have, look what I've learned!

And, I hate to point this out, but everything in everyone's bad transit legs has happened so far, right on schedule, from 2014 up until October of last year.

Will it happen again?

Stay tuned...

Yep. I think there really is something to the idea of doing a Whole Life Progression. There really is. 

Years ago, when I didn't know crap about astrology, and used to scrimp and save to buy one yearly transit report off astro.com at a time, I used to notice that half my transits always sounded lovely and half sounded bad. That I always lived the bad ones, and never the good ones. It got to where, if I saw a transit that sounded wonderful, I knew that one wouldn't happen. And I always wondered why.

It happens because we're unconscious, we're fucking SLEEPWALKERS, and we don't fucking LEARN. A classmate said it in the last class I took: "Astrology is only predictive when we don't learn anything. Astrology is only predictive because people do the same things over and over."

After this, you can't tell me astrology is bunk, or that it's not useful!

THE MISSING PIECE, Part Two

PRESENT

Here’s the point: THE MISSING PIECE.

During my two-and-a-half year study of our charts and transits, Chi always a had a few I wasn’t sure fit. It made me doubt the astrology a bit. Selfishness was portrayed, and, starting right about now, pretty prominently. Volatility. Erratic behavior. Unpredictability. Hurting other people and thinking one deserves to.

These transits, I doubted. “Chi isn’t like that!!”

And NOW I realize THAT THE ASTROLOGY IS DESCRIBING

THESE FIRST TWO  STAGES.

OH

MY

GOD.

What the astrology is describing, is Chi FINALLY, at the age of almost sixty, ENTERING THIS PHASE OF HIS LIFE THAT MOST OF US DID IN OUR TEENS.

Individuation. Self-differentiation. The feeling that IT IS ALL RIGHT TO BECOME OUR OWN PERSON.

And what the astrology is telling me is that, if he does show up again and we aren't careful, he gets stuck here and never matures out of it!

The astrology, in the leg of bad transits where he never does his work and never gets well, is perfectly describing a person who flip-flops back and forth between “shell” and “rebellion” for the rest of his life!!!

PLEASE NOTE: Neither shell nor rebellion is healthy.

(Okay, they may be in childhood, because a kid hasn’t been alive on the planet for very long and has no experience or knowledge of himself to be able to do any better. A kid has to work with the experience he has, and at eight, ten, fifteen, he doesn’t have much.)

At sixty, however…

“I’m no good. Please love me, I feel worthless, I’ll do anything, ANYTHING!” That’s “shell” behavior, and at this age, such rigid and total denial of the self IS NOT HEALTHY.

“Fuck you! I’m sick of your rules and your total disregard of me! I’m going to do what I WANT, and too bad if you don’t like it!” That’s rebel behavior, it’s selfish, and at sixty, it’s not healthy, either.

And his transits in the next two years are telling me, "Look out for this! It's coming!"

I just didn't know til now what I was looking at.

Only the last column (see last week) is healthy. That column reflects moderation, a stance that honors others AS WELL AS the self. Children can't do that. Adults are supposed to mature to this level, and adulthood is a lifelong process of learning that healthy MODERATION between the needs of others, the needs of self, and when it's okay to act for self instead of others or others instead of self.

Not stuck at all times in others instead of self, and not stuck at all times in self instead of others. 

It is a place of balance between others and self. Sometimes you, sometimes me, both of us when and if that can be achieved. Balance in the Force! If you will. 

Codependency can be understood as a disease of failing to achieve this adult and healthy moderation. (Of course, it isn't the only one. Look at BPD, NPD, and sociopathy.) 

Fuck, man. Look at Chi’s sun sign. THE SCALES!!!

What I’m seeing reflected in his horoscope is the crossroads. THIS split:

At this time in the life, he either successfully makes this leap from childhood to maturity, and that mature ADULT ability to consider self AS WELL AS others, and of at least equal importance,

OR

He does NOT. Instead of making this crucial, successful leap in maturing this part of the personality, he does NOT make it to that moderate, wise, thoughtful third column, and spends the REST OF HIS LIFE FLIP-FLOPPING BETWEEN COLUMNS ONE AND TWO!!!

And…

And…

And…

IF I DO THE WRONG THING, I CONTRIBUTE TO HIS NOT BEING ABLE TO GET TO COLUMN THREE!

                                                                 ***

Why do I do this?? Why, why do I do this??

BECAUSE I DON’T RECOGNIZE THAT THIS IS A NORMAL STAGE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT, HAPPENING FORTY-FIVE YEARS LATER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED!

Because I didn’t do my homework! I didn’t find out about this! I don’t recognize what’s happening.

And THAT’S BECAUSE I’M TOO DAMN NEEDY.

And THIS IS WHY our Davison is telling me that the success of the relationship depends on me completing some "internal process," and why I’ve been so damn persistent these last three years!
(Should he even be well enough to hit the rebellion stage again and come back to me right about now, which his chart is telling me he is.)

IN ORDER FOR HIM TO HEAL FROM CODEPENDENCY

I HAVE TO HEAL FROM CODEPENDENCY.

If I’m still codependent, and he comes back: “Oh, I love you, I need you, I’m ready to leave her!” I’m so needy, and I don’t know this, and I fucking believe it!

I don’t realize he hasn’t made it to Column Three! (Hey, he's been in therapy for three fucking years, right?? Who could possibly imagine he hasn't moved an inch! Especially since this therapist has forty years' experience, someone we both trust recommended him, and blah blah blah blah blah.)

But now I KNOW he hasn’t made it to Column Three, because I’ve DONE my motherfucking work, and therefore I see--I can observe--that he hasn’t. 

So I know that this “Chiron return”--if it does happen in the next week or two--is happening because he hasn’t done the work, not because he has. 

(Please note that I did nickname him "Chiron," and that, should things go poorly and he dumps me again, the time this is scheduled to happen is in two years...coinciding with my astrological Chiron Return...cited as a time in the life when many people experience serious heartbreak. Isn't astrology fascinating?)

If he shows up on schedule, it's an improvement, to be sure. At least he's beginning to find and fight for the self. But he needs to recover from codependency in order to do that in a thoughtful, mature way. The horoscope transits keep talking about the need for thought, slowness, reflection, meditation. THIS IS WHY!!!

It's gonna be tough. This whole family is enmeshed, and they don't understand what's happening. All they see is the perfection Chi's acting has shown them for forty years, and they're going to attack him for "destroying" the apparent perfection and "abandoning" "poor Rory." (They don't see that she abandoned him a long time ago!)

And that's why his transits right now are wringing their hands and counseling delay, telling him he needs a closer inspection of the situation. (And, for that matter, so are the tarot cards! How the HECK ya gonna get such strong agreement from every oracle you consult? What are the odds of that? Seriously, people.)

When he starts reverting back to Column One again, because the kids and the relatives all start mudslinging again, and I haven't done my homework, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know why. I'm codependently whining, "But he said he loved me!" I didn’t expect it. It looked so much like he was better!

To prevent this, my job now is to see that his work and his therapy have been inadequate, redirect him to better resources and DEMAND that he try again, then LOOK TO SEE if Column Three is in view yet. If not, I have to leave him again.

And I can’t do that if I’m still lonely and needy. I have no one else in my life, and if I'm still lonely and needy, I'm heartsick, and afraid I may never see him again if I do that. And I can't handle it.

                                                        ***

Um, did you know that extreme, debilitating, horribly painful loneliness and neediness IS A CLINICAL FEATURE OF CODEPENDENCY? It’s called, PATHOLOGICAL LONELINESS.

Until recently, I didn’t know that, either. My loneliness is...was...a sign I’m still codependent.

I have to get over this shit forthwith, or I’m still codependent when/if he enters rebellion and comes back here again, and I torpedo his chances of recovery.

And, since a severely ill codependent can’t have a healthy relationship, I’ve torpedoed our chances of health as a couple (if in fact that were to ever happen). I'm a good enough astrologer now to be able to go through our composites and see the other aspects that are talking about this. And, I can put it all together and weigh probable outcomes based on what we each might do, because I read books like this one.

THIS IS ALL REFLECTED IN OUR MOTHERFUCKING HOROSCOPES.

And NOW I UNDERSTAND IT ALL.

OH

MY

FUCKING

GOD.

Avoid the Below-Average Therapist

PAST...

I still remember, and you might, too, the times last summer and fall when I was on here shaking in my size 8 shoes, wondering if Chi would be back when the astrology said he would and if I was just plumb crazy.

I thought, just because I turned out to be right and he DID show up again, that would be the end of my worries. Right?

Wrong.

There turned out to be quite a big difference between what I had expected, through everything I had been reading, and what actually turned out to have happened.

To explain: What was I reading? (And, more to the point, what was I watching? I spent a lot of time on You Tube, watching the fabulous videos put together by Family Tree Life Coaches . Although, I have to say, for codependency, life coach Lisa Romano is quickly becoming a fave.)

I was reading a bunch of stuff by therapists, about all these relevant issues. And the thing is, it's usually the BEST therapists who get books published and put free videos out online. So I was sort of living in a dream world where, wherever Chi and Rory went, they would be getting that caliber help.

It doesn't sound like it, to put it mildly.

I was reading books like Should I Stay or Should I Go? How a Controlled Separation Can Save Your Marriage 

and

The White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself from the Need to Rescue Others

and

Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love

That last one really mislead me, in a way. Not that I didn't see a whole lot of truth in it about me, Chi, and Rory, but from what I was reading there, I at least expected Chi and Rory to reconnect. In that book, the pattern described is: the love addict moves out, and when that person gives up and tries to end the relationship, the love avoidant turns around and tries to pursue the love addict, and for a while things look good. The love addict is happy to be wanted, the love avoidant is happy to have the love addict back again, and they're close again for a while until things get too close for the love avoidant again and the love addict gets too clingy and needy again and well...

...it all falls apart.

I was also, of course, reading the astrology.

Rory certainly had the transits where she could have knuckled down and done some hard work on herself to save her marriage. I saw when they were, and looking up at the above, thinking they were getting that caliber of help, and seeing only what I could see on their Facebooks, it certainly looked like it.

I expected either that they would be fine, or, if they weren't and he came back, it would be because they had a moment of reconnection and relapsed. I thought if he showed up again, it would be my relationship with Chi vs. Rory's relationship with Chi, not my relationship with Chi vs. a total nonstarter and the opinions of family and friends.

Then Chi actually showed up again, and I got the report of what really HAD happened.

Good grief.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when I heard what their therapy experiences had really been like. Imagine my surprise and dismay when I heard that Rory, after attacking Chi with the news that ALL the problems were his fault and she was angry he didn't even want to go to marriage counseling, sort of sleepwalked through it and acted like she really didn't want to be there herself. I thought when Chi left our club meetings and didn't come back, it was because they reconnected and he moved back home.

Well...he'd moved back home, all right. The reconnection bit...not so much. He lived in the father-in-law suite for several months and is in the process of halfway moving back in there again.

Jesus.

I thought I would be peeking back in on a situation in which the participants had done at least SOME work and made at least SOME progress. Not so!

Rory is just as cold and self-centered and emotionally vague and constipated as ever. Chi, instead of working on his own codependency and low self worth--which were the things I talked to him about that day, lo, THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO when I convinced him to go for help, went right back to focusing on other people and other people's problems, and through a combination of family issues, health issues, and therapists I believe were downright incompetent, pretty much hasn't moved an INCH since I last spoke to him.

This is bad. Really bad.

For those reading this, there are a lot of bad therapists out there. If you go to therapy for a marital issue, especially a midlife one, what you need to be seeing and hearing when you start is some assessment of your childhood home and family environment. This is because most marital issues start in childhood, and we all bring any wounding done to us by parents and family on into the present unless and until we sit ourselves down and do some very serious WORK on it.

If your therapist isn't requiring that you do this, you may be spending your money on a rather expensive Band-Aid. Go check out the videos I mention and you will see the kind of approach I mean.

I spent my childhood watching a stuck parent not take advantage of therapeutic materials around her and continue ruining her own and everyone else's life.

I hate to say it, but it kind of looks like I am watching it again.

And that's sad, because what if Chi ever did leave Rory? He's still as sick as a goddamn dog. Now I inherit the problems, and this person has shown little motivation to work on them. Let any family member anywhere in the northern hemisphere wave one of their own problems at him, and...oh...whoops! There he goes...up...up...and AWAY to solve all their problems for them, and then complain three years later how he's taking care of all these other people again.

That's codependency.

And I could kick, I really could kick, this therapist of his all over town for putting him in group therapy only after a measly eight weeks, and not insisting on ATTACKING THE CODEPENDENCY AND LOW SELF ESTEEM. Head on. With serious intensive work. BEFORE marital therapy!

Look how much work I've done in three years and look how sad this situation is.

Ai, ai, ai.

Anyway, don't end up like this. Check those links out, and avoid the below-average therapist.

So Why the Fuck Do I Change My Mind??

FUTURE

WHAT convinces me to do this, when I see how things are now?

All through this, I haven't been STUPID. Last time, I looked for the classic, married-man-swears-he's-leaving-but-always-has-an-excuse-and-never-moves-out. THAT'S what fooled me the first time. He consulted a divorce lawyer. He moved out. He went to counseling. It was going to be divorce counseling.

THEN it fell apart. Why? Guilt. Codependency.

Clearly, I'd need to see behavior at least as convincing as that in order to change my mind, so I presume that this is what happens. 

And we all know how well Chi can act. He's such a good actor, he even convinces himself he feels some way about a thing when he really doesn't. Anything, anything to make someone else happy and avoid conflict of any sort.

And then I remembered something.

A year and a half or so ago, I told my therapist, the wonderful Janice (who hasn't committed me yet over all this astrology!) that I was rereading all our notes to each other, and I had noticed something. Every time a new person walked onstage and started talking, what Chi thought would SWING to match what that person said.

Now, look at this: It's been three years. To all outside observers, the marriage LOOKS stable. (Because, once again, Chi is groveling to PLEASE OTHER PEOPLE, and NOT TELLING THE TRUTH.)

Because the marriage looks stable, the kids, the friends, and the relatives have all shut up.

Marriage counseling is over. He's upstairs writing me while Rory is downstairs. (Once AGAIN, as if the intervening three years never happened.) 

Rory has shut up.

There's no more individual therapy. He's only in group. His therapist, most unfortunately and unwisely, has shut up.

Once again, Chi is lonely. And once again, I am the only one talking.

And what did I just say?? "I guess we'll just have to end contact."

OH, SHIT.

He's already mimicking me now! About our club meetings. I already told him they'd just lead to disaster. I got no argument. I got agreement. Then: He started telling me what I originally said about it!

And then what did I say?? "You deserve so much more than this in life. How can you accept so little? Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Now his therapy group is going to talk. They've heard the ENTIRE story of the past two and a half years, much more than I heard. What do you think they're saying right now??

And we all know what Chi does when a new person steps up onstage and talks.

What's he going to say to himself now? BUT: Is he any more ready or able to follow through on that?

Let's add one more clue to the compilation I put up here one week ago:

20.) Chi NEVER thinks for himself until he's desperately, desperately unhappy. Literally, until he's entertained the idea of suicide a couple of times. (Really. A person needs to be thinking for himself long, loooong before that.) Until then, his first response--he believes it's his first DUTY--is to adopt the thoughts, opinions, and perspective of the other person. (Unhealthy Sun in Libra in action, folks!!) And he ACTS with the skill of Robert De Niro.

And THIS is why we have communication problems! 

Sometimes deception in a relationship happens because one person is  consciously trying to use and hurt the other one. 

This deception is happening because one person can neither find nor fight for the self.

THIS IS MOON OPP NEPTUNE. This is the deception and miscommunication I've been warned about.

He's going to come back to me and say all this--"I can't live like that anymore, I love you, I miss you, I have to leave--" AND FOLLOW IT UP WITH BEHAVIOR--and I believe him.

This is what happened the first time. And I fall right for it again, because:

I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A MANIFESTATION OF CODEPENDENCY AND A WEAK, WEAK EGO. NOBODY DOES!!

I BELIEVE IT'S REALLY HIM.

Especially when, especially when, especially when, especially when--

It's what I think he should do anyway! (Remember how I'm advised to stop CONTROLLING?? Because I need him to make me feel less afraid and more secure in life? You know--that stuff I'm supposed to be doing for myself??)

Especially when, especially when, especially when, especially when--

I'm lonely and needy and it's what I long to hear.

There's my Neptune in house three! There's why I misunderstand.


But really, who knows? 

I mean, fuck, man. It could really be him, but...

...as soon as he leaves Rory, the relatives all start up again, and his thoughts, all over again, SWING to match their pain and SWING to match everything they're screaming at him. And the next thing we know, it's back to, "They're going to cut me out of the family. I'm causing other people too much pain." 


Because he hasn't done any work within himself to know any other way to handle the situation.

And how do I know that?? Because I've spent the past two and a half years reading books, watching videos, uncovering what's wrong with ME, journaling, and healing--and he hasn't. All he's done is sat in the back of a therapy group watching OTHER people working, healing, getting well, and moving on. While he speaks in that group maybe once every few weeks. And focuses ALL HIS ATTENTION on other people, other people's problems, doing what other people want, and making sure other people are happy and nobody's mad at him.

Folks, this is the definition of codependency. All he's doing is cycling and cycling back through it, 

f
  a
    l
      l
       i
        n
          g
             
           back, back, BACK INTO THE ILLNESS that got him here

                       DOING IT ALL OVER AGAIN

instead of studying, working in therapy, healing from the sick childhood with sick parents that did this to him in the first place,

            INSTEAD OF GETTING THE FUCK WELL.

PLEASE NOTE:

Recovery from a broken childhood is not a spectator sport. 

If you spend sixty years avoiding difficult emotional work, you spend sixty years forever a lonely, sad, broken child, making everyone else your parent, bending over backwards for mommy and daddy to love you and take care of you the way you needed when you really were a child. 

And you do the same damn thing, over and over...ruining everyone else's life in the process, because YOU WON'T LET YOURSELF KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND WHEN YOU DO KNOW YOU WON'T TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT IT. 

Because, believe it or not, YOU ARE A PERSON. You are a real person, just like other people, with the VERY SAME NEED to BE YOUR REAL SELF.

Only, growing up in a sick family, you learned that you shouldn't be your real self. What you should do instead is look at everyone else to tell you who you should be. And when we do that, it hurts. Humans have to be themselves, and acting hurts. And everyone else knows that, but sick families don't. And you believe that being your real self instead of performing for the people around you, is bad. 

Because your family of origin displayed to you that YOU were bad, and should not have a self. And you're still believing that, even when you experience that living this way hurts you. So you don't even understand why it hurts, and you keep trying to mute out the hurt, stamp it out, push it in, cram it in, so you can keep doing all the things that please everyone else and keep everyone else happy. 

And eventually it hurts so much you can't stand it anymore, and blow up and move out or have an affair, and it's right about now that everyone else wonders, "What's wrong with you?"


AND YOUR LOVED ONES GET THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF THEM, BECAUSE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR NEED TO ACT FOR THEM, AND THEY TRUST YOUR WORD.

And half the time, you're so worried about what they will think of you, you're trusting your word, too! When, 


if you just had some of your OWN approval,

you wouldn't need so much of everyone else's.

(I don't know how many times I thought this same thing of my mother, watching the way she acted when I was a child.)

So you run around and around the same worn track, avoiding those codependency books and videos like they're the damn plague, when they are the only way OFF the same worn track. 

Then you wonder why three more years passed and you're still living in a world of pain.

                                 ***

There's a saying among astrologers that the only reason astrology is predictive is: WE DON'T LEARN.

Yes, it all happens all over again, only this time I'm even more horribly devastated. Because this time I thought it was for keeps. He stays out of the marriage for two years this time. Marriage counseling didn't work; Rory is still behaving abominably; anybody else would leave. 

And I'm judging him by that adult part of him that holds a Very Important Position that requires a lot of smarts and made him a million dollars. I expect that that sad hurting little boy healed and grew up, because he can LOOK like it for months at a time.

But without the WORK, these things don't happen. And look who spent the past three years working on other people, instead of on himself. Again!!!

This time, we're together twenty-four months instead of only four.

And this time, I am devastated beyond ALL recognition.

                                  ***

Unhealed from old child feelings of being scared, lonely, and unable to take care of myself or find any meaning in life if I don't have some close loved one around, and without the tool of astrology, 

I can't see this.

Healed, and with astrology, I can.

And THAT'S the crucial internal process I was supposed to wait to complete, and why I've been so obsessive and in such a damn hurry these last three years. 

If I'm incapable of finding my purpose and my own two feet, I'm so needy, a-tiptoe to hear him say those magic three words ("I'm divorcing Rory") that I have NO hope of figuring out what's actually going on. (And I'd better, because I'm not too sure if this therapist of his has any fucking clue.)

I need too badly for it to be real.

And our whole relationship goes on and on like that!! For TWENTY YEARS! IT NEVER STOPS. Because he never sets to work and HE NEVER GETS WELL. And I was going to perpetuate it, because before I started reading the astrology and seeing all these warnings, I was frozen in place, that sad, scared, lonely little child wounded and hurt by HER parents. I wasn't going to get well, either.

No matter how hard I thought I was listening or how it looked like he was telling me the truth, our relationship would have been just like Chi and Rory--especially if I stay controlling, trying to mold him and our life the way I wanted. I'd hear this, and it would look like it was the truth: 

"Yes-dear-yes-dear-yes-dear-yes-dear," until one day...

"AAAUUGGHH!! I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!"

Only he isn't assertive enough to a.) say that early on, and b.) back himself up...which would have prevented the problems! 

Instead, he just finds other people to complain to, and one of them about ten years from now is an unattached woman, and then... and then ... 

I get to be Rory.

(Hence the saying, If he cheated on her, he'll cheat on you. In this case, here's why. Unhealed, untreated, RAMPANT codependency and low self worth. Ah, giving in to codependency always looks like you're doing the right thing at the time...doesn't it??)

And Rory and I and everyone else are always baffled. It looks so much like it's really him.

                               ***

And IT'S ALL HAPPENING. In the next three months.

HOLY

FUCKING

SHIT.

Well, now I've already started it. I've already started the trajectory. Here we go.

How to alter the forthcoming bad transits? Is there any possibility of a happy ending? What's the middle road? Is it so dangerous to me that I no longer care?

In a word: YIPES.