Willingness.

Present.

Since the time for the predictions is rolling around, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of Chi, this is the time I'm starting to get worried. To the point of upset, to the point of obsessed.

And that isn't okay. Obsession is painful. Obsession obscures everything else that might have been good in my life. Obsession increases the chance of doing something DUMB. Obsession means I won't be happy with anything other than the outcome I wanted. And that outcome, as far as my eyes can see, isn't happening.

Astrology. What a double-edged sword. What I've discovered helped me feel better, in that I saw that stepping into this in the first place did something beneficial in this person's life--at least in terms of showing him that what he was dealing with wasn't normal and that he could actually have a relationship in which he was treated differently. I once had an hour-long panic attack because of my ethical qualms in doing this. AND I have seen, thanks to last October, that I don't have to hate myself for what is normally a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to do. He needed it. It was beneficial for him...although it did usher in a period of, um, change in their relationship. In that sense, being able to read charts has been helpful.

BUT...unfortunately for me, I could also see the best possible outcome of our relationship. And it was one that I would have been very happy with. This has been unfortunate for me, because now I want that and I'm anxious about it.

I keep going around and around about this. Right about now, Rory has some pretty big transits showing she's being borderline abusive to Chi again. (Nothing she hasn't done before, sad to say.) And this was to be the occasion of her entire next year, which I took a look at this week and found...shocking.

She has exactly one out of twenty-four transits that talks about happiness in her intimate relationship. ONE. A couple more talk about being of retirement age, and about happiness in things she's doing in the outside world. The rest, and I mean ALL the rest, are talking about great unhappiness in her intimate relationship, the fault mainly of Rory herself, and fully twelve out of twenty-four transits and progressions talk about somebody in the relationship having an affair. (Three guesses who that is.)

Correspondingly, only three of twenty-two transits and progressions he has speak of any kind of peace in his intimate relationship. ALL of the rest describe great unhappiness, and five specifically point to an affair starting.

Of mine, half are talking about being the third party in an affair, cautioning me to watch my behavior and stay out of power and control. In the other half, I'm all alone, and half of those, I'm sinking into ennui and despair about it. The other half of the alone ones show me finding a creative purpose for my life and being content with just that.

That last is, well, a happy enough ending, I guess. Things, as you can see, could be a hell of a lot worse.

But, thanks to astrology, I have our Davison, which shows me that the happiest of endings here was indeed possible (once possible?) and of course when you meet someone you are that compatible with and love this much, you want that ending. (At least, I do.)

This is the bad side of being able to read for yourself. Now I sit here and point at that happiest of endings, and go, "But how do I get there?"

Here is where I start to second-guess myself. What if I had said yes last October?? Well, if I had, I would have virtually guaranteed the affair starting right around now, because we would have been speaking regularly and in contact.

But I said no. I had the chance to say yes, and I said no. 

Does that mean I can never be with this person now, because I heard from him again and I said no?? Was that my only window, and now it's over and that's the end, because I could have said yes then and I didn't??

In that case, am I sorry I said no?

Yes, because I love and want this person and that may have been it, my last chance!

But...wait a minute...

WHY did I say no?

I said no because I saw in the astrology, and I knew from the past, that if he had me to complain to and fantasize about, he wouldn't W-O-R-K ON HIS CODEPENDENCY. He wouldn't engage with his problems. He'd simply use me as an escape and as a complaining outlet, and he wouldn't get better. Clearly, that would not be the best outcome for him, so I bit the bullet and did what I knew was right. I did what I knew would be best for him.

Besides, I knew that there would only be one reason I would have said yes to that. Because I saw that he was sniffing around again, and I was trying to tempt him away from Rory once again. In other words, an unhealthy exercise of power and control, which I am expressly advised NOT to do, and which I completely see the wisdom of. 

These two VERY good reasons were why I said no last October. AND ALSO...

Looking ahead to this year, I could see that I stood an excellent chance of getting him back again no matter what I did, so I bet big. I placed a BIG bet that if I did the right thing, I would get him back anyway...which made doing the right thing a whole lot easier. If I really believed then that if I did the right thing, I'd lose him forever...I'm not so sure I could have done the right thing.

So now I've done the right thing...and I'm doomed to lose him forever no matter HOW shitty Rory acts from here on in??

Wow. Life IS unfair.

(Again.)

So now I find myself in a tailspin. When was I supposed to see this person again, anyhow?? The last time was pretty easy to extrapolate. The markers I used last time were clearly obvious to me. I'm trying to pin down how my teachers did it, and I'm afraid I'm just not good enough to be able to pin anything down to any specific month. Some of the same kinds of things are active again, but that's over a period of time and I don't know how to pin anything down any better. All I know is, if it's March 1st and he's still gone, he's probably gone forever at that point.

And I keep doing this to myself and it's miserable. Why do I want someone who puts me through this???

I had to think long and hard about that. 

One answer, and this one I know. (Besides that, it's also clearly spelled out in the astrology.) And that is, I DO NOT HAVE CONTROL.

I've been over this before. I. HAVE. NO. CONTROL. OVER. THE. OUTCOME. OF. THIS. SITUATION.

Just like I have no control over what my mother did and whether she got well and ever treated me better or not, I have no control over Chi and whether he will ever get well and treat me better or not. As with all problematic love relationships, this one mimics, absolutely perfectly, the old childhood struggle to get my mother to act better and treat me, a tender, vulnerable young child, the way I needed and deserved for her to treat me.

(So does Chi's with Rory and Rory's with Chi, come to think of it. That's why we're in the triangle to begin with.)

I have one and only one legitimate area of control: If the relationship shows up again, look to see if it appears healthy or not. If not, say no. (That's what I did last October.)

Last year I accepted that. This year, I have to bring myself back to the fence and accept it all over again. Because I lived a childhood that taught not only that it was GOOD for me to try to control other people's decisions to heal or not heal, but that I COULD control other people's decisions to heal or not heal.

And I can't.

The only person who can decide to heal is Chi. And if Rory does, too, I lose.

(At least two of us would be happy that way. An almost acceptable outcome.)

The other problem I see is one of willingness.

In order to accept the outcome that Chi and Rory grow together and become happy again, and I never see him again, or they don't, but he just doesn't respect himself enough to leave because he still feels as if everyone else's feelings are more important than his own (this is unhealed codependency, folks), I have to be willing for that outcome to happen.

And I'm not.

I want my fairytale, goddamnit!!!

No, I don't want everyone else's lives ruined. But, I don't want to be the instrument of ruin, either. Then, I simply have to accept that the only way I get my outcome is if, A.) Rory continues to be the same old Rory--she sure was last October--and, B.) Chi gets healthy enough that leaving looks like the only option.

And I have ZERO control over either of those. Zero, zero, zero.

So I might as well stop scanning those horoscopes and overthinking last October. This has already been decided for me.

All I have to do is accept it, and be willing to live another outcome than the outcome I wanted.

Because it very well may be that next spring rolls around, and I'm still living here in the outcome I didn't want. This outcome I'm not happy in.

And there won't be any recourse then, just like there isn't any now.

How can I make myself stop hurting, and make myself willing to live the rest of my life just the way things are now?

Do I even get a consolation prize for doing the right thing? Like, do I get someone else?? Not that I can see. Not 'til I'm sixty-five, if then.

Clearly, I'm supposed to become happy without Chi, without any romantic male partnership ever, ever again. I'm supposed to be willing for that to happen, I'm supposed to learn to be happy with that.

Man.

That is a very tall order.

But it kind of looks like that's the way it's going to be.

And I'm very sad. That's just the way it is for me. I am very sad.

Because of our Davison--correct in the case of me and my husband, correct in the case of Chi and Rory--I see that we really could have been very happy together. If we BOTH were willing to do the work.

And I hope one day I won't feel this way about it anymore. I am too sad.

I have learned a lot, and I have become wise from this experience. I'm just so, so sorry I had to lose this man in order to do it. The price of wisdom is just too high, sometimes.

I would have been SO much happier the other way. Provided the guy actually got healthy enough to be in a relationship with me, and I felt solid enough in that knowledge.

But I don't control that. Chi does.

What I control is, do I get well from this or not? Can I become happy again, no matter what happens?

And HOW THE FUCK DO I DO THAT????

Affairs and Religion

Eternal.

My tarot card readings have been interesting this week. I'm supposed to be doing something important, but I'm not. Something creative, something career-related.

Instead, I've become more and more obsessed with this idea that all our life possibilities really ARE spelled out in our transits over time, and we just don't recognize it because we're only looking at two or three years of transits at once and assuming that all describe the path we're on with equal force. I have a theory that if I look more carefully at mine, I'll see that the transits I look at and go, "Huh? What's that doing there? That doesn't describe my life at all!" actually can be traced to something that had an opportunity to occur in the past but didn't, and it's part of an inactive timeline for my life ... a road not taken. Sort of like when I had an opportunity to spend time with Chi every two weeks again, but turned it down.


I took the unprecedented (so far as I know) step of printing out all my Liz Greene transit reports for the next three years and cutting them apart so I can group them according to what they seem to be describing. It turns out that I actually have three timelines in my transits--one where I'm embroiled in a destructive affair with Chi, one where I discover a meaning and a purpose in my writing and go on to discover a blazing passion in life and am happily occupied even though I'm all alone (at least for a few more years), and then there's that last one ... where neither of the above happens. Chi never comes back, I'm STILL all alone, but I sink into apathy and ennui because I feel I have no purpose in life. 


On Astro.com, Liz Greene has a wonderful article about  how astrology reflects a person's will to live. She writes that human beings need to feel that they're here on this planet for a reason, and if they have that sense, they are happily engaged in life. When we don't, we start to stagnate and die, engaging in all kinds of harmful behaviors and degenerating into sour, old, unhappy, unhealthy people. And looking at all this, I can see that's true. If Chi is in my life and I respond unhealthily, giving up on writing because now I can make trying to fix his problems my priority (convenient--now I don't have to brave this difficult marketplace, because I'm a very unhealthy family caregiver instead, and I made that my purpose--"He needs me!") Whether he's in my life or not, I can find my purpose or I can give up on it and be purposeless ... and there's all that negative behavior Liz Greene says we do in that case when we don't know why we're here and what we're supposed to be doing. And I know it's true. (Look at my BPD mom and how she acts.)

OK, I got that, but what's my purpose in life? I had thought maybe it was showing people how to marry astrology and psychology to make more sense of their lives. Chi not ever coming back had cast that into doubt. Yeah, I'd studied hard, I knew what was happening and why, and because I did that, I knew unerringly what to do and why when he showed up again.

But if the guy never shows up again, even though we have these and those transits that said he would...I've obsessed over all that work, to no good purpose. Fatal flaw in that work, huh?

Not necessarily. You're probably wondering what any of the preceding has to do with religion. Well, hold on tight, because it does.

I had to take a break in all this because the 94-year-old great aunt I've taken care of for the past nine years passed away. I had just spent Mother's Day with her a month ago. During the visit, I was upset because I had discovered my own (BPD) mom going around Facebook posting some very untrue lies about me everywhere my brother had posted a family picture of me.

My great aunt responded by saying, "Don't worry, I'll be your mom. You've never ever disappointed me, I'm your mom." And then I started to cry, and she said, "It's okay, we'll sit here and bawl together!"

And a month later she was gone.

I can see through the events of the funeral that she really was my mom, in more ways than one, because she helped me give birth to myself. I don't just mean that it's been a heavy burden taking care of her and her handicapped daughter and I have really had to grow and become more competent in doing all of that these last nine years, or that she treated me better than my own mother all my life. (Although, both are definitely true.)

I mean: She was almost 95, she could have passed away at any time. Why now, right when I'm struggling with why I'm alive, with no one close in my life at all, struggling to pay bills so I can struggle to pay bills? While my horoscope and the cards are saying I have a purpose and I'd better find it or I'm going to sink into apathy and depression and the rest of my life is going to suck, like that of the lonely, empty alcoholic who lives upstairs?

Because of my two cousins who came up for the funeral. When their last aunt died, no doubt they were going to bring a certain family picture to the funeral and say the same things about it, but my aunt died now instead of any other time, right when I'm struggling.

The picture is a group photo of my great aunt and all seven of her siblings, together with their parents--my great-grandparents. Right before my great-grandfather left the family for a younger woman. (Sort of like Chi almost did for me, only all his kids are grown up and gone.)

This never-forgotten family story still gets trotted out from time to time. The children in the photo--my great aunt, my grandmother, and their brothers and sisters--all are gone now, and this happened in 1941. Seventy-seven years ago! Yet, after the funeral, this photo and this family tragedy and the picture made another reappearance.

My cousins, both of whom are religious, God-fearing kind of people, talked a lot about how terrible it was for the children, how it wrecked the children's mental health, and how they just couldn't understand why or how a person could do such an ungodly thing and leave eight children and a wife.

At no other time would I have reacted to that photo and that discussion the way I did yesterday.

Because before Chi, I was just a little girl. "How could that person do that to all those other people? No wonder the Bible calls that a sin." Just like everyone else, I reacted that way to that family story when I actually was a little girl.

Now I've been the other woman, and I know why my particular man had to leave, and my entire last three and a half years has been one long ongoing consideration of what the right thing is to do and what's fairest and best for everyone. Not just me, everyone.

(Being the other woman, I've come to understand, confers a very grave responsibility. Not all of us recognize this, but it's true.)

I've read before that we don't see things the way they are, we see them the way we are. And it's true that most of the pain in this mixed-up world comes from everyone seeing that person or group of people they're angry at or disappointed in, from their own perspective and not the other people's.

This is what I heard at dinner last night, and because of the last three years, I see that this is what's wrong with using religion as the sole guiding principle of your life. And now that I've had these experiences, I can tell you why this is.

Religion is great at providing prescriptions for life, but in most cases religious dogma does not take into account what's going on in the marriage. As a general rule, it's best to stay married and work out the problems with the one you married, BUT...

Maybe somebody is mentally ill. Maybe somebody is being abused. Maybe the combined dysfunction of the two people dovetails on itself such that a mutually unhealthy situation keeps perpetuating between these two--behind closed doors, while things look so good in front of everyone else.

What I do know is, in the case of my grandmother, all six girls in the family were diagnosed bipolar--and that is highly heritable. So, just like my mother's grandmother showed signs of mental illness back in the day, and that side of the family talked about that for decades--it's possible that some problems we will never know about affected my other great-grandparents' marriage.

Religion just says, "Stay married. Period." And, knowing what Chi was living with and how, "Stay married. Period." turned out for him, it would upset me greatly--and did--that other people reacted this way to him. They did not understand anything about the marriage or what the marriage was doing to the people in it. I knew what to ask, and Chi would tell me a bit about what the two therapists were saying. Other people didn't know to ask these things. They just saw a man leaving an apparently good wife after an apparently happy 38-year marriage, and they rushed to judge.

"In life," says Religion, "generally it doesn't work too well to do things in that way or that way. To get your best results, we strongly recommend that you do things this way." Only humans came along and attached these other harmful ideas to that: The idea of a Big Boss in the sky who watches and judges what we do, who's angry and displeased, who metes out pronouncements and sends people to hell fire eternal if they, for instance, leave their wives. Look what you did to your children! Sinner! Hell and Damnation!!!

All I'm saying is, who knows why my great-grandfather left? Who knows how the marriage really was? We'll never know, because all the people who were living at the time have died. Maybe it really was the awful childish mistake the extended and descended family believes it was. Or maybe, like Chi, my grandfather was running for his life. I'll never forget what Chi wrote me once. I know I just can't move back into that house. It feels like death to move back into that house.

And, last October, that's exactly what he was describing to me. It happened. (And the cards and the astrology are in agreement that it probably hasn't gotten much better.)

I hope something happens so it doesn't end that way for him, whatever that may be.

That stuff after what's in orange up there is what Religion does wrong, and how it's undoing with the left hand, the good stuff it just did with the right. Let's not even talk about all the religious wars, and how humans here on earth hate and kill one another because of the idea of the judgmental god. Even my hyperreligious relatives, including the very aunt just deceased, used to sit around and argue that this one was going to heaven and that one was going to hell because one of them believed the right way and the other one believed the wrong way.

All this is stuff and nonsense, and obscures all the other ways humans have to make sense of life, which some ignore and pooh-pooh because they are not Religion. Religion says, "My dogmatic teaching is the only thing you are to use and listen to, and it's a sin if you use any other source of knowledge," and that's too bad, because Religion as practiced by what I grew up with, is a good start, but woefully inadequate alone.

So here we have Religion, who offers great prescriptions about how to do things in the way that generally offers the best results. But unfortunately Religion offers no deeper explanations for human behavior, as I've pointed out here before. Religion simply slaps people's hands and says, "It's bad. Don't do it."

Dogma does not help people see or learn the deeper reasons behind the doing of it, nor help them heal so they no longer NEED to do it.

Because really, people. Folks wouldn't drink, folks wouldn't eat themselves to six hundred pounds and up, folks wouldn't have affairs, folks wouldn't do anything "bad," anything that heaps condemnation down on their heads from all of family and society, unless they really NEED to for some reason. And religion does nothing to help people understand that.

And when we're short on understanding and long on judgment, it does not help to heal these people, ourselves, and the world.

So along comes Psychology, which says, "Here is why that person is doing what he is doing." Now we can make some progress toward fulfilling those great prescriptions created by our Religion, because we can see and understand what's standing in the way. We can see how things got that way. That means we now know how to prevent, so things don't get this bad ever again, and we have an easier time forgiving, because we see the why behind that person doing that painful thing that we hate him for. Religion isn't good at this, except for the riddles such as, "The sins of the father are visited upon the child unto the seventh generation."

WTF does THAT mean? Religion tries to get it in there, but Psychology explains it in a way that we can understand it.

Now we come to Astrology. Ah, that terrible discipline with the bad name. It mostly has a bad name because it purports to be able to predict the future, and sometimes it "looks" like it's "wrong."

(Oh, and because Religion says it's bad, of course.)

But what I see, because I've studied psychology as well as astrology, and because this awful situation in my life drove me to look at more than three years of transits at a time (the way most professional astrologers do), is that astrology not only accurately describes your character, but it also describes your life. In my transits right now I see three different outcomes, and when I ask--and this is important!--Does this sound likely? Does this make sense? the answer is yes.

And who decides which outcome I will get? Well, one of them is partially decided by someone else, but the main answer is, I do. Not only that, but your natal chart has something to say about why you decided to come into this life, what you meant to do here, and why things turned out the way they have.

Not ONLY that, but when you can look at three charts and see everything in one reflected in the other three--and this is all in the position of the planets and stars--obviously you have some evidence of intelligent design.

This does not mean that you have a punitive god you have to answer to, and who's supposed to direct your life  (as in, the way some Christians apparently do, you think you should stand in front of your closet every morning and let Someone Else think for you ("Lord, should I wear the red dress or the green?"), or the idea, with the concept of Godly this and Godly that, that you are better than everyone else, because you're allowing certain other people, speaking and writing as this cosmic Superbeing, to think for you.

But Something is obviously cocreating with you, for every planet in the heavens to reflect something real about you, something psychology can confirm, tell you how it came about and what you have to do to get it to go better, and religion can give you some guidance about the most desirable earthly outcome.

And I can tell you all this now, so that must be my purpose.

I'm supposed to have some faith that if I build it, they will come.

(Whoever they is.)

Solitary Confinement.

Present

So, if you come here every week, you know that I've been waiting with baited breath to see if an important astrological prediction comes true right about now the way one did last fall. (If you haven't been reading: A very sad parting with someone I fell in love with three years ago happened when, as the title implies, this person went back to a troubled marriage after declaring himself through with it and moving out. In reading our astrological charts, it was predicted that I'd hear from this person again last October...and I did.

The details are scattered throughout the blog, but, in short, I beat myself up for two and a half years thinking I had stepped in on a marriage that could have been made whole again. Although the astrology indicated difficult personalities who didn't want to work on their own emotional difficulties that had wrecked the marriage, they were in marriage counseling the last time I had seen him, and I assumed they would make progress and be fine.

Last October my old love contacted me again and I got to hear the story of what actually had happened. It sounded a LOT more like the astrology and not at all like what we generally hope happens when we enter therapy to try to save a relationship. Well--I'll amend that. There was a leg of transits that sounded like two people working on their own emotional problems and making progress, and a leg of transits that were exactly the opposite. We got the bad leg.

The aspects that indicated I'd hear from him again were pretty subtle, and one well-known professional even read this and got it wrong. But the indicators that I would see this person again this summer and we would rekindle our relationship (and what would happen if we did that) were NOT subtle at all. They were HUGE.

That left me to figure out: When. 

After so many amazing things were reflected in the charts that turned out to be true, I actually started studying astrology myself. As a student astrologer, I have my strong points and my weak points, and one of my weak ones is pinpointing the timing of events. I had settled on the end of May by a process of extrapolation (by which I often get myself into trouble.) 

I had figured, the transits that favor getting back together all start over the summer, and how can those happen if you aren't speaking at least just prior? Plus, I knew he was going to be spending a weekend alone, and that would have been prime real estate. (That was when we'd always talked before.)

Again I say, extrapolative reasoning is no substitute for actually learning to read the transits and progressions. 

Well, it's Saturday night of the weekend in question, and I haven't heard from this person. Time to pack it in.

Our charts were full of dates with destiny, and up to now he hadn't missed one, from late 2014 to the present. Now he has. If a person stands you up for a date, you aren't going to see him again. I think this applies quadruple when it's a major date in three charts, one that transforms the lives of three people. It's kind of hard to see how the other transits are going to happen when: It is summer, and the person's not even here. 

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. Yeah, sadness and devastation are among them.

You know how, when you meet that special someone, you just know? Johnny Cash, upon meeting June Carter, told her he was going to marry her, even though they were both already married at the time. I felt that way when I met my husband, and when I met Chi. (I met my husband and Chi at the same time; we were at a group meeting together. Weird sensation, that.)

Those have been the only two people I ever felt that way about. And I met my husband and Chi in the waning days of 1998, so that is a VERY long time. I work serving the public and I belong to two hobby groups; it's not like I don't meet other men. I just haven't felt that way about anyone else. And the older I get, the more eccentric I get (and the fatter). Meeting people who might be compatible gets harder and harder the older we get. 

I think I may have just finished the last relationship I'm ever going to have.

I'm not saying that as in, "Oh, Chi's gone, I'm never going to have anybody else, boo-hoo!" with the emphasis on having someone, anyone. I don't want some nameless, faceless
Generiguy, just to be with somebody.

I'm saying that because there really has to be something special about a person for me to feel that way. There's a quality of mind my husband and Chi had that other people just don't have. I'm not going to have that response to just anyone, and, having had the connections I've had with these two special, special men, I highly doubt I'm going to have that with anyone ever again. They were the ultimate relationships. No one else is ever going to come up to them.

I don't even feel comfortable dating anyone anymore. Any person you date wants to feel like you're there because you like and want them, not because they're a poor substitute for the one who died and the one who never came back. In order to date someone else I'd have to feel like I won't constantly be thinking of Simon and Chi when I'm with them. If I ever should find someone who meets that criterion, okay, but that's a tall order. A VERY tall order.

Chi was very special to me. Everywhere I go, I see his face, and many times a day, I think of him. Maybe one day that will change, but it's been three years so far, and right now he is irreplaceable. No, I don't know anybody to date, no, I don't want to date, and the only thing I'm going to find online is trouble.

So, my first thought about this ending is, I am now retired. My relationship life is over.

And that's okay. At some point in your life, if you don't die first, your relationship life WILL be over. That's just the way life is.

Time to take everything I've learned, sling it in a pack over my shoulder, and walk off down the road alone.

There's some grief involved in this. I love Chi very much. All it would have taken is a reappearance, together with a willingness to work as hard at healing old childhood wounds as I have these past three years, and I would have been there. Forever.

I probably will love him forever. But you can't be with a person who isn't here. All you can do is put it behind you, focus your life on other things, and forget about it.

I had hoped to be right. I had hoped to see him again. I had hoped for the triumph of true love, I had hoped for a better outcome. If he'd just shown up and been willing to work, it could have happened. We had that leg of transits. It was in our Davison, big time.

This, however, is life on Planet Earth. Better outcomes, by and large, aren't to be had here.

Perhaps the best outcome is that I finally learn how to be happy alone. I don't have much choice now. In almost five years since my husband died, I have only found two friends, one of whom I don't see much due to work schedules, and they're not the kind of friendships where you call each other all the time and go over and visit. I have no close familylike relationships at all, and I don't see any showing up. I am ALL alone in my life, and I don't expect this to change.

I would have been so happy if it could have been Chi. But it won't be, and it won't be anyone at all. I think this all happened to me so I could learn how to rely on no one but myself. Because, from now on, that's the only person I'm going to have.

My second thought is terrible sadness that something that could have been wonderful, isn't going to happen. The same kind of thing happened when Simon died. Oh, well. This is Chi's choice. Chi is in charge of what happens, nobody else (even though he keeps trying to blame other people), and I have no control of this whatsoever.

But then, third thought: relief. If he'd shown up and I'd been too desperate and had the affair instead of guiding him back to therapy (with better therapists, please!), there's no question I'd have been DUMPED. There it is, right there in 2021--he goes back to her one more time (it doesn't work any better then), and I am absolutely DEVASTATED.

At least I don't have to go through that. Now I can just get it all over with once and for all.

Of course, I was to get him back again after that. Guess that's not going to happen, either.

In the next two years I have a couple of transits that talk about being all alone and having to cope with a profound and archetypal sense of aloneness. Guess I know now what's going to happen for the next two years. It does help to know that, at least.

Fourth thought: My goal now is to do a better job with the next five years than I did with these five years. My first five years of being widowed, I have been the most horrible basket case. My misery prompted me to do a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of learning, and a lot of growing, as misery should. If you are miserable and you aren't doing these things, you are guaranteed to stay miserable, GUARANTEED. Misery is a sign that you're doing something wrong and need to change some very rigid thinking about something you are taking for granted as the truth of the way things are. I learned, yes, but I was lonely all the time and I was miserable, I spent too much, I ate too much, I let the housework go, and I slothed my way through life obsessing about what was gone instead of living in what is.

Now I have no choice. What is, is, and it is final. I can't go to the grocery store and order Chi or Simon back again; I have to cook with what's in the kitchen. If I don't learn to be happy with only what there is, I'm going to be suffering, and I won't be doing a good job with my life. The first five years, I did as well as I could do. Now I know I'm alone from now on, and I have to do better.

My fifth thought: I was so devastated and so sad today as I kept checking Facebook and I didn't see him. I thought of all the writing I've been trying to do, and I kept feeling like, If only this had happened, I would have been happy, and then I could have breezed through chores, housework, and calorie restriction, and I would have been happy to get my writing done. It wouldn't have felt like such a struggle, always dragged down because someone important was missing.

Isn't that the way life always is? When we have a relationship, even if there's sickness and problems and life isn't perfect, if the relationship is happy enough and most of our needs are met, life is basically good and it powers us through the rest of our life. Simon and I were like that. We gave each other courage to write and to try new things. Even if I wasn't good enough and it never went anywhere, we loved each other and we had a good time writing together, and that was what was important.

And when we don't have a relationship, or it's an absolutely horrible one and we're not happy, it drags us down til we can't do anything. (Um, I'm looking here at Chi and Rory.)

I remember as a kid, seeing scenes on TV where a parent or a close friend was behind a child, saying things like, "We have faith in you. We know you're wonderful and we know you can do it, and we love you!" And feeling like I couldn't do things because no one ever said that to me in my life. I needed the feeling of loving parents who were encouraging. My parents were ready with the belt and the flyswatter if I didn't perform, but there was none of that good stuff on the front end, just threats. "You'd better make all A's or else! You're LAZY!!!" And there were times I really didn't understand the math or whatever, and I cried and just got yelled at. Nobody helped me at all.

I'd see shows on TV where kids got helped and encouraged, even when they made a bad grade, and I'd feel really sad. Like TV was stupid, because everybody knew that wasn't how parents were in real life. And I'd sit over schoolwork and feel like, "I wish someone would encourage me like the moms and the dads on TV." Because if I was too good, someone (like BPD Mom) would act jealous that it was me and not her, or yell at me because I had a swollen head. (Because she did.) And then there's that feeling like maybe I was just singled out by the universe for some reason, not to be good enough for anyone to treat me like they treat kids on TV shows.

I hated living at home.

But today I thought, Why do I feel like that? Why do I feel like I can't be happy without Chi in my life, or that I can't motivate myself to do anything without him or Simon or other friends there to love me and support me and do things with me and care about me and make me feel happy all the time?

Why do I feel like I need someone else's help in order to feel happy and competent  enough to put myself into anything?

Because relationships are now OVER. I'm never going to have anyone close, I'm never going to have anyone who loves me, I'm never going to have anyone to encourage me, I'm never going to have anyone to support me, I'm never going to have anyone to be with or to do things with or to laugh with or to talk to, I'm never going to have any help from anyone to do anything, I'm never going to have anyone to come home to, in my life, ever, EVER AGAIN.

There's no one here but ME. Period. If I can't do it by myself, it just isn't going to get done. Just like everything else I've ever had to do my whole life. 

(Why do I have to have this life where I never get to have these good things other people get to have?? Not longer than fifteen short years, anyway. Lots of lucky people get these things, the loving support of good, healthy, trustworthy, steadfast, fun people, their whole entire lives. I get one healthy relationship, finally, and the guy dies before our seventh anniversary.) 

I guess with my background, I should be glad Simon happened to me at all. And I was! I was so proud that with my background, I finally had a healthy relationship and a real family (of one.) 

And that's why I've done so poorly these last five years. I thought that was all life was about, and now I can't function at all.

I guess I just designed a life of rugged individualism, and now I'm here, and it's no fun, and I don't want to do it. I want somebody to be my mommy and daddy and do things to emotionally take care of me...sort of like Chi does.

Tough.

My job is to be just as happy, and still do all those things, whether there's anyone here or not. I'm fifty years old.

Why do I still think I can't be happy and functional without someone else to be with?

So, I have to give up on Chi for good, and those have to be my goals now. I'm going to be alone, and I'm going to do everything all by myself. Forever.

Life's not going to give me any more people, so fuck you, life. I'm giving up on people and I'm done, and I'm doing it all for myself from now on. 

I have to stop thinking I need other people in order to feel happy and in order to motivate myself to do what I want to do. So, I have no one and it's not easy! I'm supposed to forget people and just do everything anyway.

All I have now is what I want to do. I'll never have anything else but me and my goals ever again.

*******
I suspect that even if Chi were here, he'd be no help anyway. I love him dearly, and no matter what. I know he has problems; we all do, and I don't love him less because of that. I understand what those problems are.

I did wonder, maybe he's not back because somebody turned a new leaf over there. Maybe he decided to be honest and tell her things were so bad he was interested in someone else, and she woke up. Maybe he's not back because they're okay now.

But I went back and reread what we wrote each other the last time we spoke. What I saw there was two people recycling codependency symptoms, and a person resentfully saying, "I made my bed and now I have to lie in it."

A person staying in a situation that was still terrible in order not to upset family. A person trying to wheedle his way back into club meetings just to see me once every two weeks, in order to get a few tiny crumbles of his needs met while he struggled to act like the person his family demands he be. (If I had've said yes then, maybe that's how the affair would have started now.) A person unable to pursue things he once found pleasurable because he was too depressed, and who thought he HAD to stay there anyway. And a wife who sort of slept her way through marriage counseling and hadn't changed much at all from the atrocious behavior that drove him to me in the first place.

What we are looking at, dear friends, is serious, entrenched mutual codependency. 59 and 63 years entrenched.

What are the chances that that situation turned around in the seven months since we last spoke??

And I'm looking at that chart and those transits. That chart demonstrates ability to do much better; and those transits do not describe a family and marriage situation that's getting any better. He can sit there if he wants, but he's going against his whole chart.

He has the right to do that. It's his choice, and no one else can choose anything for him...even if he blames them for his choice to stay unhappy, not get well, not do the work, and not grow. But it sure doesn't look like a happy way to live. 

Absent any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume he's still sticking with that choice.
 
Today I asked the tarot how he was. I got one card: Nine of swords. Google it.
For the past seven months, I have had a "Star light, star bright" wish: Don't send him back if he isn't capable of getting well.

My sixth line of thought about the sadness and the devastating ending of today: Perhaps I got my wish.

****
A Closing Note:

I'm not sure I'll have any more new developments to mull over here. If there's more to report, I will; summer's not over, after all. And it would seem Uranus is going retrograde and going to pass back over Saturn and hit my yod, within three degrees, one more time before finally moving off for good next March. (Interesting: When Chi spoke to me last fall, it was DIRECTLY over Saturn.)

But if there isn't anything else to report, all that will come up here now is any final thoughts I have to work out. (And I DO have some.)

Other than that, I plan to turn my attention now to finishing my novel, posting more on YourTango, and going over all this to make it shorter, more readable, and more accessible to people, and putting the revised version on my website. It's The ThinkingOtherWoman.webs.com.

Come visit me there. 

And thanks for reading.

It's been a tough three years. I needed the company.

Is There Really A Cosmic Reason For Everything We Go Through? Yep. Yep. Yep.

PRESENT ... An Astrology Post. 

(Presenting the astrology behind all I just posted the last two weeks. Those not interested in some heavier astrology may wish to skip.)

For some reason, I started looking up yods on the internet again. I had found all this stuff on Ceres and Lilith (scary stuff on Ceres and Lilith, by several somewhat scary people), and that interesting thing on the Weeping Sisters and Saturn Chasing the Moon. I guess I wanted to look and see if there was anything I hadn’t found yet on yods.

Here’s the article by the Yod Queen, my astrologer, the gifted Alice Portman. 

Um, look at this. Here’s Alice, writing about quincunxes:

"The quincunx aspect is almost always present when there is death as death also describes a period of considerable change both for the person who dies and their family and friends.  The quincunx will involve the eighth house or the ruler of the eighth and the house that describes the person who dies.  E.g. if there is a transit of Jupiter in the 4^th house making a quincunx to Venus in the 8^th house, which  in turn rules the sign on the cusp of the 4^th house,  then a parent is likely to be the person who dies."

(And, OMG, look at this. The day my husband died: Transiting Neptune one degree off my descending [that’s the seventh house cusp, the house of marriage], quin my natal sun, and what rules my eighth house? Pisces, which is ruled by Neptune. Nice call, Alice!, So, here’s another way I could have predicted when my husband would die. I did, but not by this method.)

"Home moves also almost always have a quincunx transit, progression or direction as does conception and childbirth.

It can even show up when you meet the love of your life as this is likely to completely change your life."

And, um …

"If you have a natal YOD,  transits, progressions or directions that activate this configuration will indicate important times in the life.  If the YOD involves outer planets, then when that outer planet activates either of the other legs of the YOD  by transit you are likely to have some powerful experiences that can make core changes to your nature and your approach to life."

As I said, Uranus is one of the planets in my yod. Not only that, but when she read both our charts she felt that I was showing up as Uranus in Chi’s. (Apparently he shows up as Uranus in mine also.)

And WHAT did I just have?? Uranus sitting on Saturn, the apex of my yod and the handle of the bucket, making all those godforsaken squares. Now, when she read my chart she told me these things: This yod represents a spiritual test I have set up for myself before I came here to live this life, with great benefits to me if I pass. I am in spiritual graduate school and have done well with whatever situation I am testing myself on in this lifetime, over several lifetimes before. She didn’t think it had anything to do with Chi, or that there would be any adverse effects if I didn’t pass whatever test this is in this lifetime, just that my soul is trying to find out whether I’ve mastered something or not, and that it has to do with relationships and creativity due to the houses and signs involved. Hmm.

But then I found this yod article I had never seen before.

After I read that, I was thinking of what Alice had told me, but also of what I have learned about Saturn in my chart that I didn’t know enough astrology to know about at the time Alice read our charts a couple of years ago.

Now, what else is Saturn in this chart?? All those psychological problems introduced by my parents when I was growing up! So you have to look at the yod as, here are Neptune and Uranus here at the bottom trying to get along, but the thing damming up the works is the Saturn at the tip, the planet of restriction that we know, because of all the squares and what they represent, is all the psychological problems I have from growing up with a BPD mom and an absentee dad. I’m not really sure who “Astromanda” is, but she says that the two issues represented by the two planets at the ends of each long leg on the triangle don’t “see” each other or are blind to each other. 

Makes sense. I’ve been blind to much of what’s represented by the four Saturn squares most of my life. So much is made by astrologers of reading THE WHOLE CHART, and synthesizing THE WHOLE THING. So, instead of looking at this yod and going, “The apex is Saturn in the eighth,” I need to be saying, “The apex is these four emotional problems that growing up in a sick family with a BPD mother, overinvolved grandparents, and an absentee dad left me with.” That it took me 50 years to completely understand. “And they don’t work so well with the Neptune here and the Uranus here.”

If Nep Three is a writing career, that totally makes sense, because what are the Saturn squares? My parents made me think I was stupid, and I spent most of my life trying to succeed with fan fiction because I didn’t think I was smart enough or good enough to come up with my own original stories. My parents absolutely squashed any idea I might have of what I wanted to do in life, so I ended up in a career to please them and have had to work my butt off against student loans and time constraints in order to have the time to work on my own original novel ideas once I finally had them in my early forties. Saturn is holding Neptune back; Neptune is blind because of Saturn. Uranus One: Trying to assert myself in an original way in the world, with a Venus flavor because it’s in the Venus decanate. Saturn is holding Uranus back; Uranus is blind because of Saturn.

Astromanda writes that a yod describes a situation or a relationship that’s kind of off again, on again, and I can’t control how it works. Um, is that happening here?? Yup. And what do I see I have to do in order to avoid a huge lifetime catastrophe for two people? (Just sayin’: I think Alice was wrong about the “no big consequences” thing, here. I say two people because there may be nothing anyone can do about Rory. If she’s determined not to find her emotions, wake up in her marriage, and treat her husband better, there may be nothing anyone can do about those consequences for her. There isn’t a person alive on the planet who can be treated like that in a relationship and be okay with it.)

So look at all this: I’ve read one opinion (haven’t found it in other articles by other astrologers yet) that if Saturn is the highest planet in the chart, the individual will rise to prominence, but it’s a HORRIBLE road getting there. Also (different astrologer), if the chart has a formation like my bucket handle, where there’s ONE planet that contacts almost everything else in the chart, a transit going over that planet activates almost everything else in the chart at once, making it a very focused chart where all the planets are working together toward one goal. Often seen in the charts of prominent people, says this astrologer. I have Neptune in house three: often seen in the charts of prominent writers. AND … Midheaven (the point of career) is on the Weeping Sisters. And what do BOTH our transits say happens after 2023, when Chi leaves Rory and we’re together? Our bad legs: He’s still codependent, doesn’t talk up in the relationship, agrees to things he doesn’t like or want, acts and pretends so I have no idea he isn’t happy, and then …

And then …

And THEN …

Something happens in my career and I become successful, and I have a period where I’m busy, stressed, and worried and have to take my eyes off the relationship for a while. And Chi (who never recovered from codependency and STILL has no self-esteem) goes, “I KNEW I WAS REALLY UNLOVABLE! She doesn’t love me after all!!” attracts another affair, and at the highest point of my life I discover I’ve been cheated on and end up so brokenhearted I feel like my success is all dust and ashes.

Sounds like my career point is on the Weeping Sisters? Yeah. I’m going to end up crying, partially  because of my career.

Now look at Chiron in the eighth house: I keep attracting people who break my heart, let me down, and hurt me. I can react horribly, becoming hideously manipulative and controlling, or I can become very wise. Sound like it? Yeah. BUT: It’s also in Aries. According to one astrologer I’ve read, I blow through childhood emotional wounding with this placement like nobody’s business. (I’ll leave you to decide that.)

Here’s the thing: None of this bad stuff has to happen. He has one good leg in his transits where it doesn’t. (I have to look a little harder at mine.) But the only way for that to happen is for BOTH PEOPLE TO WORK THEIR ASSES OFF AT HEALING, GETTING WELL, AND BEING HONEST.

Right now he isn’t doing that, and I can’t control him into doing that. I can’t control him into leaving Rory. If I do that, I get a sick unhealed codependent and both our bad legs. The Weeping Sisters, all of it.

NOW. Having said all that …

Basically, my entire childhood created the idea that I not only can, but should, control other people and how they develop in life—just the same way Rory’s did her. My entire childhood created in me the powerful idea that I can be God and make someone else choose to heal. And that’s the Saturn that’s going to nix all that good stuff in the Davison and throw everything onto the bad legs. That’s going to give me the Weeping Sisters and a cheating husband and make a tragedy out of the second love of my life.

Now look at what our Davison says: Lots of hard work and tough tests for him, a leap of faith for me. Why a leap of faith for me? Because I can’t control whether he chooses to WORK AND GET WELL or not. The only power I have is to observe whether he is electing to do the work or not, and whether he is making progress or not, and STAY THE FUCK AWAY if he’s not. Even if I’m alone for the rest of my life and I’m heartsick about that. Even if it means the happiest times of my life are over forever, never, ever to return. Because I DO NOT CHOOSE WHETHER HE ELECTS TO WORK OR NOT, HE DOES, and WHETHER WE GET THE GOOD LEG OR THE BAD LEG IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON WHETHER HE ELECTS TO WORK.

And my entire childhood has GEARED me to believe I should and do have control over that. The fact is, I. DO. NOT. And therefore can do nothing, nothing, nothing to control the outcome of this. NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING.

Read the first part of that second yod article. Really.

Now, I have to remember that Chi is an EXTREMELY SKILLED ACTOR. (And here's Moon Opp Neptune, which--guess what? Chi and Rory have in their composite, too. By now it should be obvious why. We're controlling, and he picks controlling women and then can't speak up for himself, because of a childhood that made him feel like he's inferior and has to grovel for anyone to love him.) 

He’s GREAT at smoking out what other people want him to do and giving it to them on the outside, while the real truth is that he’s seething with the resentment of really not wanting to, feeling overtaxed and overwhelmed and overworked, and the depression of unmet needs on the inside. And if he doesn’t want anybody to know, nobody’s going to know. In most cases, therapists joke that if you really want to know the state of the parent’s marriage, ask the children. These children don’t have a CLUE—STILL—and that’s why they’re bludgeoning Chi back into the marriage. Told you … skilled actor.

Now, look at this. What dooms our relationships? In Rory's and my case, it's because we're controlling. Why are we controlling? In my case, it's because childhood taught me that being controlling in trying to make others heal was doing the right thing! But it isn't, and that is a CENTRAL LESSON OF MY LIFE. If I don't get that lesson, I'm going to keep picking and trying to control sick people who don't want to do their work, and the rest of my life is pretty much screwed as far as relationships with other people go.

(Rory appears to be controlling for other reasons.)

Why is Chi thinking he's inferior and groveling and martyring himself to controlling people? Likewise: CHILDHOOD TAUGHT HIM that was the right way, and HE THINKS HE'S DOING THE RIGHT THING. When really he's dooming his relationships, because he's just soul-murdering himself, demanding that he be other than who he really is, and taking a pile of abuse from other people besides. Then he ends up so crazy with pain--as anyone would!--that he has to escape into an affair. And, BOOM! There goes the relationship, even if it was with someone who was struggling to meet him halfway. Nobody can meet you halfway if you don't like yourself, or trust the other person, enough to communicate honestly about your needs and feelings.

This is how a bad childhood dooms relationships and lives. We go all our lives trying so hard to be good and do the right thing, when the problem is we learned the wrong shit to begin with. What we're believing is the right way is actually the WRONG way, and if we can't get that through our thick skulls, we make the same fucking mistakes over and over and over and the problems get worse and worse and worse.

And if you know how, you can find all this in your horoscope chart, as well as the best self-help books. When your chart and your childhood recovery literature is telling you the same thing, and then you see it play out in your life ... well, maybe you should sit up and pay attention. (Parents: Get thyselves into parenting classes immediately!)

If Chi chooses to ACT and LIE rather than GET WELL, and I’m too needy and controlling, I’ll believe him (Nep Three, square ascendant, Prone to miscommunicate, prone to misunderstand, prone to miscommunicate, prone to misunderstand)… leading to the Weeping Sisters and Disaster.

Anybody can tell you, “Don’t have an affair with a married man,” and, “He’ll just turn around and do the same thing to you.” And you can grit your teeth and obey, but you don’t want to. You haven’t changed in your heart, because you haven’t actually LEARNED ANYTHING.

THIS, IS LEARNING SOMETHING. Learning something BEFORE bad things happen, rather than learning something BECAUSE bad things happened. Something Chi’s never done, and needs to cultivate as soon as possible.

All my life, I’ve dealt with horrible situation after horrible situation, wishing I had known all the facts before I chose what I chose.

This time, my wish is granted, thanks to astrology and to a lifetime of reading that taught me what I needed to know to make sense of the astrology. (And desperation miserable enough to make me buy 25 years of transits.)

LEARNING SOMETHING removes the need to do that bad thing and have the affair.

Without the learning, we grudgingly agree to do something out of a lack of understanding, because “Other people say so.”

WITH the learning, we understand why and how. Now we don’t WANT to do it anymore.

Even if we’re still crying because we miss him.

So: Is this a test? Am I going to pass it?

I think it’s a yes on both counts.

I’m not clear what the great benefits are if I pass, though. I see what the consequences are if I don’t, but if I do … is the great benefit just that I get to spend the rest of my “Chiron return” untroubled by the fear that a codependent husband or significant other is lying to me about our relationship because he believes he is no good? Or is it that we get Chi’s good leg and a great relationship?

And, you know, I already know the answer to that.

The answer is what HE decides to do. And I have NO control over that. Period.

And that's what "Astromanda" says yods are about.

Isn't astrology fascinating?