“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 the Venus-Pluto or Venus-Saturn types who may turn their backs on love after getting badly burned, Venus-Neptune people get involved over and over again. Finding the perfect love is both her dream and her illusion. Disillusioned with someone they never allowed themselves to see clearly in the first place, they move on to another that triggers their soul mate 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 in love with 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 service professions or volunteer work, such as mentoring a troubled teen. Even in the service fields, however, people with these aspects must be careful, lest shady boundary violations occur. Clear boundaries, in general, are not the strong point of this aspect.
AstroDatabase biographies show that, as a result of poor choices, the notables with this aspect are a very married crew, with four not uncommon marriages. Director Roger Vadim has been married five times, including such glamorous movie stars as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. Supermodel Cheryl Tiegs was married four times before settling down with a yoga teacher. Spiritual teacher, JZ Knight, Ramtha’s channel, was married five times at last count. Larry King still marries with great regularity well into his 70s.
Any list of famous and infamous is, of course, skewed by the pressures and privileges of that lifestyle. While the divorce rate is now 50% in many parts of the country, it must 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 the country singer, the late Tammy Wynette. Wynette’s song “Stand by Your Man” brought him fame. It will not surprise you to learn that she had a close Venus-Neptune opposition, with Venus in Pisces. Married five times, she obviously didn’t follow her own advice, but her song struck a chord in Neptunian women all over the world 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 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 spot, got out of an abusive relationship with Tommy Lee faster. Loni Anderson, squared between Venus in Cancer and Neptune in Libra, had a painful marriage and difficult divorce with Burt Reynolds, who trined Venus in Capricorn and Neptune in Virgo.
Even the trine doesn’t always bring out the best in 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, OJ and Nicole’s son, has an opposition between Venus and Chiron in Cancer and Neptune in Capricorn.)
With 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 analyze 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 related drug abuse disorders, 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 squaring 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 in her Descendant, with the opposition of Chiron in Pisces in the Ascendant. Their stormy relationship and steamy chemistry was cemented by synastry, most especially the many connections between the planets they each have in fixed signs. Your Sun in Leo and Venus oppose your Sun in Aquarius. His Sun is square to his Scorpio Mars. Saturn in Aquarius is conjunct your Sun and square Mars. She has a close Venus-Neptune square, with her Neptune exactly in her Midheaven and her Venus square. The Saturn aspects between them—her Saturn over her Sun and his Saturn over 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