“To find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.” This can be a mantra for Venus-Neptune aspects, as finding a dream man or woman to merge with is their compelling quest. Unlike Venus-Pluto or Venus-Saturn types who can turn their backs on love after getting severely burned, Venus-Neptune people get involved again and again. Finding the perfect love is both his dream and his illusion. Becoming disillusioned with someone they never allowed themselves to see clearly in the first place, they move on to another that triggers their soulmate fantasy, and another, and another.
Kissing frogs can become a habit for them. Many are drawn to people who are hurt or flawed in some tragic way, believing that they can rescue them with their love. They can fall for troubled souls or even rogues with a heart of gold, sensing their potential. This is in part a less than judicious use of Neptune’s compassion, a gift for perceiving the immaculate soul that underlies even the most troubled or destructive personality. The gift is best used in professions of service or volunteer work, such as being a mentor to a troubled teenager. Even in fields of service, however, people with these aspects must be careful, lest shady boundary violations occur. Clear limits, in general, are not the forte of this aspect.
AstroDatabase bios show that, as a result of poor choices, notables with this aspect are a very married crew, with four not uncommon marriages. Director Roger Vadim was married five times, including to such glamorous movie stars as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. Supermodel Cheryl Tiegs was married four times before settling down with a yoga teacher. The spiritual master, JZ Knight, Ramtha’s channel, was married five times by the last count. Larry King still gets married with great regularity after the age of 70.
Any list of the famous and infamous, of course, is skewed by the pressures and privileges of that lifestyle. While the divorce rate is now 50% in many parts of the country, it should be 80% in Hollywood. The marriage stories of ordinary people with difficult Venus-Neptune aspects are not always so extreme. Many of them, in fact, don’t leave the partners they should, following the advice of country singer, the late Tammy Wynette. Wynette’s song “Stand by Your Man” brought him fame. You won’t be surprised to learn that she had a close Venus-Neptune opposition, with Venus in Pisces. Married five times, she obviously didn’t take her own advice, but her song struck a chord in Neptunian women the world over who equated love with suffering. In the psyche of Venus-Neptune individuals, love and pain sometimes merge, and there is a romantic notion that the more it hurts, the more surely a great love story must be.
love and abuse
Wealth, fame, and looks are no guarantee of a great love life, as famous Venus-Neptune women caught up in abusive relationships attest. Tina Turner, who has the square, endured seventeen years of abuse from Ike before she got out of it. Pamela Anderson, who also has the position, got out of an abusive relationship with Tommy Lee the fastest. Loni Anderson, with a square between Venus in Cancer and Neptune in Libra, had a painful marriage and difficult divorce with Burt Reynolds, who trine Venus in Capricorn and Neptune in Virgo.
Even the trine doesn’t always make the best of this aspect: Nicole Brown Simpson had a trine from Venus in Cancer to Neptune in Scorpio. Although OJ’s Venus was 8° of a square to her Neptune in Libra, it was conjunct Nicole’s Venus, which formed a close square to her Neptune. (Justin Simpson, the son of OJ and Nicole, has an opposition between Venus and Chiron in Cancer and Neptune in Capricorn.)
Using celebrity examples, domestic violence would seem more common with the square than with other aspects, but it must be emphasized that no single aspect of the graph can be considered the signature of such a complex pattern. You would need to look at the entire graph, plus the partner graph and how the two graphs intertwine. As an example, look at the charts for singers Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, shown on the next page. They had a stormy and allegedly violent relationship, and their domestic incidents, and disorders related to drug abuse, repeatedly made headlines. Whitney has Venus and Sun conjunct Leo square Neptune in Scorpio in the 8th house, while Bobby has Venus and Chiron conjunct Aries in an out-of-sign trine to Neptune in late Scorpio. In the fall of 2006, Whitney filed for divorce and went to rehab, hoping to end her addiction this time.
Again, other chart features play into the pattern. Bobby also has Mars in Scorpio conjunct Neptune on one side and his Midheaven in Scorpio on the other, with Mars square his first house Aquarius Sun. His strong Mars indicates a volatile temperament, especially considering several planets in Aries, including a close quincunx between Mars and Saturn. In Whitney’s chart, another indicator of a volatile marriage is the Pluto-Uranus conjunction on her Descendant, opposed by Chiron in Pisces on the Ascendant. Their stormy relationship and torrid chemistry was cemented by synastry, most especially the many connections between the planets that each have in fixed signs. Your Sun in Leo and Venus oppose your Sun in Aquarius. His Sun is square his Scorpio Mars. Saturn in Aquarius is conjunct your Sun and square Mars. She has a close Venus-Neptune square, with hers Neptune exactly at her Midheaven and her Venus square. The Saturn aspects of each other—her Saturn on her Sun and his Saturn on her Moon and Jupiter—add further durability and suggest that, in some unfathomable way, they gave each other a sense of security and stability.
©2006 by Donna Cunningham, MSW
