Differentiating relationships

February 20, 2008

In a message dated 2/20/2008 12:10:09 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, kishorepatnaik09 writes:

On the other hand, personally I don't know how to differentiate between a full pledged marriage and a serious relationship, say , a live in relationship.

Hello Kishore Patnaik and others,

I am new to the list and have been mostly lurking reading the posts here since I am new to Indian/Vedic astrology. No doubt I was invited to the list because of my correspondence with an astrologer from another astrology e-list to which I belong. I'm a counseling astrologer here in the United States and my educational background is in Abnormal, Deviant and Violent Psychology with a focus on personality disorders .

In differentiating between a marriage, romance and/or a serious relationship I use the 5th house for romance. Once the relationship becomes a live in situation is becomes a 7th house affair just as a legal marriage would be. In the United States it is quite common for couples to first reside with each other, become engaged and subsequently marry. However, living together as a couple even without first becoming engaged has increased whereas legal marriages for those couples have decreased, thereby skewing the rate of divorce, which has actually decreased.

I treat marriage and living together the same...as a 7th house issue.

Also, with regard to domestic abuse and violence, it tends to be passed down through generations and cultures just as "cheating" or adultery tends to be perpetuated through generations. In a culture that demands or forces one to marry another against one's personal choice, there will be rebellion at some point. If not rebellion then sickness, because whatever is repressed eventually becomes distorted.

Astrologically speaking, I don't "only" look at synastry between birth charts. It's equally important to look to the progressed chart and then transits to those charts, the composite chart of the relationship, the first meeting chart, first sexual encounter, marriage chart and so forth so detect if there will be separation, violence, abuse etc. If it isn't in the birth chart "somewhere" in the first place, it will more than likely not manifest.

I also look at eclipses before the birth of the individual as well as planets who were retrograde at birth then went direct during the life of the individual. It may be that when a personal planet like Mercury, Venus or Mars turns direct by progression, stuff happens, the individual "awakens" in that area of life and may come into their own by the nature of the retrograde planet acting "uncharacteristically".

Abuse and domestic violence against women occur in every culture around the world. Unfortunately most people turn a blind cheek, believe it is "okay" and it is summarily dismissed (as I have read on this list). It doesn't matter "why" it happens, only in that it must stop. It's not okay to insult, berate, hurt, punish, withhold love, attention, sex, love or money or anything else for control. In fact, according to the DSM - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - Psychology, there is a term for males the highest percentage of individuals are male) who typically display the above control manipulations within interpersonal relationships; they are Narcissists and usually display pathological behaviors exploiting others for personal gain.

Thank you everyone for the wonderful posts, they are informative and a little confusing given the lack of understanding on my part of the terminology.

Sincerely,

Lorraine Valente

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