In light of the high volume of response to my post about Air-sign women and relationship troubles, I thought it might be interesting to discuss the potential problems that each sign may have with committed relationships. Most of what I have written comes from a combination of my knowledge of astrology and my personal experience.* None of it is going to be particularly complimentary, so readers be warned! This is the voice of tough love.
ARIES
Your partner may find you childish and impatient; you want what you want when you want it. Though you are passionate and attractive to others, you are your own number one and will expect to be the first priority in your partner’s life. You feel frustrated when you don’t get the attention you want and you may have a tendency to rush into relationships and fall into love or lust quickly. Watch your temper and try to overcome your need to put yourself before your partner; relationships only work if each partner knows there is mutual care and appreciation for each other’s needs. Try not to be so stubborn and domineering; your partner is never your subordinate.
TAURUS
You are an over-committer. You stay in bad relationships way longer than you should, and you consider it a duty to stay with the ship until the mast has sunk. You stubbornly refuse to heed anyone else’s advice about your troubled relationship, and you may be attracted to people who are unstable, particularly needy or wounded individuals.
You need to lose the savior complex, or else you will find yourself exhausted. You may feel the need to carry your partner’s burdens, but this will only wear you out in the end. Your heart and your home are deeply connected, so you are best suited to a partner who cares as much about your domestic security as you do.
Learning to trust your partner with important tasks may be particularly hard for you, but you have to start believing that other people are just as competent as you are if you are going to get anywhere. The “my way or the highway” attitude will only hinder your efforts to build trust in the relationship.
GEMINI
Commitment in general is hard for you. You are interested one day and not interested the next, and you may not know exactly why. It may benefit you to make a list of qualities you desire in a partner and seek relationships by those criteria rather than just reaching for what catches your eye. You tend to be a very self-involved sort of person, and you love being the center of attention.
This is not a problem if you find someone who can be patient with your behavior, but what will kill your relationships for sure is your habit of being distrustful and suspicious. You may find yourself building negative conjectures in your head about why your partner is behaving in a certain way, but it is better to talk out your issues rather than stew.
Your desire for revenge when wronged is terrible to witness and more than any other sign, you are prone to lying and infidelity. You will have to resist all of these to make it work. Though it is against your nature to trust in others, trust is absolutely necessary in building relationships. You also hate feeling tied down and will resent anyone’s attempts to control you. Understanding that relationships are voluntary bonds of love (rather than chains of imprisonment) is vital to your relationship success.
CANCER
Moodiness can be a serious problem for anyone dating you. You like to play it tough and argue because you don’t want to reveal how sensitive and vulnerable you really are on the inside, but trusting your partner with your vulnerability is the only way real intimacy can happen.
Try to curb your tendency toward clinginess, possessiveness, and jealousy. Resist the passive-aggressive urge to manipulate or guilt-trip your partner. No matter what your partner tries to do to prove his or her loyalty to you, they cannot resolve your deep-seated feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Learn to verbalize your feelings in a constructive way, and don’t punish your partner for your bad feelings.
You are a home-body and domestic family bonds are very important to you, so it would be best to seek out someone who supports and values the home and family.
LEO
Don’t let your need for control or attention get the better of you. In combination with your stubbornness, arrogance, and temper, these issues are the deal-breakers in your relationships. Your challenge is to overcome your own powerful personality; don’t let it rule over you! You may find that your own insufferably strong personality winds up repelling the very people you wish to attract. Let go a little and try to let someone else drive for a while. Relationships should never be a power struggle, and in time you will find that it is better to choose your battles. Also, resist the urge to take down any potential rivals by unsavory methods; if your loved one is meant to be yours, they shouldn’t need your interference to figure that out.
VIRGO
You are a perfectionist and love orderliness, but you can’t expect your partner to be perfect all the time. You are frustrated by partners who disrupt your sense of order and you hate the coarseness of arguments. You have a hard time telling your partner you are hurt and always want to appear nice and pleasant. To make it work, you have to learn to verbalize your hurt feelings and be willing to have the ugly, sometimes confrontational conversations, even if you don’t like them. You may take a perverse pleasure in stewing in your own hurt feelings, and you will have to keep this in check. You work hard at everything you do and may wind up being a doormat if you’re not careful. Stay away from dominating personalities and find someone who is willing to be sensitive to your needs.
LIBRA
Your personal ambitions matter far more to you than relationships do. Many Libras don’t even think too much about relationships because they are so focused on everything else the world has to offer them. If, however, you are willing to put the energy into finding and building a relationship, you’re going to have to overcome your inclination to focus on how wronged you feel; you may be unintentionally invalidating or dismissing your partner’s feelings because the injustice you feel at your own hurt feelings may take precedence in your mind.
You also have to be careful not to use others as a means to an end; though money and a high quality of life are naturally very important to you, this may be problematic if the main motivation in your relationship is to acquire material comfort. It’s a thin line between being attracted to those who are rich, powerful, or successful and being attracted to people because they are rich, powerful, or successful.
You may also find that others are put off by your unusual or free-spirited ideas, but try not to judge others for not thinking the way you do; you have a unique mind, and your ideal partner needs to offer you mental stimulation.
SCORPIO
You are predisposed to be proud and critical. You hold yourself to high standards, which often leads you to have high expectations for others as well. You are piqued by your partner’s attempts to challenge your authority, but at the same time, you don’t respect someone who won’t put up a fight when you inevitably push their buttons.
You are fiercely protective of your way of life and loved ones, and you have a tendency to become jealous, suspicious, territorial, and downright paranoid when you feel these are threatened. Be careful not to unleash these instincts upon your unsuspecting partner; be sure the offense was intended before your stinger comes out.
Though you are suave, powerful, attractive, and sexually intoxicating, you must be wary of allowing your partner’s personality to get lost in the shadow of your dynamism and charisma. Also, be careful not to cheat; your magnetic energy can get you into a lot of trouble if you allow your many admirers to distract you from your relationship.
SAGITTARIUS
You may have conflicting feelings about committed relationships. While you appreciate and long for stability, you also have a desire to strike out on your own and buck authority. You hate being led around or told what to do, and you have a way of saying exactly what will hurt someone most when you’re mad. In fact, your mouth can get you into a lot of trouble because you are undiplomatic by nature.
You can’t stand clinginess and run at the first sign of it. Relationships can feel constrictive because you love your freedom and are inclined to feel restless. You may also find it difficult to balance your home and work life. Overall, your greatest challenge is striking that perfect balance between commitment and freedom.
CAPRICORN
You have a tendency to choose partners who are far too exciting for you. You desire this stimulation because by yourself, you are a little boring: you are very regimented and need order and stability to function. However, when your special someone messes up your carefully ordered world, you freak out. You are attracted to the very people who upset your sense of order, and whether this is a good or a bad thing for you is something you have to find out on your own.
You are a very hard worker and are desperately loyal to your family and loved ones, so you tend to feel underappreciated. You need to be reassured that your efforts count in your partner’s eyes, and when you don’t get the validation you crave, you sink into depression.
You are the kind of person who looks for serious commitment in a relationship; one-night stands and casual relationships just don’t do it for you. But choose wisely: your tendency toward overwork, sacrifice, and self-torment could become a very serious problem if you pick the wrong person to give your heart to.
AQUARIUS
You always know what you think but rarely what you feel. This is your major obstacle in relationships. Though you are strangely fascinated by emotions, you don’t understand them, whether they are your partner’s or your own; this is a scary combination if you find yourself in relationships with very emotionally complex people. Though you can register that you or your partner are feeling mad or sad, the motivations behind these feelings are very murky for you. Even when the reasons for feelings are given to you, you can’t seem to wrap your head around them if they’re not logical. The irrational completely bamboozles you, so emotionally intimate partnerships can be a real challenge.
You also have a deep-seated need to interact with a variety of people who can engage with you intellectually, so you may find yourself seeking the company of your friends more often than your partner would like. They may mistake your need for intellectual multiplicity for waning interest, so be sensitive to this fact.
You are loyal and true to your partner, but be wary of deluding yourself about the relationship: you are prone to see all things in an ideal light rather than a true one, and the reality of the situation in your relationship is easily lost on you. Generally you don’t fall in love easily and need to be assured of your partner’s intellectual compatibility before feelings of love emerge. More often than not, you fall in love with people’s brains before their hearts.
PISCES
You love freedom and hate being forced into a direction by another person, even if the direction is sensible or the motivation to move is necessary. My advice is not to resist a stable partner’s guidance: you are too unfocused and scattered to follow through with things yourself and need the sensible grounding a good partner can give you, even you it grates on your nerves. You don’t like being tied down, even though you are a loyal partner, and it seems like your partners are never certain that you are 100% theirs. You get in so deep with people emotionally that past loves maintain strong emotional ties long after these relationships are over. This can make your partner suspicious and frustrated, so take it upon yourself to reassure them often of your loyalty. You ultimately desire total emotional fusion with your partner, so be careful about who you choose for this role in your life.
You also need to stop living by the double standard of expecting your partner to be constantly available for you but being unavailable yourself when it’s your turn. You are the strange combination of flighty and clingy, wanting your partner’s total emotional attention but unwilling to lay it on the line yourself when your partner starts to demand this in return. Relationships are partnerships of equals, and whatever you expect of your partner you must also expect of yourself.
*Certain sign issues I have discussed are theoretical only because I am not well-acquainted with people of every sign (particularly fire-signs); therefore my descriptions of relationship pitfalls for Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius come purely from known aspects of the sign and do not reflect my personal experience on the subject.
Sibeal WolfStar 