Saturn Return and Your Love Life

Your Saturn Return is an astrological milestone that occurs at least twice in your life (assuming you live until retirement age). It occurs when transiting Saturn — the planet of rules, reality and responsibility — passes over your natal Saturn.

It’s a crossroads, where your personal handling of reality meets external reality head-on. Your first Saturn Return (which occurs anytime between the ages of 29-31) marks your passage into adulthood. Your second Saturn Return (between the ages of 59-61) is where you decide how you’ll incorporate the realities of getting older.

Both Returns push you to decide what you can make real, and what you have to let go of.

How this affects your life love

How might this milestone affect your love life? If you want to get married, most astrologers suggest that you wait until after your first Saturn Return. Your identity is still forming before this point. After your Return, it will crystallize into something different; you won’t be the same person.

This sounds dramatic, but such is the impact of a Saturn Return. Often, the partner that you were involved with (before your Saturn Return) no longer meets your needs. Or you discover that the two of you are on different paths.

The above advice is applicable for everyone. But if your natal Saturn rules your 7th House of relationships (the cusp is in Capricorn); is located in your 7th House; or aspects your natal Moon, Venus or Mars, your Saturn Return will probably impact your love life in a very specific way. Let’s look at some examples.

Taking Responsibility for Your Own Relationship Needs

Perhaps you have natal Saturn in 7th House Cancer. You’re attracted to nurturing (Cancer) people, but Saturn’s influence creates fears about allowing someone in. You long for a sheltering partner, but are convinced that if you expose your vulnerabilities, you’ll scare them off.

You’ve never had a long-term relationship. You turn 30, and your Saturn Return brings Saul, an older man who personifies Saturn in Cancer. He’s responsible, caring, and isn’t the least bit turned off by your sensitive side.

He wants to look after you. You feel safe, and kind of enjoy his parental vibe. The two of you live happily ever after.

Or do you?

The lessons of this Saturn Return involve becoming responsible (Saturn) for your own relationship needs (Cancer). If you hand over that responsibility to the first partner who makes it past your defenses, you’ve missed the point.

This could turn into a relationship where Saul sets all the rules, and you just follow the program. You wake up ten years later (maybe due to a Uranus transit) and realize that you’ve abdicated your authority to someone else.

Rewind to your Saturn Return. Here’s Saul again, and while it’s nice to (finally) meet someone you can open up to, you realize that you need to focus (Saturn) on nurturing yourself. You decide to examine your relationship fears and what you can do to overcome them.

Saul just wants to play Daddy, and you realize that relationship maturity means allowing someone in while maintaining your boundaries. You decide not to take things any further with Saul.

broken heart

Overcoming the Fear of Devastating Loss

Let’s say you have natal Venus conjunct Saturn. You’ve been in a committed relationship with Ashanti since you were 19. Your Venus/Saturn conjunction means you’re built for commitment, but there’s a lurking fear that if you truly fall in love, the other person will leave.

So you’ve settled for a safe relationship: you feel affection for Ashanti, but it doesn’t go any deeper than that. You’re convinced this is preferable to the devastation you’d feel with the alternative.

Closing in on your 29th year, you and Ashanti plan to get married. Then, transiting Saturn hits your Saturn/Venus. Perhaps a major ending (say, the death of your father) acts as a wake-up call; you realize that you only have so much time on this earth, and you don’t want to waste it in a relationship that’s okay but not passionate.

You break up with Ashanti. Or, perhaps Ashanti finally accepts the fact that you’re not in love with her, so she ends things. Saturn will confront you with reality, one way or another.

You’re single for the first time in ten years, and you must decide how you’ll enter this new chapter of your life. You can vow to never get involved with anyone, ever again. And that’s what happens. Or, you can accept the fact that people sometimes leave, no matter what you do. It hurts, but you survive.

Now, you’re determined to thrive by allowing yourself to enter a relationship without the safety-net of lukewarm feelings. You’re ready for the whole beautiful, risky package: deep love with the possibility of pain, and deep commitment.

The odds of finding such a relationship are now firmly in your favor, because you’re ready for it.

When New Needs Arise in a Long Marriage

Your second Saturn Return can deliver some important relationship lessons, as well. You and Vince have been married for 30 years. Saturn rules your Capricorn Descendent (7th House cusp) and it sits in your 11th House of Groups. Vince has always been supportive of your career ambitions.

But he is looking forward to the day you retire, so the two of you can finally pursue your shared dream of traveling across Europe.

As you approach your Saturn Return (at age 61), you decide that you’re not ready to retire but are ready for a career change. You have a knack for making widgets, and you’re so good at it you could be an authority (Saturn) on widget construction.

You enjoy the respect (Saturn) that being a top-notch widget-maker brings from other people (11th House). This causes tension between you and Vince. It becomes clear that the travel dream was Vince’s, not yours. Suddenly, you two seem to be moving in different directions.

What happens next

What happens next depends on Vince’s chart, but it also depends on how you handle this Saturn Return. If your natal Saturn makes a harmonious trine to your Moon (which is also being activated by this Saturn Return), you’ll have an easier time integrating your newly crystallizing needs (Moon) with the reality of your marriage.

You’ll find a way to make it work, perhaps by agreeing to take a few months off (each year) for shorter trips. If your natal Saturn forms a hard square to your Moon, the transition will be rockier. You’ll feel that your needs (Moon) are being denied by Vince’s demands.

Perhaps it’s always been that way; natal Moon square Saturn, with Saturn ruling the 7th House, can suggest emotional restriction from your partner. Transiting Saturn will confront you with this issue. But your task remains the same: figuring out how to incorporate the realities of your marriage into this new chapter of your life.

Your Saturn Return is one of the biggest transitions you’ll ever experience. When it involves your relationships, it’s about taking responsibility for your future romantic happiness. This will always manifest as certain realities about your love life. Whether you confront or ignore them, you’ll feel the impact for years to come.

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