some people pair up and that's that.

other don't.

being older (i feel older) that stuff just changes.

double leo had his heart broken 10 years ago (so he confessed tonight) and i had mine torn to shreds when i was 26.

i said to him tonight i actually have no expectations of him. (except maybe a trip. hee.) in reply to his typical sort of comment that he would hurt me. i told him quite frankly that i have no expectations and that i learned a long time ago there are no guarantees. and that he may or may nor hurt me. but that he should not set us up that way.

i also told him i think we came together for a reason. if only to make our hearts more whole. that's good reason enough. i told him my heart is open. 

i know him. he is so similar to me. it's an odd feeling not to have expectations. i mean, beyond the basics. i expect respect. i expect that if we are travelling this road together, there will be friendship. certainly, sexually, we have something going on. and the conversations indicate we have an intellectual compatability. but i do not expect to be his great love. nor can he expect to be mine.

we are slowly shredding through societal bullshit. i like that. i can say anything to him. and he feels safe saying anything to me.

this is good. it is healing. and wherever it goes i think i have a friend for life. that matters to me more than anything.      

A friend for life is a rare thing. Good going!

yes. romantic inclinations are lovely... true friends rare. i prefer a true friend to a romantic imagining.

I like your relationship style Michele! And I'm surprised that at my young, and very briefly partnered self's age.....I was, and am the same way regarding what I have to bring to a friendship with a guy, and not having expectations.

The shedding of not only my rather astronomically proportioned, and ridiculous expectations, and also letting go of society's expectations and thoughts of what makes a love affair click or tick as the case may be with my Saturn stuff ; ) was also something I had to actively work to let go of.

SN in Capricorn, Venus/Saturn, Uranus H7 op Sun/Moon.

Ah Mina... a friend of my heart, you are.

i am finding that younger persons than I have a take on relationship that I have. I just wish sometimes it hadn't taken me twenty year to get here. I was so steeped in "how things should be." I sometimes resent that.

O well. So it took me all this time to get here. Here is good. 

Oh Michele, don't resent it. Everyone's experience is different.

*happy 1st house Moon twinkling glow*

@Michele--I try, but it wasn't easy. I chalk it up to Saturn transiting my 5th house then, and Pluto opposite my Sun/Moon/Mercury, and transiting my 7th and 8th houses. It was pretty much "figure your shit out, or die stupid" type stuff.

Luckily, I made it thru that rollercoaster all right. On to the next I'm thinking--which funnily enough is my SR in Libra going on right now. Hmm....I see a hint hint type pattern here....I wonder what the universe means....; )

And yes! I think here is *very* good for you now! I hope I'm somewhere close to there when I'm there. : )

I feel exactly the same as you do Michele and it takes onesheart to be torned to shreds. There simply are no expectations from anyone now. life goes on..

It's true - after that total shredding, there is no going back to a place of naivete. And I think we're the better for it, because we begin to value people as themselves and not as the roles we expect them to fulfill in our lives.

Lots of luck, Michele!

.

'because we begin to value people as themselves and not as the roles we expect them to fulfill in our lives."

YES. Exactly. The person as they are instead of the image we conjure up of who they "should" be in the lives we "should" have....

michele - you know, I'm in my forties, just like you and I feel the same way about relationships.  I approached my relationship with the Aussie the same way as he is approaching it too.  But, who's to say that isn't love?  Maybe that's what love is all about and that when we were younger we got lost in what others expectations were.  We thought that was romantic love but clearly after much destruction and heartache we learned that wasn't right...maybe our definitions are mixed up...

I can't say I know of this sort of heartbreak that leaves one feeling the way you describe.  It sounds like a very painful lesson but perhaps since I  put friendship first always I haven't had  this sort of experience.

Michele, you always sound so wise and it must be because you have mastered yourself with regard to this.  I  wish you the very best and I also believe that love can come at any time.

Very happy to hear this Michele and hope it works out for you both :).  A friend along life's path is wonderful, enjoy :)
Angie

Good stuff! Lots of wisdom in this thread.

I have been shredded too and there is just no "undo".

I've been shredded more than once, but had such a need for intense emotional and sexual experience I kept returning to the fray.... Four of those relationships in a forty year span took me right down to my bedrock, stripped me bare

I agree with Mahchi that love can come in different guises, and it also changes of itself as it evolves. Of my five most searing and deep-burning love relationships, two started very suddenly (we went to bed on first/second meeting, and it was immediately accepted we were 'bonded' and would continue to be lovers) - the other three began as good friendships, we'd known one another well and over many months beofre we became lovers. In those cases, I'd had no thought at all of sex with those men when I'd first known them, but making love really did 'make love', and make us 'in love'.

ETA  I agree that with age comes the lack of expectations... but one is still subject to Neptunian 'hopes' and this is wherer the trouble can start which leads to another broken heart

And what about people like me who have lost hope are have given up any expectations what so ever. by being torn dwon only once. are we giving up too early? Coz i feel now i dont need or want anyone and that i cannot sustain it. yeah friendship is ok. however passionate love a complete no. just wanted to know is it about age, or how deep the tear was or how strong the pulp was?

I think if I'd been shredded when I was younger, i might have been okay. Not now, though. And I wasn't that naive either, but this guy still managed to do it.

@ surd I spent the last three years mulling over that question. Despite the shredding at age 26... I deeply loved the man I married in 2006. Or thought I did. Whether it was illusion or not (Neptune is my in 7th, has been for some time and will be for some time) -- I put most of myself into it.

SO... The last three years, I spent thinking mightily about relationship. And avoiding all chance of having one. I toyed with sex a bit... But mostly, I kept to myself. I had to do some serious re-think on this whole expectation business. And not just my own expectations... But expectations that are pressed upon one from the outside as soon as you appear to others as coupling.

This double leo popped out of the blue. And it just seemed destined somehow that in the midst of the passionate embrace I would get to meet his mind and share my time. And where there is shared time, for me, there is love.

But the loving just feels different. It just feels... Like I can be present, give of myself, but also not give myself up. If that makes sense.

Easy words in early days, perhaps. If he were to remove himself from me, I imagine there would be a few more tears, a bit more pulp... Who can say?

@ salali... that line of thought passed through my head many many times, also, over the last three years. i think what i say of giving myself, while not giving myself up speaks a bit to that...

i guess what i have discovered, for myself, is that i need that balance between being passionately open to other and and yet self oriented. like my internal compass needs always to be firmly pointing at me, even as i offer what i have to another.

i don't know. i guess i just wonder about how we have set ourselves up thinking about relationship in certain ways... and how we can better do this mating thing.

this topic has been an obsession for me all my life. as evidenced by many books on my bookshelf. both fiction and non-fiction. i am love-obsessed.

But the loving just feels different. It just feels... Like I can be present, give of myself, but also not give myself up. If that makes sense

Yes, this comes with maturity, and with giving up on the 'romance' we are fed as girls - in novels, magazines, films etc. It doesn't mean we love less...

Also over time, if we've survived one or two total heartbreaks, we know that the scars will always be there but that doesn't stop love from finding a way in.

I swore after the Actor that I'd never go through all that again, having suffered three, four if you count the gay Arab, hearbreaks in little over a decade. And the Actor was in some respects the worst... So I married a man who loved me more than I loved him, just for that very reason. It didn't work... Some of us have charts which demand that we love deeply. It just is that way.

I'd do it all again given the chance, just to feel alive, if I could find someone who lit that flame in me.

Exactly, BP. Exactly.

Except rather than lights the flame maybe adds fuel to an already bright flame.

michele - you are describing exactly what it's like for me this time around.  In fact the Aussie's current absence has helped immensely in me maintaining my "self".  It is much much easier for me to keep my head on straight with a little bit of distance.  

Congrats Michele :-) This is really great.  If you two can talk about this, that makes it all easier and more realistic.

Thought I had that last year. I learned, the hard way as usual, that while i'm realistic sometimes the other is not.  Now i'm on the multi-year road you just ended it seems. In future, I have to ensure the other person is being REAL about me and about themselves. 

Losing a true friendship (or what I thought was a true friendship) hurt more than anything else. Heart is shredded. It will be a long time, if ever, before I can get there again, if it even presents itself again.

I'm very happy for you and the Leo, Michele. That's a wonderful feeling :-)

Michelle, just out of curiouity do you have any squares to your moon? People with squares to their moon usually take a long time to sort out their emotions, but when they do they are twice as competent as the lazies with no hard aspects to the moon. Usually when a personal planet makes a square to the moon, you should not get married early...but the people who do, and seemingly have perfect lives, often times get extremely lazy later on when raising their kids.

You have to have strong emotions for strong powerful output. It's a blessing, the turmoil, time will heal you. In the meantime, take a gander at this song...it helps me be alone and wait for the true one.

http://youtu.be/_KCg_QEHtkY

@ pholus... my moon is in a t-square. cappy moon in the 6th oppostie cancer sun in the 12th, square mars in the first degree of scorpio.

thanks for the song!

My pleasure Michele. It always helps me.

Moon in capricorn is initially reserved, and maybe jealous, and long range in nature...sort of like the crone...not saying you are the crone...but in a sense, she is the female version of saturn, the grim reaper...but on a positive side or note...she is the sexy teacher too, or the profound woman archtype.

Cancer sun is like a shy mermaid who might swim into rough seas kind of like tinkerbell chasing peter pan.....and mars in scorpio is like the warlock...all these archtypes are at odds with each other...but fear not...as you find a way to synethesize them and make harmony out of conflict

you will undoubtedly be a force of great power....I'd say teh desire to know all secrets has to be renounced, lest it mess with your capricorn moon...you may seem innocent and coy on the outside, with that sun in cancer, but once you know something about your mate, you may always hold it against him or her....best to focus your emotions on goals rather than a persons past....then your cancer sun cna truely be it's protective nurturing self....which your partner will be delighted to know is there since it isn't so apparent...12th house...

With a sun in cancer, you shine through when you are acting your inner child, but with a moon in capricorn, your instinct and habbits are wise and shrewd...powerful combo...I'm a little envious.

@Blessed_place, i'm digressing by asking this one:

"So I married a man who loved me more than I loved him, just for that very reason. It didn't work... Some of us have charts which demand that we love deeply. It just is that way."

@Blessed_place, I ask because I don't love deeply, never have loved deeply and due to those things from my formative years, am not sure I am yet ready to love deeply. When it comes to love I am a coward, I duck, I run, I leave. Here's to hoping some growth and maturity will change me. Thanks - this is why i'm curious.

@ pholus.... that sums it all up quite well.

@pholusnine, ha. My moon forms just hard aspects.

 "People with squares to their moon usually take a long time to sort out their emotions, ..."

Shoot. :(

oh yeah... and my moon is in a kite with chiron and neptune. so sextiles... wonder how that all plays into it.

@ debdeb do you mind if i ask how old you are?

@Michele 

Yea :) I'm in my almost mid 20's.

(no sextiles though, unlike you. JUST hard aspects).

Moon sextile chiron....You develop over your life an ability to see how the emotions affect the body, or mind, or performance of the individual...how the emotional body works....how habbit and routine affect possibility and probability of occurence...but it takes effort...

My moon in pisces is quintile chiron in gemini conjunct the ascendant...so I know about that one well ina  different way...it is like no one in my family understands emotions except for me....they like to make you feel bad so you can perform when in reality they are slowly killing you...saying that to them would make them laugh...all you can do is live away, close but away....the quintile means its something that isn't genetic, something not of this earth.....

moon sextile neptune is a refinement of emotions which cannot occur if you are on drugs....they say that dionisus is the god of wine rights, but he is also pluto, and when you visit this god, or ask yourself to transform or refine and you are drunk you are blocked from pluto....

you know how the emotions affect teh dreams andvice versa......you cultivate this skill...and the mediation between refinement, illusion, or dreams is emotions and habbit, to healing and your inner wounding......and the wounding of others too....

The sextile is like mining out the tension of the square and opposition...

Debdeb, look to the ruler of the moons sign for clues...also check aspects to asteroids.....and thirdly the ruler of the house.....having no good aspects isn't necessarily bad...my venus is completely beaten by all planets except for a trine to the ascendant...i can assure you it's tough, but it keeps me moving forward...my art, my desire to be an artist conflicts with alot of my energetics...but this keeps me motivated to keep on keeping on...without this i'd be so lazy.

Michelle...chiron is teh bridge between saturn and uranus

becomming truely innovative would be a matter of relegating and reconciliaing energeticaly between your dreams, illusions, and refinement, inner wounding, through the emotions...it requires work, but its there for you as a great talent to learn....if you are an artist, perhaps it is a matter of inspiration...through emotions and feelings....

"Debdeb, look to the ruler of the moons sign for clues...also check aspects to asteroids.....and thirdly the ruler of the house.....having no good aspects isn't necessarily bad...my venus is completely beaten by all planets except for a trine to the ascendant...i can assure you it's tough, but it keeps me moving forward...my art, my desire to be an artist conflicts with alot of my energetics...but this keeps me motivated to keep on keeping on...without this i'd be so lazy."

- Ruler of moon sign - if my moon is in taurus, ruler = venus. Venus, i fnot counting conjunctions, forms 3 trines, 2 sesquiquadrature (say what), one square

- aspects to asteroids - very wide trine to vesta. trine to eros. Sextile MC.  

- Ruler of the house - the house where the moon is in? 11th house = so ruler is mars actually. Mars 99% good aspects. 

Is this what you mean?

@Michele P.S.......... I have plenty of LEO in my chart. If you're smitten by your double leo (you have a leo ASC, i see!) you might have to work really hard to hide your enthusiasm with me!!!!! kididng.

LOL deb... lock your doors.

Yeah that's what I mean. See your moon tensions fuel your venusian qualities secondary, and the ruler of teh 11th house is actally uranus since it is ruled by aquarius...aries rules teh first house..

primary - moon in taurus - good placement...

secondary(add to the how of taurus) - venus sign and house

thirdly(add to the where) - uranus sign and house

it cascades like that I believe. That is what I've come to conclude over the years.

Anyways hope taht helps on how to unlock the tension......vesta trine moon, you know when to recharge based on how whatever affects your emotions, whatever meaning the specifics, house and sign.