Romanticism and Rage: T-Square Tirade
Preface:
This is written for women. Particularly women in toxic or abusive relationships with children involved. If you’re a man in this situation you’re valid, and if you can use this advice please take it. But the truth is the world was setup as such that it’s usually the woman on this end of the deal.
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Even if no one ever read what I wrote I would write. It’s something I have been in love with since the age of thirteen. Ultimately, I am writing this for myself because the thoughts in my head have to go somewhere. And I hope that by putting it out into the ethers you can benefit, too.
Today I want to talk about relationships on a in-depth level. Because the truth is men benefit far more from them than women do. The right two people can make any relationship work, but if one or both are caught up in this idea that it’s always going to feel good and be romantic they are deluding themselves. Welcome to Neptune Rx at the end of Pisces.
Pisces is a very romantic and dreamy sign. Neptune Rx at the end degrees is telling us that life isn’t like that. Relationships are not like that. Things will never be dreamy and romantic 100% of the time. And by escaping or avoiding that truth we only cause more harm to ourselves and others.
The reason romantic love became a thing during the Middle Ages is because lower status men wanted to deceive higher class women into mating with them. The reason the government today is still trying to control women’s bodies is not rooted in morality. Religion helps their end goal. They don’t really believe in it.
It’s rooted in the same philosophy that says homosexuality is unnatural, even though it’s found all throughout nature through just about every species that has ever existed. They believe if it isn’t a relationship capable of reproducing and passing on the man’s genes it’s not a legitimate relationship. They have exploited us all.
Capitalism wants to control women’s reproductive capacity so that they continue birthing desperate and disposable bodies to do the labor. Patriarchy wants to control our bodies to further male genetics. How quickly the romance fades when we enter new relationships.
As women we are trained to desire romantic love above all else, even the children that “love” produces. If a woman doesn’t desire marriage and children society thinks something is wrong with her. We are told that as women our calling is to be wives and mothers to people who will never truly appreciate the labor of “love” we invest.
Venus is currently in a position where she is pissed. She is in her fall in Virgo, where she is becoming more critical of the shit going on around her. Women are bred to be of service to the men who refuse to commit fully to them, no matter how committed they are.
She is supposed to sacrifice everything to placate and keep everyone else happy. She forgoes a career, friendships, family, because she is so exhausted in “serving her role” or serving the patriarchal agenda. I’ve likened Venus in Virgo to the Queen of Pentacles.
She provides for her people. She is of the highest service. But is she truly valued as an individual? Or is she used and abused to keep her in her “rightful” place? Because I have questions. Her role is to create a divine space for everyone else, and to suffer in silence herself.
For so long women had no rights. We couldn’t leave our abusive husbands because we weren’t allowed to work, have accounts in our names, or own property and homes. And we wonder why there are generations of wounded children in adult bodies struggling with mother wounds.
The single, most telling aspect to whether or not a child will grow into a happy, functional, thriving adult has nothing to do with the father. It’s found in whether or not their mother was whole enough, healed enough, happy enough to be present and nurture them in healthy ways.
They convince you a man is a good financial plan. That you should become a prim and proper pick me, and let the man who picks you be the provider. Financial abuse is far more common than you know. A woman gives up everything for her “one true love” and he has the energy to go create entire secret families behind her back.
You seldom hear of women doing this because she is too fucking exhausted from taking care of the first family. Chasing romantic love often leaves her isolated. She is silently and sometimes verbally forced to cut off all other relationships. She has no real network because we are also bred to believe that we must maintain an image.
This doesn’t allow for the couple to embark on a journey together. It involves her sacrificing everything for him to fulfill his desires. He views her as less than, not considering everything she brings to the table. There is no equal footing there.
Even in a relationship where the man doesn’t work due to health reasons, or they decided he would be the stay at home father and husband, the woman carries a larger share of the load. Now she is not only running the home and family, but having to make time to be good at a career, too.
And in situations where she doesn’t have her own resources she remains stuck because she has children and nowhere to go. So now the children are also abused. She doesn’t have time to work on healing herself because she is so busy cooking, cleaning, making appointments, running around, doing the most to make everyone else happy, while no one gives a shit about her.
And the reason everything is so expensive right now is so that women can’t afford to go it alone. You need three or four incomes to survive at this point. They are making it as hard as they can for a reason.
Think of all the movies that present romantic love as the be all end all of everything. They make it seem like romantic love is the most moral, noble thing in the world. But there is a sinister current beneath the surface. They want you to believe that. But you already know the honeymoon phase ends.
You don’t have a soulmate. You do not have one, true love. There is no twin flame meant to fill every void in you. Those are myths designed to keep women chasing men who will strip them of all that they are. It makes us care more about being in a relationship than who we are in a relationship with. It’s not about one, true love in an individual.
For when we lose one we claim to have another. We are not in love with the first one. We are in love with the idea of having true love. If one abandons us we beg the next one not to, even if they are shitty partners. In every relationship you have you will feel you’re compromising yourself, so if you’re going to be in one make sure he compromises just as much.
Women are taught to discard their own needs and desires all for the sake of pleasing every need and desire a man has. They don’t care that the relationship is fake. The image of true love becomes enough, even as they suffer silently and alone behind closed doors.
Healthy relationships can exist, but it’s not always going to be romantic with fairytale endings. Women’s internalized misogyny has them make themselves smaller. We are the portal of life, and yet we go around acting as if we are the fucking imposters.
People who idealize romantic love believe it’s capable of great things, but I haven’t ever heard of a romantic love story that changed the world. Shulamith Firestone says romantic love was the pivot for women’s oppression. It’s a holocaust, a hell, and a sacrifice.
Simone de Beauvoir states that given the unequal position of men and women, love is a curse for women. It’s something that confines them. Carl Smart says that feminists have found love to be an aspect of the patriarchy’s ideological armament. Through this, women become hooked into dependent relationships with men. Her home is her prison.
Love itself exists and it’s not oppressive. But it becomes so when the social context creates a divide. So love exists, but it has to be understood better. It’s not about women becoming subordinate to men. Love isn’t afraid to let you soar and spread your wings. It won’t clip you and keep you small.
So much of our world hits women harder than men. The spinster is said to be sad and miserable. Locked in her room with books and cats. You’ve heard of JD Vance’s comments, I’m sure. But the bachelor? He is free and having fun. He is the most interesting character to behold. He is worth pursuing and chasing.
I’m here to tell you that Christian Munsch is correct in stating that even the most “equal” partnerships are weighted by the patriarchy. Somebody has to take care of the kids, and since men make more than women, it’s usually the women. So much falls on her.
Even in my current relationship we’ve had to have conversations about this. Prior to me getting my last job at CW John was the only one working. So I didn’t mind picking up the slack. But once I started working it still fell on me to create a list, go shopping, cook, and clean.
Now John isn’t working at all. He is home all day while I work. And still I was coming home to a dirty house, and having to figure out dinner. Some nights I’d protest by making him fend for himself and just grabbing something quick for me. This is why married or partnered men live longer.
As women we are bred and raised to be caretakers. Without us in their lives they are less likely to go to the doctor, or take care of themselves. John admits there are several times he would have been worse off or died if I hadn’t been here to push him to be seen.
So recently when we got into an argument he said he has complaints, too. That I know how important it is that I lay down with him at night for a while. He hates going to bed alone. But this is where it starts, friends. Why would I want to lay down with someone who is sitting around all day, not caring about what is important to me? Who isn’t easing my burden?
And then go above and beyond even more to make him feel important? Nah, friends, can’t be me anymore. I did that in my first marriage. There is this unspoken assumption that in order for us to ‘grow up’ we must settle down into domestic partnerships.
Laura Kipnes says, “We prostrate ourselves at love’s portals, like social strivers waiting at the rope line outside some exclusive club hoping to gain admission and thereby confirm our essential worth.” Your worth is NOT and NEVER will be defined by ANY man who “chooses” you.
So as Venus prepares to oppose Saturn in Pisces and square off with Mars and Jupiter in Gemini women have truly had enough. You’re going to see as Neptune and Saturn come ever closer together that the illusions are destroyed. Everyone already knows what I am writing here is true.
I told John that night that the reason I don’t lay with him anymore is there is a wedge of resentment there. We’ve had conversations about this before, and yet nothing changes. I’ve grown and changed so much. I’ve bent over backward to compromise and he won’t do the same.
This includes in what my children are expected to do compared to his. I’m once again in a relationship where I am the only one compromising. Since then, he has done most of the cooking, and he normally cleans the kitchen. The rest of the house leaves a lot to be desired.
And it’s on more than one occasion he has weaponized his incompetence. But he does come to realizations on his own. Which I do appreciate.
For example, one day he told me he cleaned the kitchen, so if I wanted to cook when I got home I could. I told him I thought he was supposed to be doing the cooking from now on, to which he replied, he didn’t know what to cook. He had frozen all the meat the day before.
When I asked him why he would do that he said he didn’t know what we would get into the next couple days, knowing we are broke. What could we possibly get into with no money? So I mentioned the ground beef still in the fridge and told him he could make meatloaf.
To which he replied, “I’ve never made meatloaf before. I would need you to tell me how.” I was so frustrated. No one tells me how. No one makes lists for me. No one points out the obvious that needs to be done. I can see it and so I just fucking do it. I was beside myself with rage.
As we continued to talk about it I gave up. I told him I would just make tacos. To which he said again, “I can make the meatloaf. I just need you to tell me how.” And before I could answer in the rage that filled my belly he added, “I suppose I could look that up.” And I swear I wanted to slow clap.
This world we live in is not a “man’s world” by some divine design. It’s a “man’s world” because they manipulated it away from women. They plundered and stole resources and this forced women to marry for economic security. Women weren’t allowed to create their own resources.
Back in the day your husband could just say you were crazy without proof in order to have you committed. You went from the property of your father to him blessing you to become the property of another man, if the price was right. When it comes to partnership men win, and women lose.
Even daycare is so expensive that once children enter the picture the wives are usually forced into a subservient role. That was the case in my first marriage. Because originally I worked and he was lazy. When I left him over it he worked, but expected me to as well.
Only when it went down like that daycare for four children took everything I made, plus some of what he made. So we communicated and decided I would stay home and go to online college, take care of the house and kids. So everyday he worked, came home and went to the bedroom, and never wanted to participate in family life. Everything revolved around him.
When I think of the mother wounds I have healed, and the ones I am still working on, I am able to offer my mother grace. I no longer want her to heal for me, to give me some type of closure. I’ve created that on my own. When she was a young mother these things were not spoken about.
Women mostly protected weak men because without that man they had no way to feed, cloth, and care for their children. In my parent’s case my dad did not work and provide. He was an addict and often in jail. But she had been raised watching a woman love violent, awful men. She simply repeated cycles that were both familial and societal.
Today there are still humps to get over when it comes to talking about mental health, breaking cycles, and shame. However, there are more resources than ever. We’ve come a long way. So the next time you get angry about having to “do the inner work” consider that.
We spend so much time and energy trying to be enough for everyone else, and so little becoming enough for ourselves. Romantic love is far more complicated than you’ve been sold. It sells movie tickets, dinners, and ads. Bus tickets to the boy who thought randomly surprising you and showing up in your space was somehow a good idea.
But in those movies the real work is never shown. What happens after the credits roll is information we are not privy to. The fact that romantic love makes you do stupid things, is painful, requires a level of discipline and sustained effort that is almost impossible, is never spoken about.
The fact that you ignore red flags, and all you see is an ocean of potential in a partner who doesn’t care to maximize it at all. This is not love. It is absolute delusion. And often enough we focus so much on helping them evolve into their potential as a way to get out of evolving our own.
Each generation of Pluto came here to experience the darkness of whatever sign it is in, and then to shout at the world we have to transform it. For me, that is the Pluto in Libra generation. So I was meant to experience the darkness in relationships, and understand them on a deeper level.
With that comes a sense of personal freedom. Because I’ve understood that my relationship to self is going to reflect in any external relationship I have. So it has required me to grapple with the responsibilities wanting to be loved can bring into your life.
Pluto in Libra came here to expose that you’re not in love with that toxic partner. You’re in love with the idea of love, and they just happen to be entertaining it in that moment. You’re wanting to be swept off your feet, but every time the rug gets pulled from under you instead.
Everyone is chasing this idea of the perfect romantic relationship. They feel their happiness is tied to it. But this idea that all you need is love is one of the most harmful ideas to have surfaced in society. You can think you love someone, and the whole time they are hurting you, abusing you, taking everything from you. That isn’t love.
I’m going to leave you, once again, with a quote from Brene Brown:
“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honour the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.
Love is not something we give or get, it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each of them — we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.
Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal and the withholding of affection damages the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare”.
If ANY relationship you have doesn’t fit into this description it’s not love. It’s attachment, it’s expectation, it’s desperate seeking, but it’s not love. And you can argue with yourself because I will die on this hill. I am not anti-relationship as I am in one. I am anti lying to ourselves about them.
Now that I’ve said all of this let me acknowledge there are exceptions. In some cases, it is the men who bend over backwards to serve the woman. And the woman who is the one who demands the chase and dedication. In some cases it is the man who takes on a brunt of the work. But this is a small percentage, an exception to the rule.
I am currently in relationship review mode. Every relationship in my life is on the chopping block. And if I’m on someone else’s chopping block I’m okay with that, too. Because let me tell you the work I’ve done to convince myself I’m going to be okay no matter what is huge.
Recently I wrote of my daughter and her current struggle to accept there are different versions of me. There is no relationship in my life I am still terrified of losing, until you ask about kids. My initial reaction to her struggle left a lot to be desired. And I recognized in that moment who was for me, and who was just playing pretend.
I noticed myself that I was reacting from a triggered space. So I left and came to my office. I forced myself to face the discomfort in that moment, and to be the one to convince myself I was going to be okay. That night when I laid my head down I had cultivated genuine gratitude. Because that’s the truth. Grief and gratitude coexist.
And when you spend your life trying to discount one it doesn’t stop it from existing. It just stops you from growing, evolving, and achieving balance in life. Whether that’s in your relationship to self, others, work, food, addictions, pleasure, or whatever else.
As Mercury has gone Rx in my Virgo 2nd house I’ve sat in the trenches. Alone I braved the burning rage and fear growing inside of me. Venus represents relationships, which is my life’s work. She is also in my 2nd house having me question if my resources, my values, my worth is aligned with the current relationships I am entertaining.
Mercury has since moved back into my 1st house. Now I’m ready to step into my authentic role. I am a person of integrity. I wasn’t always. But like you, I had no choice but to learn what I lived. We don’t get a say in the parents we end up with, the nurturing we receive or don’t. The experiences that shape us when we are young.
But I have a choice now. I have a choice in the present moment. If you’re in a toxic, unfulfilling situation, begging to be chosen, please stop. Please consider your worth and value. For women, in particular, we often find ourselves in situations where we don’t realize it’s a choice. Or the choice to leave and make the healthy decision is hard and daunting, so we put it off.
And if we have children they are watching, absorbing, learning how to relate based on what they see and experience growing up under your care. The Universe knows I should have done better by mine. It is true that women who are abused also enable their children to be abused. And often after you leave, when the whole truth comes out, you just want to die.
The shame is enough to choke the life right out of you. But I am here to tell you it’s going to be okay. Just breathe through it. Your children do not want you to be perfect. They do not expect that you can go back in time and change things. They just want you to take accountability and set a healthier example now. Your shame will never serve that.
In order to build a healthy relationship with anyone, romantic or otherwise, you must learn how to sit in your discomfort, your shame, your name the emotion or experience. Otherwise, you will be reactive and project that onto the very people you keep begging to love you better.
Some day your children will figure out who you are as people. The illusion that you’re some perfect loving protector will fade. They will have legitimate issues to work through, some greater than others. And when that times comes how you handle it determines everything moving forward.
The world has taught us the most important work is in God and man. When the truth is each new generation comes to teach the last. You’re not owed more respect or attention because you’re bigger and older now, or because you happened to be born with the right chromosomes.
In fact, that low level emotional intelligence proves you’re still a wounded baby inside. The most important thing in the world is NOT romantic love. A more modern invention that was propagated to sell merchandise and experiences that allow you to lie to yourself.
The most important work in the world is raising children, understanding and listening to children, and changing and growing for your children. It is in setting examples that are healthy for them to follow. That is what changes the world. Let your children guide you and teach you, too.
You’re not going to wake up every single day and feel worthy of the more you’re currently begging for. But you can wake up every day and know intellectually you are worth it. You can decide to listen to your head, and not your broken and begging heart.
It doesn’t matter how you feel. What do you know? Because if you’re honest love isn’t what you feel in your current situation. Love is what you’re still begging to feel. Make the right decisions and the right feelings will follow.
If you’re interested in a reading to get an in-depth look at the lessons in your chart and the current transits please check it out here:
I don’t know where this relationship reckoning ends up for me, but I know my worth and value. I know that no matter what I am going to be okay. Because you take everything from me and I will build it again. It’s not on me. It is within me. And that’s on the inner work.
If you’re feeling generous: Never expected, always appreciated
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