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You are here: Home / Sex & Relationships / Your Ultimate Other: Romance and The Twelfth House

Your Ultimate Other: Romance and The Twelfth House

May 11, 2010 by Nadia Gilchrist 80 Comments

The twelfth house is not usually associated with romance. Traditionally, this house has all sorts of negative connotations: prisons, institutions, infirmity, bondage, hidden enemies, isolation and self-destruction. Yuck. Not very sexy, is it? But let’s take a closer look.

Your Ultimate Other: Romance and The Twelfth House
Illustration by *TheMadHatress13 under Creative Commons license
Pisces rules the twelfth and final house in your natal chart. Tucked away behind the first house, it’s hidden from the outside world and from your external awareness (your Ascendant). Pisces rules over everything that transcends physical reality, so the twelfth house represents the spirit, dreams and the subconscious. There’s no room for ego here: Pisces dissolves whatever it touches, so this is where you let go of all superficial attachments. Evolutionary astrologers refer to it as the house of the Ultimate Other (Spirit or higher power).

So when your partner’s planets fall in this house, there is the potential for that person to become your Ultimate Other. No, not your personal deity. Rather, they could help you get in touch with your higher self. Sounds great! But how does it work?

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[show_to accesslevel=’All-Access’]Let’s say three or four of Rita’s planets fall in Paul’s twelfth house. Paul is CEO of a major bank and writes snippets of poetry on the backs of napkins. He doesn’t show his scribbles to anyone, because he feels it wouldn’t mesh with the public image he’s constructed. On their second date, he finds himself writing a poem about Rita and presenting it to her. As their relationship progresses, Rita urges him to write more. She also suggests that he submit his poems for publication. Paul doesn’t know how he feels about this. Whether or not he takes that leap depends on the rest of his chart.

Partners who energize your twelfth house can hone in on the quiet voice inside of you. If someone asked Paul why he let Rita in so quickly, he wouldn’t be able to come up with a reason. The twelfth house is not about rationality. It’s about the truth, which can be very different from the reality you’ve constructed for yourself.

Consider a different couple, Maggie and Bill. Part of Maggie’s reality is the list of qualities that describes her ideal man. It is an exacting list: he must be at least six feet tall, must make at least six figures, must not wear t-shirts with graphics, etc. She’s turned down a lot of potential partners because they haven’t matched her ideal. She hasn’t really admitted to herself that this is why she’s still single. Along comes Bill with five of his planets in her twelfth house. Bill meets almost none of her “must haves” (and he wears a smiley face t-shirt). However, Maggie finds herself very drawn to him. What gives? Maybe she’s moved by how happy he is even though he makes minimum wage. Or he could be the first guy she’s been attracted to who’s shorter than her.

When a partner energizes your twelfth house, they strip away all that is superficial. Whether Maggie gives Bill a chance depends on how ready she is to let go of the beliefs that were holding her back. And there’s no guarantee this relationship will be long-term. But it will definitely be a wake up call.

There is a shadow side to all this as well. When someone you’re intimately involved with stirs up the part of you that you’re not fully aware of, it’s easy to lose your bearings. The woman with the addict boyfriend continues to try to “save” him no matter how much time, energy and money he steals from her. This is an example of losing your boundaries to the person who impacts your twelfth house. Extramarital affairs often feature one or both partners with planets in the other person’s twelfth house. This is the hidden aspect manifesting as lies.

Now, not all relationships with addicts or unfaithful partners involve this house. These are only examples of how twelfth house energy can manifest when triggered by a romantic partner. So much depends on the rest of the two charts and the free will of the people involved.

The twelfth house is a tricky and frightening place. Very few of us are ready to have our comforting beliefs challenged or our secrets exposed. A twelfth house partner can do these things in one of the most difficult but potentially rewarding relationships of your life.[/show_to]

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About Nadia Gilchrist

Nadia Gilchrist offers over 19 years of experience in astrology. Her writings and personal consultations focus on applying practical astrological analysis to the real world. Nadia blogs regularly at Ruby Slipper Astrology.
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Comments

  1. Nadia Gilchrist says

    January 4, 2011 at 1:20 am

    @Tora;
    Thanks!
    Since the 12th is by it’s very nature, abstract, it’s tough to write about in down to earth terms. I’m happy that I can clarify it and show that it’s just another house with it’s own set of challenges.

  2. Lioness says

    December 4, 2011 at 12:47 am

    I have met someone whos Sun,Mars,Mercury, Ceres are in my 12th.. My Saturn and Venus are in his 12th.

    Its been the most, deep confusing type of connection, I have ever had to face..
    I felt deeply connected and very confused at the same time.
    Yes I had to learn about my self, so I could even understand what I was feeling.
    I had to dig very deep inside myself and figure out what I want and needed..
    I was an emotional wreak trying to figure all of this out.
    He always saw right through me.. No matter what I did, or tried… He just saw me…. Its hard when someone can SEE you…

  3. NovLady says

    December 4, 2011 at 10:32 am

    @Lioness
    My Sun is in a male friend’s 12th house. I wonder if he is feeling the same as you. I get a feeling he is deeply drawn to me, yet its bewildering. I have read that the Sun in the 12th can be very illuminating to the house person, perhaps in subconscious way that may feel uncomfortable with yet drawn to. It seems that feelings and planets in the 12th house become all ‘misty’.

  4. Aquatic Bull says

    December 4, 2011 at 11:21 am

    Me and my Aqua have sun in 12th. His sun in my 12th. All of this is so true. We have a very spiritual empathy connection. Every ounce of superficial expectation of my SN in Leo has died away since I met him.

    Secret affairs? None we both had other people when we were broken up but we both were honest about that. No Secrets.

  5. Lioness says

    December 4, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    @NovLady..
    I guess it all depends on where he is at.. Is he ready to dig deep inside his self…. If he’s not ready.. He would probably get really annoyed quickly, and want some distance.
    But at the same time the universe get what it wants.. He will have to face it at some point..

    @Aquatic Bull
    The 12th house synastry is not about keeping secrets from each other.. You will share more with this person, than other people… You wont/cant hide your secrets from this person..
    The two of you might have your own secrets together..
    Or a part of the 2 of you you keep to yourselves… You dont share your experiences with other people…

    The two people exists on another world together.
    There is the real world, that you live in…….
    Then there is this other private world that you share together…
    Only these two people are apart of this world that they share together.

  6. NovLady says

    December 4, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    @Lioness
    I think he must be ready because not too long ago I became unavailable for him to contact when there was no change in the betterment of our communication. When I resurfaced, his communication has been far better and consistent. I’ve relaxed more into our unusual connection/relationship and since then it has felt better. I do feel like he sees me in an elevated light and spiritual conversations have ensued.

    Can anyone share any insights on Venus in the 12th?

  7. Lioness says

    December 4, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    Well m Venus is in the guys 12th.. And Well… I hide the feelings I have for him… Even f he asks me, I say Nope.. Im good no feelings…. I have a deep fear of rejection… Cant bear to tell him how much I care..
    I feel like its unrequited love, and he would never care for me, the way I care for him.

    I also feel like he doesnt see how much I care.. He’s totally blind to it..

  8. NovLady says

    December 4, 2011 at 10:04 pm

    @Lioness

    I met a man…we both had our Venus planets in each others’ houses with our composite in 12th house Venus, as well. I wonder if these placements account for uneasy feelings…or, something more mystical.

    What are your natal house placements?

  9. Lioness says

    December 4, 2011 at 10:10 pm

    @NovLady my natal placements are

    Asc = Pisces
    Venus = Cancer
    Sun, Moon,Mercury,Mars = Leo.. (yeap that much Leo.. 😀 what can I say)

  10. NovLady says

    December 5, 2011 at 12:19 am

    @Lioness
    With that much Leo in your chart are you sure you could hide your affections? 😉

  11. Dean says

    June 15, 2012 at 6:59 am

    Well it’s associated with romance for me anyhow since I have Venus (in Aries) in the 12th as well as Mars (in Pisces) in 12th

  12. El. says

    December 16, 2012 at 10:10 pm

    Amazing stuff. I know someone with Sun and Mars in my 12th (Capricorn), and It has been EXACTLY the way Nadia described it — I never would have thought that he would be my type and that I’d be so madly attracted to him. I too had my list of 10 criteria, but they all fell away….

  13. Ann says

    February 1, 2013 at 9:52 pm

    Hello. I am giving this a shot. My usual reluctance to place comments has been shut down for the moment. Lol.

    (1) I guess, I am trying to find out whether both partners having Juno in A-his/B-her own natal 12th houses is a double whammy warning.

    (2) Partner B 1st house stellium, Sun, Mercury, Venus, asteroids Pallas, Ceres, Quaoar, Ixion and North Node in Libra, overlay partner A 12th house FULL of asteroids plus Quaoar, Ixion and North Node in Libra.

    (3) Partner A Pluto in Virgo 11th house overlay Partner B 12th Pluto, Moon, and Juno all in Virgo.

  14. Satur9 says

    September 15, 2013 at 10:26 pm

    @Nadia
    I have natal mars in Taurus in 12th house and my ascendant in gemini. He has natal mars in gemini in the 7th house with ascendant in Scorpio. His vertex in gemini mine in Scorpio. Our 12th and 7th houses overlay and although the signs aren’t conjunct our mars are really close in the overlay. He is in my dreams a lot where I wake up feeling like we spent hours together but don’t really remember what we talked about. interpretations? Thanks!

  15. curious757 says

    October 31, 2013 at 11:32 am

    Interesting. My husband before he married me, hated writing poetry- he believes it is corny and stupid. He thinks such things are nonsense. But, because i’m a dreamy and poetic type of person, he just started writing poetry for me like crazy, even buying books and journals for me. Engraving them with my name ect. I thought omg….this man really is crazy for me. I was in heaven indeed. I must’ve activated something in him. though the mystery still eludes me. I kind of like it like that.

  16. maya says

    November 1, 2013 at 4:54 am

    I totally agree with what you are saying. I’m experiencing now a relationship where I have my Moon in his 12th house, opposite his moon in 6th. He also has his venus in 12th house (but they are not conjunct). I remember it was curious from the beginning and I tried to find out some stuff about this before really involving with him. I could’t understand at the time. But now I can absolutely confirm that it’s all about the way I see through him. And it’s not comfortable at all for him, it’s as if I put him naked at a crossroad. It’s like I see everything he always tried to hide from the others. So I guess the success of such a relationship depends a lot about how mature the house person is and how much he is ready to confront these issues and change. I fear he will run away from me, as he sees me as being more mature, balanced and stronger then himself and this can be very hurtful for his self-esteem. On the other hand, he told me things he never told to anyone in his life. The example above with that piece of poetry is very good, it happened to me exactly the same. I think poetry is a very 12th house stuff. :-)) He is a poet and he never showed to anyone what he was writing before publishing. And still, even if we know each other for a very short time, he wrote some poems and showed them to me.

    However, I don’t feel very well myself either. As for me it’s always hard work to get to know him, to reach him, I dig a lot and that exhausts me really. And seeing all the flaws doesn’t help me keep an aura and keep myself in love. It’s like a cold blanket every time. I sometimes feel that I see more flaws than qualities in him.
    Besides, I also feel the teacher/pupil pattern between us. It’s not evident for him I think, more evident for me, being the teacher. It’s like I know exactly what he needs to learn/understand/change in himself in order to evoluate as a human being. And sometimes I feel a little obliged to help him, knowing that probably I’m the only one in his life who has this gift of seeing the things so precisely. As if we had come together to do this healing, as if I have come in his life to expand his consciousness and widen his horizon (we both have planet overlays in our 9th, my sun venus mercury, his sun mercury saturn – still for the moment I can’t feel the influence on myself. I don’t feel I have something to learn from him, maybe this will come later). That’s why I feel it’s tiresome, it’s like I drag him after me and that consumes my energy. I’m very interested to find out if in a longer relationship this smoothes out or if the situation can become more balanced. Has anyone experienced it in a marriage or longer relationship? Once these 12th house issues healed, do we have a chance to be equals and have a balanced relationship? please help with some advice.

  17. curious757 says

    November 1, 2013 at 6:47 am

    @maya, i dont dig in that way you’re talking about, that can be very intrusive and there’s no mystery and secrecy between you. But Lioness above said it right, that the secrecy is between you and your man/or you and your partner. That is the “special” connection. It has nothing to do with keeping anything from eachother. If you’re digging and digging for something, just to dig, it is kind of self defeating. Go with the flow and relax, take it easy. i look at my husband as a kind of god to be honest. I know that’s probably crazy but he is to me, and i may look inward to myself as the one with the greatest flaws. But i’m allright with that.
    If you love your guy that’s what matters, there’s peace within your heart and soul. Very hard to explain.

  18. maya says

    November 1, 2013 at 7:04 am

    well, we haven’t reached the love level yet. it’s all too fresh and I’m afraid we have started wrong. his venus in virgo adds a lot of coolness in the mix and it’s hard for me to get to his real feelings, there is something that keeps me at a distance. and I’m quite plutonic in nature (with a scorpio rising), so I really long for passionate love and profound commitment. so that his aloofness is hard to take. we’ll see. I have patience, in two days the eclipse will strike and everything will be cleared.

  19. Rovena says

    March 3, 2014 at 4:40 am

    Hi thank you for writing this article….. it explains a lot. My BF’s saturn and mars are in my 12th house. I have a Cancer rising and he has a Taurus rising. Can you help me understand how Saturn and Mars influence our relationship?

  20. no-perspiration says

    March 5, 2014 at 2:32 am

    I think I finally have overlays and houses understood! My man’s Venus, although a tight 1 degree, and his Mercury fall into my 12th house. We do feel comfortable around each other, and he never asks me why I did this or said that. We also really communicate our feelings if something happened where I felt offended lol! I now read more into that Scorpio moon… but this whole time I was putting the blame on my birth control. I often do stop myself from losing control or making a fool out of myself because I step back and say to myself “wait, you’re mad about this and you live in a first world country?! These are not real problems” and then I straighten out in my situations.

  21. Jo Botis says

    August 27, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    Hello, I have a big question. My ex-girlfriend has mars, mercury and moon un cancer in the 12th house. She thought I will cheat on her because a comment that I did to call her attention. She made up a story of intrigue and cheating. It was so wrong that I thought it was justa pretext to break up. But also I knwo she fear abandonment. So, I didnt knwo what she was actually hidding (that she got bored of the relation or that she felt vulnerable because of intense feelings). Told her many times, if you just want to break up and dont want me, you dont need to make up stories, thsi si over. But if you really believe I will cheat you or hurt you, I will insist. I had done a lot, but she always mess any possibility of communication, even when she seems to have disposition to talk. I know cancerian people take long to let go resentment, even if it is invented. The question is when I will know when she says the truth and this is really over. I tend to think that if she is still anoyed and putting the blame on me, we have a chance of fixing things one day. But how to know with all these planets in the 12th house?

  22. LoveLee says

    June 18, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    What does it mean when MY Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Venus are in my partners 12th house and HIS Sun, moon, Mercury, mars and Venus are in my 12th house in the pie chart ?????!!!!!

  23. vick says

    August 9, 2015 at 2:05 am

    Such accurate description of what the 12th house does to a relationship! I have my scorpio Sun, Mercury and Saturn in this person’s 12th house. I felt the spiritual connection first, so strong – I saw so much potential in her, yet she resisted the connection with me, strangely I could tell she really liked me, so I persisted. Then when things finally started to click and her walls came down, she suddenly pulled away in the weirdest way, stating she was feeling inexplicably uncomfortable. The connection had a sensation of pain being away fr each other, quite karmic.

  24. blaine taylor says

    December 15, 2015 at 11:08 pm

    moon in 12th house or jupiter in 12th house in synastry?

  25. Susan says

    April 28, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    My SN and I have composite Saturn in the 12th house in Aquarius.

  26. Anthony says

    July 19, 2016 at 9:59 am

    A girl I’ve fallen for HARD, has her Venus in my 12th house. Yes, she effects me greatly. I was wondering if there can be any significant feelings on her part.

    We both have an exact (0 degrees) Venus conjunct Jupiter aspect between us in synastry.

    – She has a natal Venus in Virgo
    – My natal Jupiter is also in Virgo AND in my 12th house
    – She has a natal Venus trine Jupiter.

    With all this, is it possible she could harbor feelings for me too?

  27. Miranda says

    October 23, 2016 at 8:21 pm

    Hi,

    I’ve got a partner who’s Sun in scorpio in 6th house and his jupiter is R in taurus 12th house (+ chiron R aries).
    My sun in taurus 7th house, my AS in scorpio 1st house, jupiter R scorpio and pluto R libra in 12th house.
    So our jupiter R are opposites?
    Im still figuring out what it al means.
    Feel free to inform me with knowledge.

    All I can say that we both felt it was kinda meant to be. Him coming from England and I live in holland.
    Extra info:
    His Mars in scorpio mine in libra R.
    My Venus in aries 5th house. His pluto in libra 5th house (+ ceres virgo).
    My moon in libra his in aquarius.

    I know I have a difficult natal chart and have at least 10x R retrograde.
    Sometimes it feels he’s the one and sometimes not.
    He’s got 7 planets in his 6th house and have strong work ethics and I haven’t. Im 34 and still dont know what to do…

  28. lauralaurana says

    May 20, 2018 at 9:54 pm

    Could Mars in 12th conjunct ascendant be karmic then? How would it play out, like he wants sex but something is preventing it ?

  29. Indira Giri says

    April 7, 2019 at 8:26 pm

    Would aspects to the twelfth house ruler also energize the twelfth house, both nasally and in synastry? What about aspects between twelfth house rulers of both people in synastry?

  30. Indira Giri says

    April 7, 2019 at 8:27 pm

    Natally* omg lol

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