Before two charts are compared, each one is read alone, for what that person needs from a relationship and what they are able to offer inside one. That reading has a name in the source material. It is called capacity for relationship, and it is the first step in every serious method of chart comparison in print.
It is one chart on the screen. No partner, no overlays, no contacts. The question is not who suits you. The question is what a relationship would have to be like for you to be able to stay in it.
The factors are specific rather than general. Stephen Arroyo names three: the seventh house, the aspects to the Sun and the Moon, and the sign and aspects of Venus. Everything below is built out from those three and from what the other authors add to them.
Three Authors, Three Books, The Same Rule
This is worth establishing before anything else, because it is unusual for relationship astrology to agree with itself.
Stephen Arroyo opens his systematic outline of synastry with it. The individual chart is the first thing. He gives the reason without softening it: a person may be compatible with nobody, and no comparison means anything until you know that.
Steven and Jodie Forrest arrive at the same place independently in Skymates. Their process starts with a long hard look at the two birth charts, separately.
Robert Hand opens his own composite reading order the same way. Step one, before you look at the composite at all, is to evaluate the two natal charts for their inherent capacity to have relationships, and to see what each person seems to want and the kind of person they are attracted to. Hand is blunt about why. The composite technique stands alone quite well, and you will still meet relationships that make no sense in terms of it or any other technique unless you check the natal charts.
Three authors working in different traditions, none of them citing the others on this point, all putting the same instruction first.
What Capacity For Relationship Is Asking
Hand states the reason for the step more directly than anyone else in the literature, and it is not a flattering thought.
The real reasons for a relationship may be quite different from what you would expect. The desire for love and happiness may be superseded by the desire for security, wealth or status. He goes further: even the best relationships are held together in part by something of this kind, and at times people need painful relationships and will pass up a loving one because it does not fill the need of the moment.
So the reading is not a verdict on whether you are good at relationships. It is a description of what a relationship does for you, what it is required to supply, and what it costs you to be in one. That is a describable structure and it lives in one chart.
The Factors, In Arroyo's Order
| What you are reading | Where it is read from |
|---|---|
| Capacity for relationship | The seventh house, the aspects to the Sun and Moon, and the sign and aspects of Venus |
| Emotional and sexual needs | Mars, Venus and the Moon, by sign and aspect |
| The background all of it sits against | The chart's overall elemental balance |
| The houses to trace, in his order | The 7th, the 5th, the 11th, the 8th, the 1st, and the house matching the person's Sun sign |
Note the shape of this. Arroyo names Venus by sign and aspect, not by house. He names the seventh house, but not its ruler, and not the Descendant as a degree. Kevin Burk adds one thing ahead of all of it: he begins every chart with elemental balance and temperament before any interpretation at all, and only then works from essential dignity. Where the sections below go past what these authors wrote down, that is said.
The Seventh House And The Descendant
The seventh house is where another person becomes a specific person rather than a category. In a natal chart it holds partnership, the one to one encounter, and, in the older material Hand also uses, open enemies.
Three things to read, in this order.
Anything actually in the house. A planet in the seventh is the loudest single statement the chart makes about partnership. Read it as the thing that arrives in the room when you get close to someone. Saturn there brings weight and a requirement for terms. Mars brings heat and a habit of initiating.
The sign on the cusp, which is the Descendant. This is the quality you consistently meet partnership through, and it is very often the quality you experience as arriving from the other person rather than from you.
The ruler of that sign, by house and condition. Where the ruler of the seventh sits is where partnership actually gets conducted in your life. A seventh ruler in the tenth conducts relationships in public and through work. A seventh ruler in the twelfth conducts them privately, and other people do not see much of it.
The ruler step is not in Arroyo's list for capacity. It is standard practice in both traditional and modern chart reading, and Hand uses house rulers freely in the natal portions of his own case studies, so it is well founded, but it is an addition to his outline rather than part of it.
The Aspects To The Sun And The Moon
Arroyo asks for aspects to both lights and does not rank them. The reason both are on the list is that they answer different questions.
The Sun is what you are trying to be, and aspects to it describe what happens to that project when another person is present. The Moon is what makes you feel safe, and aspects to it describe the conditions under which you can settle.
The Moon is the one to spend time on. Relationships do not usually run aground on identity. They run aground on what a person requires in order to relax, and on how badly it goes for them when that is missing. A Moon in a fixed sign wants the same thing again tomorrow. A Moon in a mutable sign wants room to change its mind. Both are requirements, and the trouble starts when a requirement has never been said out loud.
Venus, And What Venus Is Doing Here
Venus by sign is the style of your attachment: what you find valuable, how you show warmth, what you count as being treated well.
Venus by aspect is the more useful half. Venus in hard aspect to Saturn describes someone for whom affection carries a condition, usually one they did not set and cannot remember agreeing to. Venus to Neptune describes someone who can see what a person could become, which is a real perceptual gift and a real hazard in the same faculty. Venus to Pluto describes someone for whom attachment runs at full depth or does not interest them.
Arroyo does not ask for Venus by house, and it is worth being honest that adding it is an extension. In practice the house tells you where you go looking, and it is the fastest way to make an abstract Venus concrete.
Mars And The Moon Together
Arroyo reads emotional and sexual needs from Mars, Venus and the Moon as a set, and it is a set worth keeping together.
Mars is how you pursue and what you do with a conflict. Mars by sign is the tempo of that. Mars in a cardinal sign moves first and asks afterwards. Mars in a fixed sign holds a position and will wait longer than the other person expects. Mars in a mutable sign changes approach mid argument, which reads as flexibility from inside and as evasion from outside.
The Moon and Mars together are the two halves of a very common relationship problem: one of them says what you need, the other says what you do when you are not getting it.
The Elemental Background
Burk and Arroyo both read the whole chart's elemental balance before any of the detail, and Arroyo reads emotional and sexual needs specifically against that balance.
A chart heavy in water and light in air processes a disagreement by feeling it through, and experiences being asked to explain it as a second injury. A chart heavy in air and light in water wants to talk it out, and experiences silence as the disagreement getting worse. Those are two different accounts of what resolving something means, and if you can name yours you can say it to somebody.
The Houses, And Which Ones For Which Relationship
Arroyo's house order is the 7th, 5th, 11th, 8th, 1st, and the house that matches the person's Sun sign. Hand cuts it a different way and asks you to find out first what kind of relationship you are actually reading for.
| Relationship type | Natal houses Hand examines, with signs on the cusps, rulers, aspects and occupants |
|---|---|
| Love or marital | 5th and 7th |
| Business | 7th, 2nd, 6th, 10th |
| Friendship | 11th and 5th |
On friendship he adds a point that is easy to miss. The eleventh is the traditional house of friendships, but the fifth describes the need for self expression and the ability to express love, and should not be overlooked in a friendship any more than in a love affair.
Hard Aspects, And What They Are Actually Telling You
Most people arrive at this reading looking for what is wrong with them. So this needs saying plainly.
A hard aspect to Venus, the Moon or the seventh house does not describe a person who cannot have a relationship. It describes a person who is already managing something, usually competently and usually without much credit for it.
- Venus square Saturn is not an inability to be loved. It is a person who learned early that affection had terms, and who is careful. Careful people are often extremely good partners once they have decided.
- Moon opposite Uranus is not emotional instability. It is a person whose sense of safety includes the right to leave, and who does considerably better with a partner who does not treat that as a threat.
- Mars square Pluto is not a warning about aggression. It is a person who feels the stakes of a conflict at full size, and who has usually spent years learning to turn the volume down before speaking.
- Saturn in the seventh is not a sentence of loneliness. It is a person for whom partnership is serious, slow, and load bearing when it arrives.
Hand states the free will clause twice in a single chapter, and it belongs here: if they choose to, a couple can deal with any energy appropriate to their relationship needs. The chart describes what has to be handled. It does not say whether it was handled.
A Procedure You Can Run On Your Own Chart
- Count the elements and the modes. Write down which element is thin. That is the background everything else gets read against.
- Read the seventh house: any planet in it, the sign on the cusp, then the ruler of that sign by house and condition.
- List every aspect to the Sun and every aspect to the Moon. Do not sort them into good and bad. Sort them into what supports the Sun's project and what complicates it, and the same for the Moon's requirement.
- Read Venus by sign, then by aspect, then by house.
- Read Mars by sign and aspect, and set it beside the Moon. Write one sentence: what I need, and what I do when I am not getting it.
- Trace Arroyo's houses in his order, 7th, 5th, 11th, 8th, 1st, then the house matching your Sun sign, and note what is in each and who rules it.
- Decide what kind of relationship you are reading for and check Hand's houses for that type.
- Go back over every hard aspect you found and rewrite it as a sentence beginning with the words "this person is managing."
That last step is not decorative. It is the difference between a reading you can use and a list of faults.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does Capacity For Relationship Mean In Astrology?
It is what one birth chart alone says about a person's ability and readiness to be in a relationship, read before any comparison with a partner. Arroyo reads it from the seventh house, the aspects to the Sun and Moon, and the sign and aspects of Venus.
Can A Birth Chart Say I Am Bad At Relationships?
No. It can describe what a relationship has to supply for you, what you find difficult inside one, and what you are already carrying. Hand's own position is that a couple can deal with any energy appropriate to their needs if they choose to, which puts the outcome outside the chart.
Which House Is Relationships In A Birth Chart?
The seventh is the primary one for one to one partnership. Arroyo also traces the 5th, 11th, 8th and 1st, plus the house matching your Sun sign. Hand asks which kind of relationship you mean first, and reads the 5th and 7th for love, the 11th and 5th for friendship.
What Does The Descendant Say About My Relationships?
The Descendant is the sign on the seventh house cusp. It describes the quality you consistently meet partnership through, and which is often experienced as arriving from the other person. Read it together with the ruler of that sign, which shows where partnership actually gets conducted.
Do I Need My Birth Time For This?
For the houses and the Descendant, yes. Without a time you can still read Venus, Mars, the Moon by sign where the Moon does not change sign that day, the aspects between planets, and the elemental balance, which is a substantial part of the reading.
Recommended Reading
Book links below are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
- Stephen Arroyo, Relationships and Life Cycles, "Systematic Outline of Synastry," Part I, for the rule that the individual chart comes first, for capacity read from the seventh house, the aspects to the Sun and Moon and the sign and aspects of Venus, for emotional and sexual needs read from Mars, Venus and the Moon against elemental balance, and for the house order 7, 5, 11, 8, 1 and the Sun sign house.
- Steven and Jodie Forrest, Skymates, for the independent statement that the process starts with a long hard look at the two birth charts separately.
- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships, Chapter Two, pp. 33 to 36, for step one of the reading order, for the natal houses by relationship type, for the statement that relationships are held together in part by security, wealth or status, and for the free will clause.
- Kevin Burk, Astrological Relationship Handbook, for beginning every chart with elemental balance and temperament, and for working from essential dignity before interpretation.
Continue Learning
Next: What Is Synastry in Astrology and How to Read a Synastry Chart. See also The Best and Worst Synastry Aspects, Element Compatibility in Astrology, Synastry House Overlays and How to Read a Composite Chart.