A friend requested my take on how Saturn works in synastry between the charts. As a true Libra Sun person with a life-long fascination with how relationships work how could I say “no”? Over the years, I done a lot of reading relating to synastry plus looked at a lot of different relationships plus my own – especially my own! When it comes to Saturn, I still favor Steven Arroyo’s work in this area. He is a fellow Libra and has done extensive astrological relationship counseling over the years. Another favorite, Liz Greene, has what I consider “the Book” on Saturn: “Saturn: a new look at an old devil”. Between these two astrologers and my own experiences, Saturn in synastry is simply not the bad guy that more traditional astrologers have made him out to be.

This is not to say there aren’t inter-chart aspects with Saturn that are not tough to deal with as there are. Saturn forming squares and inconjuncts to the Moon and Venus in particular can be difficult to resolve. However, conjunctions and oppositions as well as squares show up with great frequency in chart comparisons of couples that have been together – and happily – for many years. One of the key factors may be that most of time there has been some kind of formal documentation of the relationship, i.e., marriage, wills, etc. Saturn likes it very much when both partners sign on the dotted line and announce to the community that they are a couple.

Conjunctions, trines, sextiles and oppositions between Saturn and the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Ascendant and Descendant are all aspects that can indicate a relationship that will be durable. Saturn acts as a stabilizing element and helps ground the relationship in time and space. When the synastry has loads of Jupiter and Uranus inter-aspects for fun and freedom, I like to see a good solid Saturn aspect to provide some balance. If I don’t see one or two, then the likely hood is the relationship will burn brightly and then both partners will move on.

My S/O’s Saturn is conjunct my Moon/Neptune which falls in his seventh House . . . classic aspect for the long run. Traditional astrology says I will experience this as oppressive and run into lots of resistance to the natural expression of my emotional nature. I will own up to some of that but after seventeen years of being essentially happy and comfortable together my over-riding experience has been one where I find him emotionally dependable and this creates a feeling of security for me. OK, I have Taurus on the cusp of my seventh House so I LIKE a partner that others may find boring but that’s the beauty of astrology – we can determine what type of partner best suits us.

While we love to look chart comparisons, I feel I must reiterate . . . ONE MORE TIME . . . chart comparisons start with the individual! And if as an individual, you are not yet in a place to be a good partner, please acknowledge that to yourself if no one else. My Libra side tells me the willingness to compromise is a very important aspect of being a good partner. To make healthy compromises, we need to know exactly what we will and will not compromise on. This goes right to the heart of being a good partner . . . :-)

This is the wedding photo of my Libra mom & Cancer dad . . . they were married just a week shy of 63 yrs when she died this past spring. One of the reasons I believe in the possibility of lasting reasonably happy relationships!