12th House Synastry

12th House Synastry

Oh the dreaded 12^th house….in SYNASTRY of all things. Few synastry energies give my clients more feelings of fear and dread than to discover their love interest’s planets fall in their 12^th house, or their composite chart has 12^th house influences.

Everything in astrology has a positive and negative. Everything. Everything “negative” comes with a strategy that helps us navigate the situation and we’re going to talk about all of it.

I have talked about this a bit in the videos and articles I’ve written about the Composite Sun which you can check out here and here.

Today we’re going to focus on the 12^th house in general both in synastry and the composite chart. If you are feeling worried, prepare to feel better and think of this a little differently. At least I hope you do.

In order to grasp how 12^th house energy works in our relationships, we have to look at it on its own. Ruled by Neptune (and Jupiter in older traditions), the 12^th house is the final house before the cycle begins again at the Ascendant, marking the 1^st house. This is the house of Pisces, our mutable water sign.

This is when the essence of energy is as fuzzy and dissipated as it can get. It is unclear by nature. It transcends everything we know about the physical world. Successfully navigating 12^th house energy depends on how hard we try to make it concrete. This is like taking a jar of air and trying to make it solidify into something we can see, name, and move around with our hands.

But because we use words to describe things, we have to use words when we talk about the 12^th house. We can’t just say “this is the house of (insert emojis for sparkles, waves, swirly things).”

Some words associated with the 12^th house are:

Endings

Solitude

Self-undoing

Karma

Spirituality

Fantasy

Ego-death

Escapism

Hypersensitivity

Psychic experiences

Privacy

Monasteries

Unconditional Love

We can see how some of these words are not the ones we usually hope to associate with our relationships, but the truth is that 12^th house relationships can be the type that your soul is longing for and can hold the keys to your growth in the most important ways. It’s also true that on the more negative spectrum of experience, these relationships can be rife with projection, burst bubbles, secrecy, a general nebulous nature, and hidden things we may not like.

One of the first things you may find when researching 12th house relationships is that there’s probably cheating involved, or maybe you are the secret partner. And yes, this can sometimes happen, but it’s honestly not even close to the most common manifestation.

This secretive, private, or solitude type of energy can be present in many successful couple’s synastry. It can create an energy where the couple is simply more private and enjoy being together rather than socializing too much. It may be that the couple is hidden for reasons other than cheating and dishonesty, such as families not approving of the partner so the relationship is kept secret. I’ve worked with couples where this is the case due to religion, financial reasons, race, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Another common theme is good old karma. Karma is not a bad word, in my opinion. The way karma can work in 12^th house relationships can be due to the karma between the individuals from their past life interactions with each other or it can be a situation where there has been a soul contract or agreement where there is specific healing work they are to do together. It can also be both. This can happen without a soul agreement as well, because we tend to attract partners that force us to face certain things about ourselves in order to integrate them and heal.

Themes of fantasy and projecting our fantasies onto the other can happen here and that is a mixed bag. Love really can thrive with a good dose of romantic fantasy, but gone unchecked it can lead to some serious harsh reality experiences down the road. Fantasy has its place, but everyone truly wants to be seen for who and what they really are and to be thoroughly loved and accepted.

Certain planets like being the 12^th house more than others, especially in synastry and composite charts. Venus in particular does well here because she likes a bit of mystery to keep her fires burning. The Sun can do well here too especially if couples make it routine to make some of their alone time together sacred, particularly with the composite Sun.

The thing to really understand is that whatever planet is falling in the 12^th house of your partner’s chart, and vice versa, will be difficult to understand.

If it’s Venus, while some mystery is lovely, it may also be hard to know how your partner feels about you.

If it’s Mars, you may struggle to feel secure in their physical attraction toward you, although this is not the only manifestation.

If it’s Mercury, communication with words may be a struggle while the psychic and intuitive connection may be very strong.

et cetera

In synastry, it’s the 12^th house person that is receiving the planets through that 12^th house filter, so if your parter has a stellium of planets falling on your 12^th house, they may always be a complete mystery to you. How this feels to you will vary greatly depending on your own astrological blueprint and your relationship needs. This is a great thing to work on with a qualified relationship astrologer like me!

These 12^th house relationships can be unfathomably deep. It can even be difficult to describe the connection if someone asked you.

Positive manifestations of this type of connection can include the feeling that the bond is sacred and is something to protect. It can feel like a sanctuary when you are together. Fascination with one another can be unending. Unconditional love, intuitive understanding, and spiritual love are some of the highest expressions of the 12^th house. Sacred sexuality and tantra are also beautiful 12^th house expressions.

Less positive manifestations can include confusion about the status of the connection, putting the other on a pedestal and refusing to see or accept their faults, slippery commitment, the relationship lives as a fantasy in the mind, and of course secrets and things hidden.

The strategy with 12^th house synastry is a high calling and can be difficult to manage, and here’s why. Assuming this is a healthy, vital relationship that is mostly expressing the higher end of 12^th house experience, the most important things are that the bond is treated as a precious, sacred thing. Almost equally important is that you absolutely cannot lose yourself in the connection.

There can be a tendency to want to blend into it, to merge completely, to give up and sacrifice all kinds of things, but this is a recipe for disaster. The planets, the Universe, God, whoever you’re into, tends to slap us right out of that in a harsh way. It is utterly, extraordinarily important that you remain sovereign and fully YOU in this type of bond, even though it tends to feel contrary to the natural flow of the relationship energy.