Divorce 14:
Sixteen-year Marriage, with Children
Divorce or Reconciliation?
Query conditions:
Gochara Rahu/Ketu crossing:
wife's navamsha lagna
husband's Moon
Gochara Shani crossing
wife's radix Ravi, wife's navamsha Kuja/Guru
husband's radix Moon/Budha axis, husband's navamsha Shani
Current bhukti:
wife in bhukti of L-2 Shukra (divorce lord)
husband in bhukti of L-11 Surya. Surya gives navamsha results of L-2 Mangala (divorce lord).
This dual-professional couple met in the workplace. After 16 years they have built a substantial estate with children. The children are prized & well cared for.
These partners share a tremendous work ethic combined with powerful traditional family values, supported by conservative families on both sides who reinforce values of loyalty, stability, and public dignity.
As their marriage progressed in time, this couple suffered a shortfall in natural affection & empathy.
Given the dominant role played by Shani in both nativities (see tables below) it is understandable that they did not leave the relationship for lack of love.
Rather, they chose to emphasize the duties of marriage. Building material security, hands-on parenting, & meeting social expectations became the dominant values in their married lifestyle.
Despite their increasing emotional distance, neither partner anticipated divorce. Each partner grew increasingly lonely in their own world, but the marriage survived.
All parties were surprised when female's Budha/Shukra period raised permission to fall in love, outside the marriage. This almost miraculous entry of an authentic lover into her materially full but emotionally empty life created a great healing. Finally she could honestly accept the reality of the psycho-emotional deprivation she had been suffering all along. (Under Shani.)
Yet the crisis of decision which then ensued for her, her spouse, & their network of invested relatives was devastating. Both partners entered a deep depression, not knowing which way to go.
The questions facing these querents are:
is divorce forecast?
is reconciliation forecast?
if divorce is forecast, what arrangements for co-parenting? Division of the estate? Social/extended family response? Would either partner remarry?
if reconciliation is forecast, does this mean conscious austerity and a return to stoic duty? or is it possible for this parent-couple to find authentic empathic love with each other?
Answering these questions requires seeing the situation from as many different Jyotisha perspectives as possible.
First, consider the origins: marriage in Shukra period for both spouses is auspicious for balance, harmony, and mutual good will. They began the relationship in love.
Male marriage timing:
Guru/Shukra period. Shukra = a natural marriage-maker
Rahu/Ketu in Makara/Karkata, crossing D-9 lagna
Female marriage timing:
Shani/Shukra period. Shukra = a natural marriage-maker, & Shani = navamsha L-1
Rahu/Ketu in Makara/Karkata, crossing radix nodal axis
Is any current or near term Vimshottari period combined with requisite Rahu-Ketu transits, likely to give a divorce?
Potential male divorce timing:
Shani/Surya - Surya is not the L-2 or L-8, but Surya is strong during Shani mahadasha, good or ill. (Shani mahadasha inflates Surya's potency during Surya bhukti, because Shani occupies a navamsha of Surya.)
given the female's entry into an L-2 period, it is likely (but not guaranteed) that some variety of planetary function will sway the male toward separation or divorce.
Given Surya's temporary strength, a combination of secondary effects (not direct results of house lordship) could total up high enough to cause divorce in Surya bhukti.
One important secondary effect is that Surya will carry out the agenda of the distinctly inauspicious L-8 Neechha Shukra because Shukra dominates Surya by degree, in radix Kanya/12.
Neechha planets become karakas for malfunction of their signified object. Neechha Shukra is a karaka for promiscuity, low women & trouble through women.
Another important non-house-ruler effect is that Surya in Mesha navamsha triggers L-2 Kuja in radix.
So, yes, Surya bhukti could - albeit somewhat indirectly - cause divorce, even though Surya is not per se a karaka for separation. Shukra plays a passive & indirect role, so it is more likely that the male would be asked to grant a divorce by the active agent who is a Neechha-Shukra type of female (from the male's point of view!).
It is important to note that the potential divorce consequences of Surya are being located only in response to the querent's request. The potential divorce-causing effects of Surya in the male's nativity are present but indirect, which means that if divorce occurs, he is not the causative agent. These passive effects are subtle & would not normally be mentioned in a general Jyotisha reading.
gochara Rahu/Ketu 10/2006-4/2008, Kumbha/Simha = radix Moon
Potential female divorce timing:
Budha/Shukra where Shukra = L-2, a powerfully swakshetra graha which can bring in a new lover and also cause a divorce.
(Shukra in Mars navamsha also gives the effect of the other divorce-maker, L-8 Kuja.)
gochara Rahu/Ketu 10/2006-4/2008, Kumbha/Simha = navamsha lagna
The male appears to be in a more ambivalent planetary situation, while the female has full planetary support to proceed with divorce.
The lunar nodes play a significant role in matters of marriage. The lunar nodes are even more important in matters of Divorce.
Any type of major identity change will engage the lunar nodes in one of the primary axes (D-1, D-9 nodal axes, lagna axes, or Chandra axes) because psycho-socially speaking, identity change is a Taboo activity.
Rahu's job is to break taboos. If Rahu enjoys good yogas with other grahas, Rahu will have ritual support for the taboo-boundary-crossing. If Rahu is well-placed, His mandate to destabilize social structures by changing the rules and crossing barriers, can produce safe and socially legitimated identity change.
E.g., institutionally validated "safe" identity changes stimulated by Rahu-Ketu can be expressed via a vow-taking ceremonies and other legitimating rites of passage. (Marriage, holy orders, bar mitzah, anointment of a new child, etc.) Socially threatening or unsafe changes that do not receive legitimating support might be e.g., gender change, divorce, suicide, etc.
Socially unsupported Rahu-induced changes tend to rise up forcefully from the subconscious, and they feel utterly inevitable. Unfortunately for nativities where Rahu is permanently or temporarily by transit, in hostile relationship to Shani (the main social control agent) these psychically essential identity changes are met with social hostility.
If a rashi of Shani occupies a key identity axis for the native, and then gochara Rahu enters that axis, the inherently adversarial nature of Shani & Rahu becomes inflamed. When the Makara-Karkata or Kumbha-Simha axis contains grahas or lagnas, the impacted grahas and lagnas fall victim to the change-vs-stability conflict inherent in the adversarial Shani-Rahu relationship.
At these times, karma of ignorant public reaction and fear of rejection will dominate the native's experience. In essence, the native's tribal ethos has not yet developed ritual means for guiding the specific psycho-emotional changes which are urgently required by the native's Rahu desires. The native's deep, subconsciously fueled desires meet with an ignorant, ostracizing and frequently punitive social response. Society declares the native's actions "unethical". "Ethos" means simply the custom of a people. So from Shani's one-note perspective, the native's action's are in fact unethical: that is, they fall outside the prescribed behaviors deemed safe by the tribe.
Divorce, which contradicts the social dictates governing orderly transmission of property and privilege down the generations, is severely frowned upon in the property-owning classes of all societies. A well-resourced Shani in any nativity usually signals property ownership, including children. Therefore, one of the most common effects of a Rahu-Shani turf war for members of the property-owning classes is Divorce. (By contrast the same battle in the servant classes will be fought at the taboo boundary of the physical body itself, often involving crimes of bodily harm.)
Rahu-Ketu & Children
Typically we can see Rahu-Ketu crossing the significant axes in the charts of the children of a marriage which is undergoing divorce.
Clearly the children of divorce are undergoing a major identity shift while their parents are negotiating passage through the taboo zone. The kids are learning to handle the stigma and anxiety that society (ruled by Shani who abhors any type of change) exposes with a critical spotlight, while the divorce is being conducted.
The charts of two children from this marriage show that Rahu-Ketu's transit through the Kumbha-Simha axis will cross their radix lagnas, simultaneously affecting the D-9 lagna of one and the D-9 nodes of the other. Clearly the 10/2006-4/2008, Kumbha/Simha nodal transit will be an identity-transforming time for the children.
The dual impact in their navamshas suggests that the general exotic social changes always associated with Rahu crossing through Shani's terrain is particularly related to their parents' change of marriage status. (If these children were adults, the prediction for Rahu transit through Kumbha would be for a significant change to their own marriage status. While children, our parents' marriage *is* our marriage.)
The children's Jyotisha susceptibility to impact from gochara Rahu-Ketu during the 10/2006-4/2008, Kumbha/Simha nodal transit suggests that they will both experience a socially conflictedl identity shift at the same time.
This Rahu-Ketu impact in the children's piece of the puzzle makes divorce or a major social change in the parents' relationship more likely.
A strong sense of Duty and responsibility, along with enjoyment of material security, has sustained this partnership for many years.
One way to determine if the value of social responsibility & security will override other values such as emotional healing or true love that might be advanced through divorce from this marriage, is to estimate the power of Shani (karaka for Dutifulness) in the partners' nativities:
Female: Shani dominates, Shukra too
The Seven rashi-owning graha
Extra credit for being D-1 or D-9:
- lagnesha
- lord of Chandra
# of planets in His rashi, in radix (including Rahu/Ketu)
# of graha in His rashi, in navamsha (including Rahu/Ketu)
Total
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
3
3
0
3
0
3
2
0
1
3
1
2
2
5
1
3
2
6
totals
4
9
9
22
Male: Shani dominates, Guru too
The Seven rashi-owning graha
Extra credit for being D-1 or D-9:
- lagnesha
- lord of Chandra
# of planets in His rashi, in radix (including Rahu/Ketu)
# of graha in His rashi, in navamsha (including Rahu/Ketu)
Total
0
1
1
2
0
0
1
1
0
0
2
2
0
2
1
3
1
2
3
6
1
1
1
3
2
2
1
5
totals
4
9
9
22
Both partners are powerfully influenced by Shani's sense of public accountability, dignity, position, stability, loyalty, and conformity to social expectations.
Shukra, Shani, Guru roles:
The female is also much oriented to love and harmonious relationships from swakshetra Shukra. However Shukra goes somewhat awry in navamsha, where He gives the effect of splitting the joint assets of marriage from L-8 Kuja amplified by Rahu.
One very significant restraint on the likelihood of separation &/or divorce in the female L-2 period is the fact that both L-7 Guru and L-5 Shani, grahas which represent the interest of husband and children, cast drishti upon Chandra. The husband is a source of abundance and the children are a source of responsibility.
Faced in L-2 Shukra bhukti with the choice between potential for deep happiness with a profound love partner versus a known source of abundance (albeit problematic) AND an established, incontrovertible responsibility for children, the native will feel massively conflicted.
Chandra, Shani
Chandra has the dominant degree in the female's radix house-2, which means that Chandra's agenda can dominate Shukra's will.
Shukra strives for love, emotional and aesthetic balance, social harmony; the Moon strives for dignified public presentation, technical expertise, and also love.
Both Shukra & Chandra, but particularly Chandra, receive drishti from Shani. Clearly Shani has a very powerful influence over the female's life; Shani's conservative, material values infuse her identity.
A keynote of "good behavior" in any nativity will be Shani's drishti upon Moon, which provides a judgmental and emotionally constricted mother.
Because Shani is swakshetra in the auspicious 5th house, and Chandra shares balancing, gracious Thula with swakshetra Shukra in the rashi where Shani is exalted, the mother's sense of propriety and restraint is sensible, dignified, and elite. The native is highly attuned to social expectations and skillful in meeting them.
However, the casualty of any Shani drishti to Moon - no matter how dignified - is a loss of emotional freedom.
Given the predominant influence of Shani in the female radix, it is possible that the mother's judgment is so deeply embedded in her lunar subconscious that not even a bhukti of love-seeking - and love-bringing - L-2 swakshetra Shukra can dislodge Shani's mandate for duty above all.
However, Shani being yuti Ketu does open a window to doubt. Shani is not a Vimshottari time lord yet, and He will not become one for another decade. Shani's current transit contacts the radix Guru/Surya axis & navamsha lagna, signifying separations from the abundance source and major restructuring of relationship identities.
Most likely Shani's current business is "Ketu-ized" - doubt that Shani's conservative, materialistic demand for position & security -
The male is in addition to dutiful Shani also much influenced by Guru. Swakshetra Guru although a protecting force in the house of enemies (6) brings health problems and debts. Furthermore Guru is fallen in navamsha, where He gives the results of separator Shani.
In conclusion, this aspect of the evaluation - general character of the one or two dominant planets that govern the natives' lives overall, suggests that while remarkable responsible and focused on material well being, the female has a strong entitlement to love which she will regularly try to claim under Shukra periods, and the male has a general tendency toward miserableness even in his prosperity due to the inauspicious placements of Guru.
Yes, the female will probably request divorce in Shukra period unless some therapeutic avenue for lifting the male out of his lifelong misery can be located.
That will be the final inquiry: is reconciliation, with all its benefits of retaining the estate and protecting the children volatile social changes, a possibility in this Jyotisha picture?
There are good psycho-emotional connections that show empathy & nurturing care, between the partners:
her radix Moon axis matches his navamsha nodes, & his radix lagna
his radix Moon in her navamsha lagna
their mutual Chandra positions are compatible by rashi:
his Kumbha Chandra & her Thula Chandra in the rashis of mutual friends Shani & Shukra
by nakshatra, his Moon in Shatabishak/padaa-1 has with her Moon in Swati/padaa-4 has reasonably good compatibility (Dennis Harkness' table via BV Raman in The Nakshatras gives a nakshatra compatibility rating of "22", on a scale of 2 through 38 -- moderately good)
There are also some classic marriage-trouble markers:
Her L-7 Guru occupies 12th-from-swakshetra, in a depressed rashi of Shani.
L-7 in any dusthana is inauspicious for spouse & marriage.
In particular, L-7 in Ari Sthana shows suppressed conflict with spouse & professional associates, leading to digestive troubles.
Note that at the time of inquiry, Rahu-Ketu transit through Kumbha-Simha axis had begun, triggering this suppressed-conflict Guru which is normally kept contained by duty-oriented Shani. The transit is in effect 10/2006-4/2008, with Rahu poised to contact the problematic L-7 in late summer 2007.
His L-7 Kuja in lagna, creating kuja dosha on the marriage house. Generally passionate and argumentative, a bit reckless in relationships, and will take the initiative in stirring up conflicts. (Although a troublesome marriage item, this Kuja is very good for the politics of public life, esp. for taking business decisions and starting new projects.)
Is reconciliation / return to marriage an option?
Given that gochara Rahu-Ketu is now poised to make a major impact on everyone in their immediate family, the Jyotisha indicators strongly suggest a major public redefinition of identity in preference to a quiet, private reconciliation.
However, consciousness is an amazing thing. Consciousness can, when fully deployed in pure compassion, destroy karma on the spot. This works because pure compassion is the utter opposite of dehumanization. If we can, in a pure moment, see the other person as an expression of God, all interactive karma is ended: we have learned the lesson. So, it is always possible to fundamentally reorganize the relationship, rewrite the marriage contract, redefine the partnership goals, and rejuvenate the love long lost which once caused these partners to pledge their lifetime loyalty.
Rahu will also support this type of utterly radical, intensely therapeutic, extreme makeover of the marriage.
However, given:
the fundamentally Shani-driven work-and-performance orientation of the leading indicators for both natives
weakness of radix L-7 in both spouse's nativities,
the oncoming catastrophic transit through the always delicate Shani-Surya axis (catastrophic for Shani's terrain of social stability, conformity, and non-change; beneficial for spiritually authentic new identity of all kinds)
Shani's oncoming transit through Simha [11-12/2006 then 7/2007 to 9/2009] which brings personal ethics to the lowest common denominator...
It seems unlikely that reconciliation will be seriously undertaken. Such a project after all requires tremendous personal faith and usually occurs only within a highly protected religious setting in which broken vows can be repaired via specific rituals.
Remarriage for either spouse?
If the divorce route is chosen (as seems likely given the taboo-breakers in power now) prognosis for a second spouse is based on the profile built from radix house-2.
Female: very auspicious second marriage due to Chandra & swakshetra Shukra in house-2. Because L-7 Guru occupies a (vargottama, extra strong) rashi of Shani, the focus of marriage-1 is duty & responsibility esp. re: moral and material duties of raising children. Because L-2 Shukra occupies a rashi of Kuja, the focus of marriage-2 is vital physical activity including energetic intellectual & professional achievements.
Male: moderately auspicious 2nd marriage. Not much change of focus from first to second marriage. Because L-7/L-2 Kuja occupies a navamsha of Guru, the focus of both marriages is to buffer the native's tendency toward self-destructive actions with some degree of spiritual wisdom and material comfort, including the soothing effect of children in a family home. Both the first & second spouses are likely "enablers" with absorptive personalities that accommodate the native's turbulent moods.
May all beings venerate life as a state of deep spiritual intimacy.
Q: You see the Jyotisha patterns and say that we still have a choice. I feel doomed because in my heart I love one man for deep eternity, but in my public life I am married to another man who performs all of his marital and parenting duties almost perfectly....
Is it possible for me to bring the depth of emotional commitment into my legal marriage, that I feel for my Great Love?
It would be a new feeling for my husband and I... not completely new since we were in love when we married but that wonderful feeling is long gone through years of building careers & raising children. Is it possible that I could somehow transfer the Great Love I feel for another, into my existing marriage? It would certainly be good for the children.
A: I too am a bit ambivalent about prognosis for a super-fast remarriage under Surya bhukti, but technically it is a possibility... However, what is more likely than a remarriage within that window (first 4 mos of 2008) is a significantly new identity, based on a major redefinition of goals & principles. But remarriage is not completely out of the question, & stranger things have happened....
As to whether the current marriage could be rehabilitated - yes, it could. But the task would be to shut down the old habits & agreements (spoken & unspoken) which are virtually all oriented toward the goals of achieving (higher & higher levels of) professional service & social dignity -- & re-open the intimate conversation of marriage on a quite *radically* new tack.
A marriage can be overhauled, in deep therapy, e.g. the Harville Hendrix method - but each partner has to be seriously committed to making the other partner's well-being - rather than ulterior purposes which the marriage serves (legitimation, wealth-building, security etc) -- the center of their attention.
Basically the rejuvenated marriage becomes a ongoing interpersonal psychotherapy, rather than a vehicle for any type of external validation. The couple stops caring what other people think, whether either of them is socially confirmed to be "right" or not, and devotes their full attention to healing the wounds of each other's childhood.
That level of psycho-spiritual rejuvenation*is* possible in *any* marriage, and it would work brilliantly for you personally.
However, looking at your husband's chart, I'm not sure he would grasp the point of a truly deep-healing marriage process. He is currently in Shani/Surya period which is characteristically a public validation phase, focused on proving one's social worth, giving strong external performance & doing the "right" thing.
Being that much externally focused usually requires suppressing anything emotional that gets in the way of passing the test of public worth.
But I wouldn't want to prejudge a person based on what I see in the stars. If he really, really wants to make his marriage a healthy place, then it's very much worth a try. The good news is that he is in a hard-working life phase - so he might have the power to make a commitment to heal. Like everyone else he would need help to sustain the commitment...
He would need to be able to comprehend the difference between *Healing* the marriage versus "preserving" the marriage. No matter how much other people (children, relatives, mortgage banks) might benefit from preserving the marriage, living a lie is spiritually destructive to both partners. He would have to grasp, and be able to work effortfully toward, the goal of replacing a "performance model" of marriage with a radically new program for living in authentic emotional connection.
That means talking about feelings.
Despite the fact that marriage is the core relationship of their lives, truly caring for the emotional health of their wives is something most men find very hard to do. Because, of course, emotional authenticity is reciprocal. If they acknowledge their wives' needs and feelings, they will end up acknowledging their own. And emotional need, for most executive men, is an established "no-fly zone".
They just don't go there.
But, if the threat of losing his wife is enough to motivate a sincere effort to stop numbing, posturing, overworking -- to dynamite the whole arsenal of self-righteous criticism and dump the John Wayne act -- then yes, maybe....
The Harville Hendrix-style rehabilitation/rejuvenation can work - amazingly well - but it has a few prerequisites which might be difficult to meet. Since most people psychically check out of their marriages some years before an affair or other crisis brings the conflict to the surface, dealing honestly with the interpersonal stress is quite hard to do. Adults develop sophisticated, deeply embedded coping behaviors that allow them to tolerate a good deal of marital unhappiness while still believing that on balance, everything is OK. Dis-assembling the coping behaviors is very challenging.
BUT - if the couple are both willing to quit the usual escapes of drugs, criticism, affairs, compulsive reading or TV-watching, over-scheduling, obsession with children's activities, etc. etc. The hardest part for decent, educated folks is giving up being "right" - giving up criticism. Very hard!!
And let's be frank about the fact that you are in a classic divorce period of L-2 (Shukra) and your husband bhukti-pat Surya occupies a navamsha of his L-2 Kuja. So the divorce markers are there, and if you made a go of it you would be pulling back from the brink.
But yes, yes - it *is* possible. The task of rejuvenating a broken marriage is daunting but entirely do-able. The task requires *access to feelings* which may, for persons long locked into a defensive posture, be simply too frightening to try. A man with mother trauma is unlikely to want to remove his protective shell; his reptile-brain survival voice tells him not to.
But if it means enough to him, he might try to override his survival defenses, his terror of releasing full anger, & 50 years of self-preserving habits...
You on the other hand are under the powerful influence of the death-lord L-2. You are going to blast through to emotional truth no matter what anyone else does, because you feel like you will die if you don't. (And this is true, you are dying a spiritual death being deprived of love.)
Sorry for long long long answer... rejuvenation is in fact possible depending on how much permission the partners have to access their true feelings. Your permission to love - albeit to love a man outside your marriage - is running high right now. Your husband's permission to love is clearly overwhelmed by his sense of public dignity & duty. Still, he could rally -- and certainly he deserves the chance!
All the best,
Barbara Pijan Lama, Jyotisha
updated: 01 August 2008
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