Ten years ago when a couple got in trouble, they just got divorced. Twenty years ago, same thing. There might be some couples therapy before the separation. I have a Scorpio ex who said, a couple goes to therapy when they need help breaking up! There’s a lot of truth in that but things have changed.
These days, couples are far more likely to try to stay together, though they may have no earthly idea how to do it. The reason(s) may be financial or because they have children, or because it’s dating and everything else is so seriously UN-fun out there at the moment. A person is less likely to pull the trigger. I favor this trend.
If you’re in this situation and maybe not fully conscious of your ambivalence – it might help to know you have company. LOTS of company. There are also people out there with skills in this area. I’m one of them but my point is, if you want to stay married, you want to talk to someone who knows how to stay married, as well as how and why it might benefit you.
The days where you just kick your spouse to the curb are ending now. Good! To a degree, separating, especially with young children involved, is like suicide. Permanent solution to a temporary problem; never mind the aftermath is gnarly for many years to come.
I have a lot of consults like this, these days. Not just about getting along with your partner, but also with your kids or your elder parents. “Have you tried this?” I ask.
If you’re in a situation like this, who you talk to matters greatly. A woman does not want to talk to woman who hates men, if she wants to stay married. Same thing in reverse. Look for someone who can manage their own relationships. It’s common sense, really. A person who has figured this out, did so because they knew it was worthwhile. If you’re lost or know very little about getting to the root of an issue, it’s really not your fault. We’re so heavily influenced by media, and everyone betrays everyone on TV, 95% of the time. Strange, seeing as no one wants to be betrayed themselves!
If your parents divorced or your partner’s parents divorced, where’s your example to follow? I’m telling you, people like me are out here. If you really want to stay, then stay! If it’s hard, ask for help. A tiny bit of good advice or insight can turn things around, quickly and permanently.
This is related: your partner can get hit with something, unfathomable.
If it’s your spouse that gets hit, are you supposed to leave? Maybe not. Maybe it’s your job to get them through the hard time. Most wedding vows state this, but they mean nothing if you don’t adhere to them.
I better include a disclaimer – I am not talking about staying in an abusive relationship or anything horrifying. I’m talking about not putting yourself and others through a divorce and it’s aftermath, just because you’re restless, pissed, bored, or you just can’t think of anything else. In fact, if you are experiencing any of the things I just mentioned, they’re a decent indication you’re dealing with some kind of blind spot or something subconscious that may very well have nothing to do with your partner.
Too bad, right! Toss him anyway, right?
Ten years ago, maybe. Probably. But these days are different. I can tell you this for sure, due to the business I’m in!
Have you ever consciously decided to opt in and commit to saving your marriage?
Absolutely stuck it out
for 35 + years !!kids in mind, then grandkids…
Then woman decided to harass me
Calling my home for husband
For a long spring, too many times
So I packed him up approached courts and stopped lying to myself.
Years of absurd abuse.
Court was no picnic either
For me sticking it out was deadly 🙁 but I have sisters with wonderful husbands, so caring ,compromise and commitment can produce
Loving lives together
But if it’s bad it’s gonna get worse
Poor is better than dead or hiding under the stairs
I feel all those things. Pissed. Bored. I have things to be pissed and bored about…they are real feelings. I am a fixed Bull square Leo Moon 6th. l put up with a lot…before l shift. Thanks Uranus in Taurus–something budged.
My stuff not about marriage and family (but it sort of is bse of relationship patterns repeating), my stuff is about friendship…it is all very complex and very very old. (Natal Sat. Cap 11th opps Venus Cancer 4/5th cusp) Pluto conj Dsc 1 Virgo, …these friends have planets at this degree point exactly and more…
What l will do differently is to refuse to play out my usual role. (Trans. Saturn first hse). There is also a death coming. Her violent father…
Being married is a club l never joined; l have never wanted. I think a lot of women(some men) get dudded, some children too, with the idea and the ideal of the entire set up.
l also have read Raerae’s experience. I really find you uplifting and down to earth at the same time.
I can’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t and won’t comment beyond that…not my gig, Elsa. I have read here that others have been helped by you.
I hope more are.
Being married can be hard work for sure, but 16 years in I still think I’m better off with this partner than I would be without. It’s really nice to have a team-mate.
marriage is hard work – Ive been married 24years (im 53 now) – looking back I think I peaked in my late 40s – it was still fun, fun…and I felt proud of us… I think as I get older it feels so much harder, a post covid World shakeup?
Its like we are growing apart and I find myself focusing and putting emphasis on our differences rather than what we are as a couple….what unites us.
Our boys are young men now, they seem to not need us and so I wonder what is left – is it boredom…maybe?
Disappointment? Irritation?
..can I not tolerate how I used to? so much to think about yet I don’t want to quit it either….we’ve built a life together.
i’ve always wondered how my grandparents on both sides stayed married while living abroad for years apart and then be together when they do see each other again. It’s so strange but they did it and they kept their loneliness at bay being with their children and grandchildren. Each on other sides of the globe. Now i’m somewhat experiencing it and it’s surreal how we inherit this. My parents never were apart although they should have because they are toxic together but their libra prominent in their chart can’t let go and leave. They hit eachother and choke eachother and yell to the entire neighborhood and the toxicity is awful. My mother would have looked like a “victim”if she was afraid, but that Aries mars Scorpio stellium is a fighter and she will claw your eyes out, which she has done many times to my father, and he too tried to choke her many times to stop her from hurting him. and she clawed and kicked him and grabbed the knives and tried to slash him to pieces. For a libra, you would think she’d want peace but no, that aries mars scorpio stellium gonna kill. plus her capricorn moon was squaring her sun and mars. it was kill or be killed. you can imagine the toxicity from the upbringing. My grandparents never did that, they had very amicable and good marriage with no toxicity, but they had to make sacrifices to be with family on the other side of the globe for responsiblities and for helping out. The irony is that those with loving relationships have to be apart for awhile for sacifice and the ones who had awful marriages still stick together and never leave even for a week.
My mom said if she knew about my dad’s hoarding she never would’ve married him 🤷♀️ Basically they have stayed together 40+ years bc they’re bound together financially and now they’ve traded places that my mom is n charge of the finances etc bc my dad had a fall and into a nursing home in August.
When I was younger I thought it would be nice to have a husband and a couple kids but I have an early Capricorn Venus (7th house in whole sign) and I didn’t have my first real relationship until my Saturn return and we were together 8 years, lived together 4. Basically I’m disabled and before that I felt disabled so I am not trying to have kids or clean up after anyone etc. I’m lazy AF and I’m cool w that bc I’m disabled and don’t need the stress. I realized I dodged several bullets that married women, like my mom, took right in the gut… like pregnancy! My cunny has not been torn and stitched up and my body hasn’t been put through all that misery. I don’t have to clean up anyone’s mess and hear some dude tell me I’m falling as a woman bc I’m a bad housekeeper.
My ex was a good dude tho cuz he watched his mom do everything while his dad was just there and didn’t want to be like that
Also, you don’t want to marry if you are officially disabled on some kind of disability income or you will lose benefits. If you’re already married you may not qualify for benefits bc of your spouse’s income
That’s why older people who have been married sometimes have to divorce so one or both can qualify for various programs when someone becomes disabled
It’s really shitty that our govt makes the assumption that one’s spouse is financially responsible for their disabled partner instead of giving the disabled person full benefits. Disabled people are easy to abuse and the govt is literally aiding it.
You’ve just addressed my most cherished of topics and the most vital of subjects.
I’m with you 100%.
Also with anyone who has ended the relationship or marriage, and hoping they realize it was more due to ignorance, not knowing what to do, that brought the apparently choiceless decision.
Years ago I wrote a piece entitled “The Architecture of Love.”
Not being a licensed therapist, still I got to do my work, not with seasoned relationships in trouble, but with young people.
The young ones are desperately trying to keep the love they’ve found, but the old structures make it painful and impossible. The young ones have not yet woven the ropes of commitment, marriage, kids, shared real-estate and other things that bind for better and for not.
They are still free to create the structure — physical and emotional — of their relationship.
My man and I are going on 22 years together. By “together” I mean creative ways of living, giving us what we both need individually and what the relationship needs, “outside the box.”
We are thriving.
Thank you so much for this topic, Elsa, and for your posture with it.
Thank you! My zoomer age son wants a wife and family more than anything in the world. I know there is a lack of support for this right now… as always, I try to fill the void.
People relate things to themselves, which is fine, but in some cases, I am writing to a different population. Someone like myself.
I should have married in my teens and had A BUNCH of kids. I would have done this, had I not been interfered with. We are all interfered with! So I am trying to shine this light for people who are designed for family life so they know at least one place they can come for help and information… encouragement, because 99% of what’s out there is discouraging for a person of this type… and there are far more of them, then people realize.
I know this because I work with people like this, both men and woman, all the time. They don’t want to go life alone. They do want to build something, have and maintain a family, which is as legit as anything else you can do. Thanks for your support and understanding.
Hi Elsa, thanks for your good words, and I get your concern.
Old beliefs are being shattered at the personal as well as national, global, cosmic levels where they no longer serve.
When working with the young ones I always get their birth chart first, like a template into their life’s journey, saving a lot of time and verbiage. Cut to the chase (the relationship).
I love that your son wants a wife and a family. The very words and concept are beautiful and natural.
For the young ones, looking inside, not out, will show the way to a partner who’s on the same page and vibration. Statistics are lethal. Herd mentality always goes to the lowest common denominator.
“Dating” as it is now interpreted is so dangerous! Be aware of who you hang out with, the things you read and watch and listen to. This, imo, is the kind of support that’s needed: to feed the mind and heart with intelligence, beauty, adventure and the wisdom of the ancients and of elders in your own life. With simple affection and life-ways.
Anxiety comes from mental leaping into a future or into the past, neither of which is now. The practice of now-ness is easy and the most difficult thing ever. Try it for three seconds – no, that’s too much – one second, then work your way up. Not a joke!
Married 28 years… the marriage thing after this long, is just getting weird. Maybe it’s just us. There’s been some things that have caused some considerable trauma and damage. We’re kinda living together, trying to be respectful, waiting to see how things shake down. Neither of us is ready to call it quits. It feels like fumbling around blindfolded, in a familiar room, where all the furnitures been switched around. Dang it! I stubbed my toe! Is it broken? No. But that nail is probably going to fall off. Gross.
” Neither of us is ready to call it quits. It feels like fumbling around blindfolded, in a familiar room, where all the furnitures been switched around.” Great description, I can feel it.
What I witness is excessive overlap between two adults whose fulfillment requires more space.
Not only physical space but mental and emotional. My inner thoughts and feelings about my man are as powerful as my behaviors.
The challenge is to achieve the more-space without abandoning each other.
Once my early-life trauma was known, acknowledged, grieved, no more dwelling on it. Instead an awareness of patterns, and developing my consciousness through the simple (but difficult) practice of presence. (Ekhart Tolle for guidance).
Three elements of relationship are served: my beloved’s, my own, and the relationship itself which has its own needs. Discovering what they are and how it can be served is exercise of discovery and re-boot. It is not necessary for both to participate.
Just one partner’s efforts to deeper understanding will shift the dynamic.
In my case, the moment I made the decision to stay, fears of abandonment left, as I was the one who would have precipitated a break.
We’re going on 22 years together, lots of space, more love than ever.
Vic, I wish you the very best in growing a shiny new nail.
Thanks, I love the advice of staying in the now and allowing space. Love is the expansion. Fear is the contraction that turns into a prison without the second part of a heartbeat.
We were in couples therapy last year.
Boy was it hard! I wanted to quit it so bad. But I stayed. And I did it because I put my thinking cap on and knew – objectively – that this guy was a good guy. I have seen a lot of the men you describe – throw her out, because she is difficult, go on to the next, thinking it was “all her” – get married, get children etc… But I don’t believe for ONE second, that they are any happier than with me. ESPECIALLY if they haven’t gone to get help for their own issues.
Perhaps the new woman just hadn’t worked on her own, so she will allow him to be all he wants, and then, when she gets older, they wake up and look at eachother as strangers.
Going through therapy takes BALLS!
It was actually my BF who suggested it.
I was weary. Had been through therapy myself for quite some years before that.
But, I relented, and I am happy I did. We still fight, but one of the things I we discovered during the period was that we had stopped seeing the other as a person with integrity and good intentions. We thought the other had bad intentions towards us. Then, you can’t access the place where you see each other as “a good person”… And who wants to be with a bad person, right?
We were lucky to have made it. It was tough, and simultaneously going through a LOT of external stress from outside too.
But now we are on better terms. Or turf, at last. Not perfect. But I wouldn’t want to have gone through this with any other person than my partner. I am so glad I have read so many blog posts about this topic here on this blog, Elsa. Otherwise I don’t think I – and then, we, would have made it. You have indirectly saved my relationship by advising and advocating for staying, even through the bad times…
THANK YOU and BLESS YOU ❤️
Good! This is my goal! Thanks for posting.
I am so grateful for your articles. They kept me sane through 2023. Every time I wanted to quit it all and go on, I knew on some level, that a new partner wouldn’t be better. Different, in other ways, but not BETTER.
Why? I had worked SO DARN HARD on improving my self, and I had no more powers left to improve in my person (the next couple of years at least), so I might as well make the most of what I had to work with.
During our therapy my BF also realised some issues he had due to his childhood experiences, and through working on them, doing the work with the therapist guidance, we managed to come through. It almost felt like going through the eye of a needle at a certain point (that being the time of the Venus-Sun cazsimi in August 2023) ….
It was very tough, but I think/hope that we made it…
Anette, I cannot tell you how much I respect what you, and your mate, have done, ongoing.
People have no idea what it is until they dare do the work themselves — I mean, they have no idea how profoundly they will respect themselves as well as their partner.
This is the Hero/Heroine’s Journey par excellence. The path of relationship is the most difficult and the most rewarding of all, as the partner represents our deepest unseen parts, both positive and negative.
When the personal transforms into the transpersonal, it’s a whole new ballgame, pardon the pun! Often quiet, subtle, known only to the experiencers.
Thank you for sharing your precious experience.
You are so right, Constance!
They really have no idea. We went over two periods, the first in 2020, the second in 2023.
The first one was with a male therapist who wasn’t really suited to put needs, but none of us knew we also suffered so much die to undiagnosed mental stuff, and after being diagnosed and medically treated we were at least better equipped with new knowledge about ourselves to improve our relationship because we know now which challenges we are up against!
Besides that, life had been like a rollercoaster since 2020, so of course – at some point your relationship will start to suffer from the ordeals, and ours certainly did! We met in late 2019, and then boom – Corona and everything else that followed, plus various stressors besides that.
At the time my BF’s Libra moon was squashed by Pluto in Cap, so this also put an enormous pressure on us! Plus, tr. Chiron on our progressed composite Ascendant! Ouch!
But luckily, yes, you end up with respect for each other and an immense gratefulness too. It’s like the building of ships: the ship is only as good as the engineers, and if we’re going down, they’re going down with all the other sailors. So you better do your homework!
Also – we have a lot of Saturn-Venus contacts and Libra Saturn. We weren’t spared, but we worked hard too and it pays off!
We have bought a book that explains how childhood trauma affects people in relationships too. It has been such an eye opener. You fit the other – you also fit each others’ traumas! The book explains how and why this fit together on a subconscious level and it was really educational, I admit.
Thank goodness for Astrology (and thank you Elsa for this platform).
I don’t know how therapists navigate without this individualized map of a person’s journey through this world.
I see all the whammies that were awaiting you and your partner – big time! Fortunately some of the transits are not too lengthy, esp with Pluto and Chiron in the dance.
I sense there is some maturity, to have addressed it all as you have.
Both our charts showed a nearly pathological need for freedom (in life, not sexual).
He Aquarian and me Sun conjunct Uranus.
Plus, our nodes are conjunct – two birds flying into the cosmos, wings touching. (he’s 19 years younger).
Plus composite Saturn in the 7th, so I knew there would be longevity – let’s make it good!
The old-school book “I Will Never Leave You” was the clincher for me during a narrow passage.
We did not do our healing work together, yet arrive at the same place.
Connecting the dots between early life traumas and our relational styles was vital, as you describe. And then all of that was no longer necessary, as we lived increasingly with mutual praise, in our minds as well as attitudes. You get what you focus on.
He is Native American with the wacky humor particular to their race and soul.
There’s not too much humor in therapy, yet it is the divine healer.
Thanks for sharing, Anette. May we live it day by day.