On Fusion.

PRESENT

I don’t know how far I was into Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends when I realized what is really wrong with me.

My entire life, I’ve been searching for a family that was actually healthy. I remember being despondent in my teens and twenties, sure I was so fat no one would ever love me, that my legs were too thick and bunchy and didn’t look “beautiful” enough, that my butt was too big. I remember substituting daydreams for love instead, and having this odd sensation: Wasn’t this actually supposed to happen to me sometime, here? Where is it??

And then I found it! I met Simon, and we dated almost four years and had a wonderful marriage.

And I was happy.

It never even so much as occurred to me that this wasn’t the natural state of man, what we all look for and what we all need to be happy. I mean, look at all this literature about relatedness and connection, and how people are unhealthy without it, and how society is the worse for it. Disconnection and people feeling unloved is the root of most social ills. Even Mother Theresa said it.

This information is all over the place! You’re nobody til somebody loves you. So many social scientists wring their hands over the problems of aloneness and disconnection in this country that there’s just got to be something really wrong with aloneness and disconnection!

I never, ever imagined that they’re actually normal. That we’re all supposed to grow strong enough in ourselves to be happy all by ourselves, with no one and nobody else. Maybe the cosmic reason our society is so disconnected and so many people are all alone is because we came into this life in order to do just that.

Relationship, relationship, relationship, relationship. It’s supposed to make the world go around.

So of course as soon as I was absolutely alone, I mourned the absence of relationship. I’d never have anybody close in my life again. I’m old, and I’m not young, sexy, or pretty anymore, so no one was going to want me! (Certainly nobody else like Simon, who was my perfect match. They broke the mold when they made him.)

What was going to happen to me, as I grew old alone? What would happen to me when I was in trouble? If I got sick or had an accident and couldn’t work? If I woke up in the middle of the night having a heart attack and I was all alone? When I got my first cancer diagnosis? No one in this entire world gives a shit about me, and I’d be left to struggle all alone.

Always I was looking back, back, back, back to when I had someone to be with all the time, and I was happy just knowing he was there to come home to. Waking up and living my days with someone as happy, optimistic, and fun as Simon made everything worthwhile, no matter what I had to give up in terms of time and my old dreams. And as his illness progressed, that turned out to be quite a lot.

If I had him, I was fine. It didn’t matter anymore that I was never going to be a real writer. Those were just silly dreams; they never happen to people anyway.

That’s what we do. When we’re in a relationship, if it’s a good one, we get so happy and comfortable there that our personalities twine all around the relationship, and—*POOF!* We’ve changed. We’re not our old selves anymore.

Maybe we’re not even who we were supposed to be anymore.

But we don’t know that. We think that all of human existence is nothing but Relationship. And we have to have at least one with somebody, or life is no good and we’re not safe.

There’s no doubt that my relationship with Simon was the happiest time of my entire life. I doubt very seriously that I will ever be that happy again. And, when you find a person and a relationship and a time like that, perhaps it’s right that your personality deforms to accommodate it. That relationship was a precious eleven years for me. It will never happen again.

But sometimes, when you deform your personality to live in relationship with someone, you do something wrong. You do something to your personality that you should not have done, and then your relationship becomes unhealthy and then it breaks up. You stopped changing. You stopped learning. You stopped growing in order to be in your relationship. Or maybe you just stopped being yourself.

Then your relationship ends, and you have this horrible, miserable transformation you have to undergo, in order to find out what your mistake was, and how you need to unkink your personality again and grow back in the direction you should have been going. You have to be alone for a long, long time in order to do that, because if you reform another relationship before you do that, it’s just unhealthy in the same way and it will break up.

The whole trick in relationship is being your real self in the relationship while accommodating to living with another person. Too much your way or too much their way, and somebody gets stifled to death and the relationship ends.

I’m thinking of Chi and Rory here. If there was ever a textbook example of someone stifling themselves to death in order to accommodate themselves to a relationship, that was it.

But I’m also thinking of myself. As happy as I was with Simon, part of the reason was that I finally felt secure. I felt secure because I finally had someone with me who was big and strong and knowledgeable and adult in the ways I wasn’t. Someone who had always done well at work and owned his own business for twenty-five years. Emotionally, I was still a child who felt “too little” to handle big things in life like buying a car or an air conditioning system or big travel arrangements or washing the windows. I had Simon for that, thank God! And I was definitely the junior partner in the relationship. The sicker Simon got, the more the awesome and frightening responsibility I had to shoulder. I definitely didn’t feel ready for any of it, and I was better at some aspects of the job than others. It was something I would never, ever have willingly taken on, and I think one of the reasons he died while I was still so young was to show me that I could do it.

There are some healthy reasons to wrap our personalities all around a relationship.

Then, there are the UNhealthy ones. Yeah…the ones I’ve spent the last four and a half miserable years learning all about.

What I’m talking about up there, accommodating ourselves too much to the relationship, is codependent and a way we try to fuse emotionally with someone else. And I got that; on some level, I understood that.

What I didn’t understand is that this is normal in childhood. I found this in this book in a way I’d never seen it spelled out anywhere else.

I mean, think about it. When we’re little, ideally, Mom and Dad are right there all the time. Are you okay, honey? How did school go today? Do you need help with your homework? Why are you crying? Oh, it’s so wonderful that you did that! I’m so proud of you! Look how big and beautiful and talented you’re growing! You can be anything you want to be! Here, let’s pop a big bowl of popcorn and cuddle in bed together and watch Harry Potter movies! I love you, honey. Maybe we can order a pizza! We’re emotionally fused with Mom and Dad, and emotionally fused into this hand-holdy, sing-songy, fluffy-warm and safe and cuddly relationship that makes us feel good inside and okay. Oh, those images of Mom making us eggs and hot chocolate before school on a cold snowy morning! (That, I never got, because my mom didn’t want to get up for us, bitched and screamed about how slow we were the entire time, put out bowls of cereal, then went, “You’re so slow I don’t want to stay up and yell at you! I’m going back to bed!”) That not-so-lovely scene in the parentheses excluded, isn’t the preceding paragraph just your warm, fuzzy picture of ideal family life?

When we’re little kids, when we’re one and two and five and seven and nine, we need this absolutely. When we don’t get it, or if we only get it if Mom wants something from us, when she threatens to withhold it or punish us if we aren’t the children she wants us to be, when she uses this warm, loving quality of time to reward us only when we act like the children she wants us to be, that’s what makes us codependent.

Little kids can’t find their own sense of warmth and safety and OK-ness. Little kids need to get that from Mom and Dad, and they need it in order to grow up healthy emotionally.

Where most of us have gotten hung up is, we think we’re supposed to have this as adults all the time, and we think we can’t live without it.

Which is one reason I’m so unhappy. After eighteen-plus years of that kind of a mother, eighteen years of rejection from cruel schoolmates, and thirty-two years of believing, truly believing, I’d never even have sex ever in my life because I was too fat and men would think me repulsive (Fuck, man. Is it any wonder Fifty Shades and Twilight are our cultural ideals of romance, when most people are raised like this?), Simon and I got together and I finally had this kind of experience of love in my life!!

And then he died. And then he was gone. And then it was over. After not even seven years of marriage.

And I stumbled into the sunlight blinking, rubbing my eyes, thinking, That was it? That’s all? It’s all over? That’s all I get?? Ever, ever again? Really??

I still need to be emotionally fused to someone in order to feel okay. But, what we’re supposed to do in this life is grow ourselves up emotionally so we’re able to feel okay whether that’s present in our lives for us or not.

Yes, it’s true that as we become elderly, we get old and frail and we aren’t able to cook and do for ourselves anymore. It’s also true that if I had a car accident tonight and I was laid up and not able to work for six weeks, I would fall behind in the bills and I would most certainly need help! The same goes if we have heart attacks or cancer.

But if none of these things are true, we’re supposed to be able to feel okay without a warm-fuzzy, hand-holdy, sing-songy relationship in our lives all the time. We really are!

The trouble is, our society does not recognize this fact. And neither the fuck did I.

And inside, I’m still six years old, missing emotional fusion in my life, looking for it, longing for it, trying to make Chi fit the bill whether he actually does or not.

I mean, look at this. Because my mother had BPD, and used me as her emotional confidante literally ALL THE TIME, I spent all my life on this planet up until Simon died emotionally fused with someone. (Up until now, I always had at least one close friend.)

I didn’t have that emotionally warm mother who got up and made hot chocolate and pancakes and eggs, but I did have a mother who was emotionally up in my business every hour of every day, asking me every single picky little detail of who I sat with in school and what I said and what they said and whatIsaidandwhattheysaidandwhatIsaidandwhattheysaid on and on and on until I wanted to run away from home. Sharing every single picky little detail of every single little problem she had with another person (and demanding I agree with her view of things), and since she had BPD her life was nothing BUT problems with other people. And, you know, come to think of it ... that was the only way we kids were important to our mom. When we were tending to her needs. So now my brother is twice divorced and whining on Facebook all the time about how nobody wants a nice guy and he's so lonely and can't find anyone.

(What went wrong in those marriages, anyway? Anyone care to take any guesses?)

I have spent my entire life emotionally fused with other people’s lives, and for the first time in forty-five years, there was nobody there. I was utterly alone.

No wonder I don’t know how to be emotionally independent of other people, and why I’m longing back, back into the past, when somebody was there all the time.

This isn’t healthy. I’ve been left alone in my life so I could grow out of this. And that’s the job I was supposed to have accomplished by now, or I’d be so desperate I’d take Chi back no matter what—and he hasn’t done any emotional health work on himself. He’s still hideously codependent, and life with someone hideously codependent guarantees you won’t be treated well.

You’ll think you are, as the other person contorts himself to please you because he believes he’s unlovable, killing himself in the process—and then it will all blow apart, when the other person can’t stand the pain anymore and cheats on you.

(Codependents are known for cheating, y’all. This is why.)

I was supposed to have grown out of this need for emotional fusion with another person by now, so I wouldn’t do this to him or me. My job is to stand my ground and insist he get well, and walk away unless and until he does.

Only I don’t know how to live without emotional fusion. I’m still looking back, back, back into the past, to that golden time when I was happy. (That ended after barely seven years.)

A fine mess, huh?

I keep falling back into that trance, of looking wistfully back to those happy times I had with Simon, and a few with Chi, thinking those were the times I was really happy and that the present moment sucks. That I’ll never be happy again. That what’s the point?

I do better when I remember that that’s a child’s way of being in the world, a child’s way of looking at life, and that I’m supposed to just be me and focus on me and focus on developing my talents. There’s nobody healthy within a one hundred mile radius, and, as the incident with Jane just demonstrated, if you dandle unhealthy people on your knee and show them endless patience while hoping they’ll finally begin to treat you better … all they do is kick you in the teeth.

I hate to say it, but currently Chi falls into this category.

Anyone who hurts themselves that much is eventually going to explode and hurt everyone else. You can’t treat other people any better than you treat yourself, because treating yourself and other people truly well always involves HONESTY, and it NEVER involves acting. Acting is NEVER kind, because THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT, and the longer it takes, the more it hurts.

I’m tired of the sick people like my mother and Jane who have serious emotional problems and only want to look at others’ problems and never apply themselves to real, serious work on their own.

I don’t treat other people that way. I work hard so I don’t hurt myself and others, and that’s what love is. I need and deserve someone who will do the same for me.

Chi has one more opportunity to elect to be that person who will apply himself to the work it takes—on HIMSELF, not other people—to be healthy.

I don’t want to be so backward and so stuck in childhood that I’ll accept another Mom or another Jane. Because when it’s your husband or your significant other, being treated like that is the longest, cruelest, ugliest cut of all.

I just need to keep reminding myself: This is a child’s way of being. And I’m supposed to grow up…supposed to grow up…supposed to grow up…supposed to grow up. That means focusing on my talents, developing me, and forgetting about other people.

At the moment, there aren’t any healthy ones out there.

---

Maturing the Baby in All of Us

PRESENT

I learn so much from problems in my writer’s groups.

In my town lives a moderately successful author I’ll call Jane. She’s written nonfiction, horror, and erotic paranormal romance, and she’s been published by one mid-size and several tiny publishers. Her work has been nominated for several awards and won once.  I’ve known Jane for twenty years, and her work has improved by leaps and bounds in the time I’ve known her.

Unfortunately, Jane is so hideously inappropriate in a social setting, it’s terrifying.

Jane can be a nice person. She has a lot of enthusiasm for the craft of writing, and she knows more about self-promotion than I will ever be able to learn or absorb. It’s possible to have a great time with Jane, and it’s possible to have a terrific critique meeting with Jane at the table.

Notice I said, possible. Not, probable.

Jane needs to be the center of attention at all times. She simply hasn’t absorbed social norms like when to stop talking, or when to let another person guide the conversation. Jane needs to be right about everything. She has started two wars over the use of the word was that became heated and went on for half an hour. When others are talking, Jane will fidget and sigh until they are done and she can cut in and monopolize the conversation (again).

Jane can be very sensitive. Everything hurts her feelings, yet these were the comments I received as nice people I miss left my writer’s group one by one:

_{"I'm fighting cancer, and I just can't handle the stress of being around her anymore, so I'm not coming back." "If she tells me one more time that SHE’S published, I’m going to hit her." "She monopolizes the table." "She doesn't know when to shut up." "All she does is brag, and I'm sick of  listening to it." "Everybody can tell Jane has a confidence problem and needs some help, except Jane." "She makes me so angry." "I'm sick of her."}

This week she submitted a story that was an obvious, blatant knockoff of Jurassic Park, saying she was going to submit it for a special issue of a magazine. The three of us left were bewildered, unable to believe that a magazine would accept a story that was such a blatant rewrite of a bestselling novel and movie, and we said so. Jane showed us the guidelines for the issue, and, believe it or not, that was indeed what they had asked for. 

Then she got all hurt over it, that we would assume she was that stupid. An email war resulted, and we no longer have to tolerate Jane at the group.

The question is, why did I tolerate her for so long?

I have these thoughts about that:

1.)    I don’t know how to be assertive, stand up to other people, enforce rules, and shut other people up when they are acting like Neanderthals. (As such, I probably am not the best person to be running a writer’s group. I’m only running this one because someone else stepped down and it was going to go down the tubes if someone didn’t step in and save it.)

2.)    This person is just like my mother. And I’m in some way addicted to her approval and to helping her feel better and fit in.

My mother used to behave exactly the same way. And I knew why. My mother had abusive parents, and she just never got over it. I was perhaps the closest person to my mother, and I saw how badly she felt about herself and how much she suffered.

I was so moved by her pain, I was just fused with it. And a tiny child has no other way to get her needs met except to try to fix the parent.

I tolerated my mother’s behavior forever, wishing, always wishing, that she could find some peace, see that she didn’t have to struggle so much for other people’s attention, validation, and approval, and begin to feel and behave like normal people. And I was doing the same thing with Jane. My mother has never changed. She's never gotten better. 

Neither has Jane.

And I was doing the same thing with Chi.

It just upsets my little child’s mind so much that we live in a world where many, many people are so painfully damaged and so limited that that they just cannot, will not, introspect, see the unnecessary pain they are living in and causing to others, and deal with themselves and get well. 

It’s clear that people like Jane aren’t at all happy, and they spread that unhappiness to others everywhere they go. And that is the truth. In our town, just about everyone who’s been in the writing community for a while has their own personal Jane story, and each one is worse than the next.

Jane really is damaged. Jane really is limited. She’s been this way the entire twenty years I’ve known her. I’ve tried to confront her about this twice, and the news just slid off of her like water off of a duck’s back. Instead of seriously entertaining anything I had to say about how she affected others in the group, she found something to hit back at me with. Just like she always does. Just like my mother always did.

People like this aren’t going to change. They just don’t have the stuff. 

One interpretation of Chiron in the eighth house, which I unfortunately have, is that you keep on picking up wounded birds, wounded birds. And the birds don’t ever get well, and they end up wounding you. And that’s certainly what I’ve done. My stupid mother… the guy before Simon … Simon. (Only Simon fooled me. He wasn’t damaged and limited, just widowed and grieving. I kept waiting for him to get better and decide I was too young, too fat, and not smart enough, and leave me, but he didn’t.)

This occasions a very sobering thought for me.

Chi’s chart tells me that he does have the stuff. He has a choice about what he's going to do and how he's going to live the rest of his life. He’s got a one in three chance of becoming self aware around these childhood issues of his, and buckling down and doing the work. 

But … what if the truth is really going to be that other sixty percent?

What if Chi really is this damaged, this limited, this sick? What if he’s as bad as Jane is? 

What if he just decides to stay asleep, as sick and as stubborn as my mother, forever looking for others’ validation and asking/demanding them to “make” him feel better?

That’s what my mother does. That’s what Jane does. 

That’s what I’ve done (“I can’t survive without RELATIONSHIPS with other people!!”)  

And, so far, that’s what Chi does. 

We’re all still five-year-olds, looking to other people and depending on their behavior in order to feel okay, and "doing stuff" to try to get the response out of other people that we believe we need.  Including some pretty antisocial behavior.

Instead of understanding that we’re adults, we don’t need other people, we’re supposed to take care of ourselves, and that it’s our job to be able to feel okay on our own, regardless of how other people do or do not treat us.

What if Chi, like my mother, like Jane, is just not capable of the introspection and the WORK needed to get over the dastardly childhood wounding and get the fuck well??

Because that’s all I have been doing the past three years. Introspection, looking hard at childhood and how I was wounded, looking at the erroneous beliefs about myself and about the world that I formed because of what happened when I was little, how they are causing me to pick sick people who refuse to get better, and how I need to fix that.

THAT’S what all people need to be doing if they’re going to fix their relationships and their lives and find happiness.

But very, very few people do.

It’s just too hard for them. Too difficult. Too, too scary.

No, far better to hit someone else below the belt instead. Far better to numb out in a book or TV or excessive cleaning, or self-denigration. Far better to wrap oneself around someone else’s problems--especially a child's--instead, ignore your own, and then tell yourself you had no other choice. 

I did this right up until yesterday with Jane, all because I still look at myself as a child. A child who needs other people around or she can’t survive, a child who will do anything to cling to sick people who won’t do their own internal work. A child still trying to "do it for” them, so I don’t have to be alone.

Sick people who won’t do their own internal work: That’s been Chi up to now. He can talk a good game, and he sits in group therapy every week, but if it’s a choice between involving himself in fixing his own childhood issues or running off to involve himself in his kid’s or other relatives’ problems, what does he choose to do?

Is this going to be Chi forever? If it is, the only course of action is to run for my life.

What Astrology has to Say About All This

Looks like we might be about to find out. I didn’t hear from Chi this month … but that transit was only the beginning salvo of a veritable firestorm of affair transits that are starting now and just piling and piling on over the rest of the spring and summer. Two months from now looks like a hot point.

According to my chart, I’m supposed to have learned my lesson by now. Uranus moving off Saturn: I was supposed to have changed my mind about something very important. I had this sense for three years of rushing and rushing to discover all I could about this by a certain date. THAT was the date. 

I think I made my deadline.

Of interest:

Valid during many months: This rather subtle aspect indicates a time in which you will be more courageous and determined to stand up for those things which you feel are vitally important. If you have had a hard time turning your dreams into reality you should now be able to find concrete ways of expressing yourself which more closely reflect your true nature.You will probably come to recognize more clearly those areas in your life which are primarily concerned with fulfilling the expectations of others. 

This is a very good time to consider carefully whether the obligations you have taken on are truly your responsibility. If you have been carrying other people's burdens - possibly in the hope of gaining their affection - you could come to the painful realization that you have been deluding yourself, and that others have only taken advantage of your willingness to help. It is not too late to change such behavior. This will help you to stop wasting your energy in such a futile way, enabling you to devote more of your time to developing your own talents.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Chiron sextile MC,  ,
activity period end of May 2017 until end of February 2019

Isn’t that what I’ve done my whole entire life, starting with my sick BPD mother??

Valid during several months: On the negative side, this can be a time of furious conflict with others. Recent actions by you or by other people may have created energies that lead to anger, rage and general disagreement between you and others. If you have not been careful to enlist people to your side in any work that required your individual initiative and if you have alienated them thereby, you may find now that the forces of opposition have become too great to control.

The other side of this transit is quite different and much more positive. It can mean a time when some activity you started in the past is brought to a triumphal climax. However, you had to face a challenge that tested the validity of what you were doing. If you survived that challenge successfully, you will now enjoy the fruition of that effort.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Mars opposition Sun,  ,
activity period from 20 May 2018 until end of September 2018

Wonder what that activity I started in the past might be? Healing from childhood? Ending this practice of taking in wounded birds and trying to heal my mother, perhaps?

If he shows up on schedule, that would be the test of whether I’ve accomplished that or not. Do I just NEEEED that beautiful dream of being with someone supportive forever-and-ever-like-mommy-and-daddy so badly, I believe it when he shows up and holds it out again?

Or do I recognize someone who HASN’T DONE HIS WORK, and just say no, walk away, and INSIST THAT HE DO HIS WORK?

Interestingly enough, our Davison states that if I’ve accomplished my work, that’s the only way our relationship doesn't fall prey to the same issues stalking Chi's with Rory right now. And I can see a split in my transits right now: Those that talk about good foresight, planning, and ethical standards, and those that talk about a troubled relationship that starts now and breaks up horribly (again) in two years.

Mmm, okay, it’s just a horoscope, but these same events and topics are reflected in all three of our charts, and transits, for the next six years.

I’ve studied these for so long, I’m beginning to see two different timelines in each one, two chains of cause and effect. 

I always wondered how horoscopes allowed for choices in human behavior, and if they did, then the branching timelines ought to be reflected: What if we choose A here? What if we choose B here? Then what?

And it turns out, they're there.

We just don’t see it, because astrologers typically look at only two or three years of transits at a time!

There might really be something to this idea of a doing whole life progression, after all.

More on that later. I’m going to use Rory as an example, since I can see how all her transits from 2014 to now have worked out.

***Next—Rory’s timelines, and how they illustrate the effects of her choices.

 

FRONT PAGE!!

Thanks, YourTango!!

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.