This week’s question is adapted from Diane’s personal blog, Libra Seeking Balance. Pat is taking a personal day but she will be back next week to add her thoughts to your questions.

My partner’s Moon is square my Moon in our synastry chart. Can a relationship with this aspect survive? This would seem to spell death for any kind of meaningful emotional connection.

Diane’s response:

A couple of my loyal readers on Libra Seeking Balance generously sent me more information enabling me to take a deeper look at the synastry with their partners, both instances with Moon in Leo square Moon in Scorpio. Naturally, the results were quite interesting, at least for this Libra astrologer.

In the first case, I was amazed to see ten conjunctions between personal planets and angles in their synastry. It has always been my contention we need a conjunction or three between the charts to provide enough common ground on which to build a relationship. Trines and sextiles add harmonics, squares and inconjuncts add dissonance, and oppositions can bring balance as well as tension. But without conjunctions tying the whole composition together, the relationship will often gradually (or abruptly) fall apart.

Perhaps the most significant aspects are Moon conjunct Mercury and Mercury conjunct Moon. This set of aspects is an “intra-aspect,” where the same two planets from both charts aspect each other, in this case forging a direct link between thoughts and feelings. Even though one partner’s Mercury is square the others by sign, indicating very different styles processing information, when they sit down to talk about how they feel, understanding quickly emerges.

Venus conjunct Venus is another winner, as is Mars sextile Mars. Both of these aspects contribute to their mutual happiness by indicating similar ideas of fun and the ability to work together on projects as a couple.

The second couple with a Moon in Leo square Moon in Scorpio is shy on conjunctions but does have several other very favorable synastry aspects. Among them is an alignment of one partner’s Ascendant with the other’s Descendant, which creates a sense of natural partnership. Underscoring this is an abundance of one person’s planets, including both the Sun and Moon, in the other person’s seventh house.

A very nice intra-aspect for them is Sun trine Saturn and Saturn sextile Sun. Harmonious Sun-Saturn synastry aspects provide a solid foundation for lasting relationships and often indicate a marked difference in age. A lovely Moon-Jupiter intra-aspect says they can be emotionally generous and supportive to one another, making it much easier to overlook points of contention.

In this case, Venus is trine Venus by sign and Mars sextile Mars by degree as well as sign – great aspects for planning outings and pleasant weekends together or just getting together to prepare good food at home. Many times it is the small things that can make or break a relationship.

An additional thought on Moon square Moon in Leo and Scorpio has to do with the both being fixed signs. Fixed signs tend to hang onto the status quo, for better or worse, out of a dislike for change. For these two couples, that tenacity has enabled them to move past the rough spots and explore other, more pleasant aspects of their relationships.

It really did help having good, complete birth data (date, time and place) for both parties, because of the importance of the chart wheel and angles in synastry.

Got a quick question? Click here to contact Ask Real Astrologers. You must use this form to contact us, or we don’t get your question. Be sure to fill out all the fields, and please spell out the month of your birthday. If you don’t know your time of birth, indicate “time unknown.” NEW: You can also use the drop-down menu above under “About Us” to get to the question form. THANKS!