Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

Jessica:            Ruby, welcome to the podcast. What would you like a reading about?

Ruby:              Thanks so much for picking my question, Jessica. I'm so excited. My question has to do with true love and whether or not it exists or not. So my context is⁠—sorry.

Jessica:            No, be in the feels.

Ruby:              Yeah. So, yeah, I'm in a very loving relationship currently, one of the best I've ever been in. And I have some reservations about it because I've always had this idea that this one true love would exist for me in my lifetime and that I would know it immediately when I found it, and I would not have any reservations about it. And I don't necessarily have that solidity in this current relationship.

And my friends have been telling me for years that this is just kind of a fantasy and something that's in movies and not real, and I know that they're right. And so I guess my question is, why is this something that I hold on to so tightly, and how can I let go of it so that I can accept the love that is in front of me?

Jessica:            Okay. So many thoughts in response to this question. I, of course, the second I heard your question, was like, "Where is Neptune? What is she doing? Why is she doing it to you?" Neptune is obviously to blame for a lot of this. But before I get into your birth chart, which⁠—we're going to share you were born May 25th, 1993, in Geneva, Illinois, at 1:18 p.m. So, before we get into it, I'm assuming the pronouns for the person you're dating are he/him.

Ruby:              Mm-hmm. Correct.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So you're with a guy. We're going to talk about this because this is part of the question. It's kind of not the question, but it is the question, but it's not the question, but it is the question. We'll get there. Okay. Did you or did you not watch a lot of Disney princess stories as a child?

Ruby:              Totally.

Jessica:            Okay. Did you or did you not watch a ton of romantic comedies and romantic movies and shows as a child?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. I mean, obviously, the answer was yes, but I wanted it on the record for the court.

Ruby:              Sure. Fair enough.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. This is so fascinating because you're talking to me; I am a triple Capricorn. I am not a romantic at all. I've experienced moments of romance, for sure, but I have such a different nature. So I am going to ask you some questions that you may or may not have been asked before; I don't know. But here we go.

Ruby:              Okay.

Jessica:            In this thing that you always return to, you feel like you would meet the person and you would fall in love, and you would know it. And it would be like, "This is it." You're talking about the kick back, like that foot that kicks back when the princess gets kissed. That's what you're talking about, right?

Ruby:              Yeah, for the most part. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. So that's a literal moment at the beginning of meeting someone that you don't even know yet. Is there a fantasy associated with a relationship, or just a princess kiss, or just a moment of knowing?

Ruby:              I think it's a moment of knowing. And I guess my question is, does anybody ever have a lasting moment of knowing? Because it's the moment of knowing, but I think my problem is that it's like I'll feel really solid, and then a day later, I'll be like, "I don't know." And I think that's where I get really hung up. And then I start to think, well, if I'm questioning, if I'm like, "I don't know," then maybe it's not something that I should be in.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. I got a couple things to say about this. The first one is, were you raised with religion?

Ruby:              Initially, yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah, I would imagine, based on what you just said. And do you mind sharing the religion? You don't have to, but⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah. I grew up Catholic.

Jessica:            Catholic. Okay, because what you just said was, "I should know, and it's"⁠—the way you just framed that, I was like, it sounds very religiously influenced. So were you raised when you were quite young to marry and produce human children and to do that traditional thing? Was that an important part of your childhood?

Ruby:              You know, it wasn't forced on us. I think it was just what we grew up with, and I just assumed that's what I would do as well. I guess I just never questioned it because I was part of that culture. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't forced on you because you weren't fighting it.

Ruby:              Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica:            But if you had been fighting, it might've felt more like it was forced, it sounds like. Okay. Don't worry. We're getting places. So what you've said⁠—and I don't think you've heard it, even though you repeated it several times⁠—is that you want a moment; you want your Disney princess moment. But you have had those moments, but they are in fact moments, and that in the Disney princess movie, literally, the movie ends with the moment. So you never have to deal with this thing called reality, which is not a moment; it is an infinite series of moments, some of which are lovely, some of which are terrible, some of which are questioning, some of which are certain.

Moments are, by their very nature, transient because they're only a moment. Each moment I have spent with you so far has already passed. Moments are, by their very nature, in the past because you experience this moment⁠—oh, it's gone. In the fantasy that you're describing or in the hope/the goal that you're describing, it's a moment, but you've already experienced the heartbreak of how transient moments are.

And a single moment, no matter how terrible it is or how wonderful it is⁠—it will not color your whole life. It will not change all future moments. I know people who have survived tragedies that are unimaginable to think of, and they've experienced pleasure afterwards and joy and love. And you may experience the best moment with a partner where⁠—not even a partner, with some random fucking dude that you have a feeling with, but that doesn't mean that that moment will be followed by just countless other moments that are identical. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

Ruby:  Yeah, it does. Yeah.

Jessica:            What's the thought there? Because it sounds like you have kind of a⁠—not an argument, but yeah, like a rebuttal. What's the rebuttal to that?

Ruby:              I guess I just feel like, what is it that I'm doing wrong? Because I feel like that is so hard for me to accept. And maybe that's not it, but I just feel like⁠—I have a lot of friends that are married, and I'm like, "But how do you know that this is the person that you're meant to live your life with?" You know?

Jessica:            Okay.

Ruby:              And I feel like that's something that I've just never really felt solidly.

Jessica:            Yeah. And you're how old right now?

Ruby:              31.

Jessica:            And do you feel that getting married is important?

Ruby:              I would like to. I think it'd be fun, and I would like to imagine having somebody that I would want to marry. I kind of go back and forth as to whether it's something that is super important to me.

Jessica:            And do you want to be partnered? Do you feel like those are the same questions, or do you feel like they're not the same questions?

Ruby:              I feel like they're not really the same. I guess I'd rather be partnered than married. Yeah.

Jessica:            My non-romantic ass feels that marriage is a cultural thing, and it's also a legal agreement.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's a contract, and you have to literally go to City Hall to create it or to break it. And the Disney princess version is it's your special day. It's the most important thing in the world that will ever happen to you. It is the beginning of your heart's journey, not the beginning of becoming financially enmeshed, not the beginning of having to deal with whether or not you change your name/you leave your name behind⁠—I mean, I have a lot of very negative attitudes towards marriage. If you've listened to my podcast for a long time, you know it's not for me.

                        But it's interesting because I'm looking at your birth chart. So I have a lot of ideas about what your ideas about marriage are, and they are very mixed.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But before we get there⁠—because we're going to spend most of our time there⁠—I gotta stay with these questions because I think you are conflating this, "How do they know? My married friends, how did they know?"⁠—I'm willing to guess your married friends are willing⁠—don't want to get divorced, but they know that they can get divorced as non-Disney princess women human people, right? They know that, right?

Ruby:              Sure.

Jessica:            And they don't have the same hope for perfection, it sounds like, that you do.

Ruby:              Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            Yeah. You're not doing something wrong. I think that it's you haven't accepted the complexity and the nuance of your adult reality. But I wouldn't say that's you doing something wrong. I think part of the reason why you haven't⁠—okay. Listen. Listen. Listen. You got a Moon in Cancer, right? Look at her. She's just the biggest heart. You just feel all your feelings, but you don't feel them all; you feel them all. Right? It's so much emotion.

                        And then you have that early 1990s Neptune/Uranus conjunction in Capricorn, and it's in the fifth house. It's in the house of romance, love. And your Moon is opposite to both these planets. So you are both⁠—Moon/Neptune opposition in the birth chart is like Disney princess syndrome dramatically, very like, "I want to meet that perfect someone and they save me from myself and I save them from themselves. And it is a perfect romance, and we love each other, and we are connected, and we just know each other. We don't have to work on it, because it's perfect." Is it ringing some bells?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. It's terrible. It's a tragedy. It's a tragedy.

Ruby:              It feels crazy when you phrase it like that.

Jessica:            Well, only because of the tone of voice I use. I bet if I used a different tone of voice, you would not have thought it was crazy sounding. But here's the thing. You also have Uranus opposite the Moon. So you are irritable.

Ruby:              Oh my God, so much.

Jessica:            You don't like people all the time.

Ruby:              So much.

Jessica:            So much. The people you love the most you find to be annoying.

Ruby:              Oh, majorly.

Jessica:            You get bored. You get bored. You're like, "We have to do this this way," and you get really fixed on it. "This is the way things are done." And then, one day, you wake up and you've completely changed your mind. "We have to do things that way." And that's not ideal. That's changeable.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And in the Disney princess Neptunian fantasy, there's no changeability because the Disney princess is always happy with what she gets. And she always gets something delightful and loving and tender because there's a Disney prince, right?

Ruby:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Okay. We're not done. We're not done. We're not done. So you don't only have a Moon opposition to Neptune and Uranus, but the Moon, Neptune, and Uranus are all forming a T-square to Venus in the eighth house. So you want sex and love to be intertwined, and if they're not intertwined, you do not want the sex at all is what it looks like. True or false?

Ruby:              That is very true. I don't think that I have stuck with that.

Jessica:            Sure.

Ruby:              But it is very true. Yes.

Jessica:            Listen. You have Uranus opposite your Moon and square your Venus. You don't stick with much when it comes to love, romantic and sexual love especially. Right? You are changeable.

Ruby:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And unfortunately, in the Disney princess magical books, which live in a magical library, the woman is not the changeable one. The circumstances are changeable. So it's not the woman. It's not the man, even. It's the circumstances. So, in those stories, change comes from external forces that tend to be evil⁠, or "eville," if you will. And they force change. And when change is forced upon you, you are victimized, and maybe you save yourself. Maybe he saves you. But there needs to be saving from change.

                        So there's this way that your Neptune dynamic in your birth chart makes you feel like the fact that you're irritable, the fact that you're easily bored, the fact that you change your mind about people ten times a day sometimes⁠—real talk 2024, right?

Ruby:              Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. That means that there's something wrong. There's something evil in the air, there's something wrong with you, or there's something wrong with you⁠—one of the three, right?

Ruby:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Instead of the thing that's closer to the truth, which is, yeah, nobody's perfect, including you. Therefore, no relationship is perfect⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—including yours. And you do change a lot. And it's not from good to evil. It's from moment to moment. It's from need to need, mood to mood, reality to reality. And that's not inherently bad or good. It's something that requires an emotional adaptability from you that the fantastical part of you doesn't want to have to participate in. The Neptunian part of your nature wants the perfect moment. And every once in a while, to reinforce the perfect moment, something tragic happens to bring you closer together, and then your perfect moment is made more perfect by the contrast. But that you don't want frequently.

So, when you experience your own boredom and your own changeability, the fantastical part of you starts saying, "I need more romance. I need more love. I need more fantasy. And if I don't have those things, then I have tragedy," because in those stories⁠—all of those stories⁠—there's really generally just tragedy and love. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Ruby:  Something clicked. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah, tragedy or love. And there is a part of you that really⁠—you are waiting for this perfect moment to make you feel confidence in wanting something that you actually don't want. So you want the perfect man and the perfect moment to make you want the perfect marriage, which will give you the perfect life. But you're ambiguous about marriage, at best. You want a partner. You want a bestie that you want to love and bone, right?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But you don't really exactly want a marriage. That said, let's come back to your core question, which is, how do you know? You're in a great relationship, but you don't know that you want to spend the rest of your life with him. You don't want to have to sign a contract with the government about it.

Ruby:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Does he want to get married?

Ruby:              I think that he would, yeah.

Jessica:            He would get married, but does he want to get married?

Ruby:              Oh, in general?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ruby:              I don't know. I think it's similar to me where we're both kind of like, "I don't know. Maybe."

Jessica:            So it's not a pressing issue. It's a pressing issue emotionally for you, but not in your dynamic.

Ruby:              Yes. Yes, correct.

Jessica:            Great. How long have you been with this guy?

Ruby:              Not super long. It's been like six months.

Jessica:            Okay.

Ruby:              I've known him for about two or three years at this point. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. I'm going to take a peeky-poop at your relationship, okay?

Ruby:              Yeah. Okay.

Jessica:            I'm going to have you say your full name out loud and then say his full name out loud.

Ruby:              My full name is [redacted].

Jessica:            Okay.

Ruby:              And his full name is [redacted].

Jessica:            It's a great relationship.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's fun. It's great. It's loving. It's sweet. It's safe.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Great. You don't want to get married to him. You don't know if you're in love with him. You know you love him.

Ruby:              Yeah. I do love him.

Jessica:            But you don't know if you're in love with him in a way that would endure time⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—because it's only been six months, girl.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So here's a hard fact. Love is a feeling, and compatibility is different than love. But in order to be a non-cartoon human in a relationship, you need compatibility, not more than love⁠—alongside love.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And I think that you're rushing to have information that you don't have because listen: you have a Cancer Moon; you get very attached to people. But you also have a Virgo Rising. You also are a Gemini. You also are a person who really does need to know someone. I'm guessing you have friends that you've had forever. They're your forever friends.

Ruby:              Yes.

Jessica:            They've been friends since you were a kid, right? And those are people you know. And you never have to question whether or not they should be in your life because they're already in your life. Moon in Cancer⁠—clamp on, right? But new people⁠—it's a lot harder for you because⁠—

Ruby:              A thousand percent.

Jessica:            Yeah. There's so many parts of you. Which part is going to be compatible with this person, and what does it mean that the other parts aren't?

Ruby:              Yep.

Jessica:            Whereas with the friends that are in your family group⁠—you've associated them with family at this stage⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—you don't have to ask that question. So now you can tell yourself it fits into the Disney princess mode of, "We are meant to be friends."

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's really just that they're your childhood friends, and they're your family, basically. I'm going to come back to this to say there is no reason on God's green earth for you to know whether or not you want to spend the rest of your life with a man you've been dating for six months. And I know a lot of people feel differently than that, but those people don't have a Venus square to Uranus.

Ruby:              Okay.

Jessica:            Okay? You have really strong feelings in the first month.

Ruby:              Yes.

Jessica:            And they promise you things about the future. You're now old enough to know that those feelings are feelings, and they're not premonitions.

Ruby:              Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. They're feelings. And there's nothing bad about that. In the moment, they feel like premonitions, but in hindsight, they're feelings, right?

Ruby:              Yeah. For sure.

Jessica:            Okay. That's a Moon/Neptune opposition for you and a Neptune/Venus square for you. So what that means is your feelings are beautiful, and the fact that you have big feelings⁠—those feelings have canopy beds and horse-drawn carts. You've got big, romantic feelings. Do not feel bad about that. Do not pathologize that. And also, don't confuse it with psychic premonition. Okay?

Ruby:              Jessica, I can't tell you how many times I'm like, "It's a sign."

Jessica:            Yes. I know.

Ruby:              "It is a sign from the Universe."

Jessica:            Yeah. Of course. I see you. I see you, girl. And you know what? You do get lots of signs.

Ruby:              I do. I do.

Jessica:            You are a person who gets signs.

Ruby:              I do.

Jessica:            But not about men.

Ruby:              Whoa. Okay. That's crazy.

Jessica:            But is it true?

Ruby:              Yeah, actually, because I've been led astray so many times that I've gotten to a point where I'm like, "Mm-mm. Don't take that on face value."

Jessica:            Correct, when it comes to men.

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            You have a beautiful Sun trine to Jupiter in your birth chart. You get signs. You have luck. Things fall into your lap. Things align⁠—but not with men, because you have a T-square. Because of your T-square that focuses on Venus.

Ruby:              Yep.

Jessica:            So those big, blue-font feelings that you get are feelings. They're emotions. And they have stories attached to them, and they have hopes pinned to them. And they're not psychic. Okay. I'm going to be a real fucking boner killer here. Watch me go.

Ruby:              Okay. Let's hear it.

Jessica:            Okay. We're going to do it. Are you happy with your relationship as it is?

Ruby:              Yes.

Jessica:            I agree. Is there any reason, other than fantasy, to want to know whether or not you want to spend 10 years with this person, let alone 50 years with this person?

Ruby:              No. I guess there's no need to know. I think I just get really hung up with, "If I'm having these doubts, why stay in it now?" because it'll get harder down the road to end it.

Jessica:            Ah. I see. So you are putting yourself through pain in the present to preempt pain that may or may not come in the future.

Ruby:              Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Well played. Very inventive. Okay. What is the longest relationship you've ever been in?

Ruby:              Oh my God. I had one that was like a year solid, and then on and off for like two years after that.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. And were you on and off in part because you were returning to this "I don't know if I want to be with you forever, so I don't know if I should be with you now" thing?

Ruby:              It was when I was way young, and we went to different schools.

Jessica:            Okay. So you were a kid.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's say after the age of 21, what is the longest relationship you've ever had?

Ruby:              Not quite a year.

Jessica:            Okay. Zero percent of surprise on this little face of mine, and it's not because there's something deficient in you where you can't have a relationship. It's because you're placing the burden of forever upon a burgeoning relationship when you don't even know if you want to get married.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So, because of the way your birth chart is drawn, I don't think that my very Capricorn tough talk is going to change your fucking whole entire personality. And I don't want it to. I want to just be clear.

Ruby:              Sure.

Jessica:            You are always going to ask this question of, "Is this enough love? Is there something more?"

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's just your nature. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Here's the "but." The "but" is you are using these questions, these very earnest questions, as a way to evade your reality, which is perfectly lovely. Your reality in the here and now is he meets your needs. He makes you happy. He is not asking for something that you don't want to give. There's no reason at all to change anything in this moment. You haven't been doing this for ten years.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You haven't been doing it for a whole year. This is actually that part of you that's like, "What if there's someone better for me out there?"

Ruby:              Yeah. That's 1,000 percent it.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So here's what I'll say. If the Universe wants you to be with another guy, you'll meet the guy.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And then you'll be like, "Oh shit. I gotta break up with you. Sorry. I met someone better." You'll do that if you have to do that, right?

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But you think it would be easier to meet that guy if you were single?

Ruby:              I just think it would be less hurtful.

Jessica:            To the current guy.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Who you're perfectly happy with.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            If you broke up with him before you met Prince Charming, who doesn't actually exist, necessarily⁠—because he could exist. Is that true?

Ruby:              I guess. I guess that's what's going on in my brain.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing that's so cool about astrology is that I can look at your chart and explain to you the way that a Moon/Neptune opposition functions is it creates this fantastical, expansive, beautiful world within you. And it's perfect. It has no blemishes unless those blemishes are used as a story advancer that makes the love more pure.

                        There is this part of you that wants an escape from reality.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And the reality is no human person⁠—if you decide to partner with a dog or a cat or a Tweety Bird or whatever⁠, there's no living being that will make you feel delighted and happy your whole life. It's not realistic. Nobody will do that for anybody on the planet, I am so sorry to say, because I know a lot of people with Neptune aspects to their Moon or Venus are very mad at me right now. But the truth is everyone is annoying.

Ruby:              Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Everybody, let's say, goes through Saturn transits when you're not going through Saturn transits. So they're just dragging their ass, and they're feeling bad, and things aren't working well for them. And it might feel like it's dragging you down because what if you're going through a Jupiter transit at the same time, and everything's just kind of popping off for you and you're excited?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Does that mean you break up with them? I don't fucking know. Maybe. I will share with you something that my grandfather said to me many years ago, which is attraction, love, romance are all beautiful. But the reason why you stay together and be happy is how you go through the hard times together. Don't be surprised my family member said that to me; I'm a Capricorn. You are not a Capricorn. You do not need to adopt that worldview.

                        However, if you have any friends who have been in long-term relationships or family members, and you look at their relationship and you think, "I would want to be in something like that," which⁠—do you have any of those people in your life?

Ruby:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. My guess is when shit gets real, they show up for each other.

Ruby:              Oh yeah.

Jessica:            That's really what it's about. It's not about those moments of pure love and bliss and ease. Those things are romantic, and we need those things. But if you have those things but you don't also have compatibility when shit gets real, you will be in a bad relationship or you will not stay in a relationship. And with your chart, you'll get out. You're already itching to go, and you're happy, right?

Ruby:              I know.

Jessica:            So you won't stay in something that makes you unhappy. But that part of you that wants fantasy and romance⁠—some of it is escapism, and some of it is just wanting fantasy and romance. And so does our man of the hour⁠—does he do romantic things? Do you have romantic feelings sometimes with him?

Ruby:              Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Jessica:            Okay. So here's the thing. I have told more than a dozen people to break up with their boyfriends in my career. I am kind of good at it, not to brag. But there's nothing wrong with your relationship. Whatever problems the two of you have, you're handling it well so far.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So this, therefore, becomes an issue with your own beliefs and attitudes and not an issue with your love life. Does that feel real, or does that feel like my theory that you don't really believe?

Ruby:              No, I think that's real. And I think that's what got me to ask the question to begin with because I think I have been realizing, oh, I think the way that I think about love is the problem. And how it's supposed to be is actually the problem that I have here.

Jessica:            Yeah. And I think that there's a part of your brain that's like, "Okay. So, if there's nothing wrong with the relationship, that means I should just start thinking about marriage."

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But that's not it.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's not it. I don't think any man is going to make you want to be married. I think you may have romantic moments in which you're like, "I could have your babies. I could picture us living together forever." For sure, you will have those moments. And you probably have those moments with him already. But they're moments. They're moments. They're not like decisions, right? They're moments.

                        And I think there's something really important for you to think about ongoing, about the difference between a moment and a choice, a moment and an action, a moment and a choice. When you give yourself permission to say, "I love this guy. In-love is developing. Compatibility is developing. I actually don't know him that well, and I would want to know somebody before I⁠—I don't know⁠—moved in with him, made any kind of long-term connection." Are you already living with him?

Ruby:              No. I mean, he kind of lives at his parents', which means that he is mostly at my house. But he travels for work a lot, so I get a lot of time by myself. Yeah.

Jessica:            Do you like that? Do you like living with him?

Ruby:              I like having him around, but honestly, I don't know that I could ever live with somebody full time because I love my space and my nights to myself, and yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, you do. That small piece of information that you just shared about yourself says that you could never be a Disney princess.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So your fantasy of that perfect feeling includes your independence and autonomy. But that's not your fantasy, right? In your fantasy, the perfect man makes you not want independence and autonomy. That's patriarchy.

Ruby:              Damn.

Jessica:            Yeah. That shit's patriarchy.

Ruby:              Yeah. Wow.

Jessica:            That's drinking the poison and telling yourself it's delicious. It's not true. And listen. I'm a huge fan of a fantasy landscape. All of this can be turned towards kink. You didn't think I was going to take it there. Whoop⁠—just went.

Ruby:              I did not.

Jessica:            No. But this is all perfect for kink, for being played out in the bedroom as a part of a fantasy life with roleplay. Now, this might not be your style. It might not be his style, or it might not be what works with this guy. Maybe it would work with another guy. I don't know. That's not important.

                        But I want to say these are parts of you that you want to play out, but they're not the whole of you. Again, the Disney princess fantasy is the perfect man makes you have a perfect moment that lasts forever and ever and ever, and in that perfect moment, of course you want to live with him. Of course you want to do all these things that you know you don't want to do.

You sounded so clear when you said, "I don't think I could ever live with a guy full time." So okay. So you know you don't want that. Okay. But there is a place⁠—in the bedroom⁠—where such fantasies can be played out in a healthy, consensual way. And I want to encourage you to put that in the old noodle and see if that makes sense to you or if that feels good to you because you don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. This is a part of you. It's just not a realistic part.

                        And fantasy can be played out in so many ways, right? I mean, it doesn't have to be sexual. It can be cosplay-style or whatever.

Ruby:              Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Jessica:            But I would say that I agree that you have a Moon/Uranus opposition; you don't want to fucking live with somebody. You love to live alone. You like to change your mind about how things are done, and you like to be in control. You're very controlling in your home.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And you like it like that. Being with a guy who lives with his parents⁠—that's not good for you. That's a terrible thing for you. I might call that a red flag. Is he taking care of his parents?

Ruby:              No. He has a job where he travels a lot, and so having an apartment hasn't made a lot of sense because he's gone for like six months at a time sometimes.

Jessica:            Men. Okay. So listen. Would you do that in the same situation?

Ruby:              Probably not. I don't know. It's hard⁠—

Jessica:            Of course you wouldn't.

Ruby:              Yeah. I⁠—it's hard for me to say.

Jessica:            You wouldn't. You have a Moon/Uranus opposition.

Ruby:              Okay. Okay. Okay.

Jessica:            You would just have an apartment that you weren't in all the time⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah, probably.

Jessica:            ⁠—but you wouldn't live at your parents' house. Is he your same age?

Ruby:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. Listen. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's just not right for you. You're too independent to live at your parents' house, even for four days a week or two days a week or whatever.

Ruby:              Yeah. I did live with my mom for a hot second, and yeah. It was fine, but I—

Jessica:            It was hard.

Ruby:              Yeah. It was fine, but I definitely got a house when the opportunity came up.

Jessica:            Yeah. So this is, straight out the gate, really compatible for you with this man now because it means he's not in your fucking hair all the time. Bye. He's technically got his own place, and he travels. But it's a red flag that he is willing to live with his parents and with you⁠—his mom's house, his girlfriend's house. Again, I want you to hear patriarchy in this. Do you? Did you?

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah. I do.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. I'm a boner killer. You had to have known that when you wrote in the question.

Ruby:              I did. I was expecting⁠—I was fully prepared for this.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Thank God.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So this is not compatible for you. You do not want a man who goes from his mom's house to his girlfriend's house. Obviously, that's not what you want.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Again, there's nothing wrong in this relationship at this time. It is perfect for you now. And you now is worth protecting. You now is worth investing in. You fantasy tomorrow shouldn't be your sole and primary focus, because if you're as invested in moments as your fantasy self, your escapist self, is, then the moment of now works for you guys.

                        If you say to him, "Hey, listen. I love spending time with you, but I can't have you exactly living with me right now. And you're kind of living with me right now. So let's be a little more communicative about when we spend time instead of you assuming that you come to my house when you're not working"⁠—that form of direct communication may be really hard for you, but⁠—

Ruby:              It's so hard, Jessica.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ruby:              I can't even tell you how hard it is.

Jessica:            I am so sorry.

Ruby:              That's another reason why I think I don't really stay in relationships for a long time.

Jessica:            It's because you don't say what you need.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, if you're wanting to know if something's wrong with you, that would be the only one I've come across so far. Yeah. Saying what you feel and what you need is a really good practice, and no man is going to magically make you able to do that. And there's not going to be a man in the world that you're not going to have to do that with. If he's perfect for you, you will have to communicate your mind to him, and he will be dissatisfied if you don't.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's not this guy. Again, he's great for now. And he's not holding you back from some perfect destiny.

Ruby:              No. Yeah, no.

Jessica:            Having relationships⁠—I think so many people have this idea that relationships fail or succeed; in other words, they end in marriage or they fail.

Ruby:              That's exactly the mentality I have. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. This is, again, patriarchy. So this is my attitude, is that the only way that a relationship fails is if you don't learn from it, if you don't grow as a result of it. Marriage is not a fucking reward for a job well done. You know? It just isn't. It's something that a lot of people really deeply care about, but it shouldn't be mandatory. And it's certainly not any kind of indication of compatibility or success. If we look at statistics, we will know that marriage does not, in North America, end in staying together.

Ruby:              Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            That's a fantasy, and that fantasy only was true when women weren't allowed to live without men. The only time that marriage equaled forever and ever and ever was when women couldn't get out⁠, when we were property. That's the only time.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So, when we come back to this idea, the only way that we learn how to communicate, as a random example, in relationships is by practicing. I've been with my forever fiancé, my partner, for 12 years. When I think about all of the mistakes I've made with every other person I've dated, I am so grateful that I made those mistakes. I wasn't grateful then. I was bummed. But I'm so grateful because it is through practice that we learn.

                        It's not that people we date are stepping stones or anything. It's that you learn through experiencing yourself with people in relationship. And you fail. You have to fail. You must fail in order to succeed. It's the only way to be a good partner, is to make mistakes sometimes and then be like, "Holy shit, man. That was an error. It was an error in judgment. I shouldn't have talked to you that way. I shouldn't have done this thing. I should have told you what I was feeling way before I did." And then you learn from it, and you do better next time.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's antithetical to the Disney princess situation, but it's real. It's what's real. And so do I think you're going to spend the rest of your life with this man? I do not. Does that mean I think you're going to break up with him? Actually, no, it does not. I think it, 100 percent, only matters to your fantastical, disassociative tendencies.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I don't think it matters to your reality at all.

Ruby:              Yeah. That's real.

Jessica:            But I can tell you this. If you're going to spend the rest of your life with him, you better be able to fucking tell him to pick up his clothes off the floor. Yeah, I see it. If you are going to break up with him, well, then you might as well practice telling him to pick his shit up off the floor. Do you see what I'm saying? Either way, there's no reason⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Jessica:            ⁠—to not be more direct, because how can he meet your needs if he doesn't know what they are?

Ruby:              Yeah. I know.

Jessica:            It's not real.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And okay. Say your full name out loud again.

Ruby:              [redacted].

Jessica:            Your parents are married?

Ruby:              Well, my dad passed when I was younger.

Jessica:            Oh, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about that.

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Is she with anyone now?

Ruby:              No. She has never really⁠—she dated one person when I was in sixth grade and then nobody, really, since then.

Jessica:            Nobody since then. How is she with her singleness?

Ruby:              She's great. I mean, I think she's happy with it. I think, more so recently, she's been kind of more open to the idea of putting herself out there, which⁠—I'm really excited about that for her.

Jessica:            Yeah. Has she idealized your dad through the years?

Ruby:              You know, I don't know. I don't know that she idealized him, but I think that there was just never really anybody after that. And so it just left this⁠—like this was the person. You know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ruby:              And she said that. She was like, "I had my love."

Jessica:            Okay. She said, "I've had my love. This was it," because I see your mom is connected to this pattern for you, and there is this thing with, again, Moon/Neptune where there's self-sacrifice and there's martyrdom. And so there may be a way that you see your mom's⁠—not consciously/analytically, but see your mom's loss and then how she stayed, in effect, faithful to him through her whole life as, again, a kind of perfection that is not what you would want for yourself, and it's not even what you would want for your parents. But it falls into that fantasy bucket of an unsoiled memory, an unsoiled path. Everything's perfect in this idea, in a way.

Ruby:              I've never thought about it in that way, so it's interesting to hear that perspective, for sure. Yeah.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Your mom and you are a lot alike. And she is also very independent, and I think that she's really coming into her own in a lot of ways right now.

Ruby:              Definitely. I'm so excited for her at this stage of life.

Jessica:            Yeah. And she is getting the chance to be like you have been through your 20s.

Ruby:              Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            She's getting the freedom you've had. I want to come back to you, and I want to say this. There's nothing that stands in the way of you having a happy, healthy, compatible, weird, and romantic partnership with someone. But there is a way that you don't want those things. Even though you have placed them at the highest peak of the highest mountain in your mind, there is a part of you that does not want those things because that fantasy requires that you be a different person than you are. That fantasy requires that you're not independent, that you have to put up with a bunch of shit because you don't really advocate for yourself, that you end up giving up a lot of the things that you actually really enjoy.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you don't completely want it. Therefore, looking at a perfectly healthy, happy, functional relationship and saying, "I gotta get out because it's not perfect," is kind of your way of navigating the fact that you're not advocating for yourself and it's starting to bug you⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—and navigating the part of you that wants a relationship like you want a unicorn⁠—

Ruby:              Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            ⁠—not realistically.

Ruby:              Totally. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay. We've talked about a lot of heavy shit. Let's take a pause. Do you have any questions or things you want me to speak to on this topic?

Ruby:              I don't know. I feel like I could go so many directions. I guess one thing I'm kind of curious about is that my whole family is kind of⁠—for a long time, we were all notoriously single. And I guess I've just always thought about it as, "Oh, this is like a family thing." We lost a parent, and then⁠ I don't know⁠. Maybe we're really closed off. And so I've always thought that I was just really closed off to love as well.

Jessica:            Interesting.

Ruby:              And so I'm curious about that, too, if that's in the chart or how that plays into this whole thing.

Jessica:            How many of you are there in the family?

Ruby:              Two older sisters and a younger brother and myself. Yeah.

Jessica:            And none of them are partnered?

Ruby:              One of them is, and she's actually getting married at the end of the month.

Jessica:            Congratulations. Okay. So your older sisters are⁠—we can't talk about in the same bucket as you and your brother because it looks like they're substantially enough older. Is that correct? Yeah.

Ruby:              Yeah. They were kind of always together, and we were⁠—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Also, the age they were when your father passed had a radically different impact. It was just a different experience. They're so different than you and your brother. So let's talk about you and your brother, okay?

Ruby:              Okay.

Jessica:            And your mom. Let's start with your mom. Your mom could have dated.

Ruby:              Oh yeah.

Jessica:            She could have dated. She didn't want to. She didn't want to date, partially because she was busy raising kids and doing her thing, but also because of the same reason why you don't want to date: because she don't want to be bothered, okay? Your mom made a lot of compromises with your dad.

Ruby:              Yeah, big time.

Jessica:            She put up with a lot.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She did not have freedom with your dad in a lot of ways. Is this what you remember?

Ruby:              I think it was mostly from his family, not necessarily him. But yeah.

Jessica:            But he didn't protect her from his family.

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that could very well be true.

Jessica:            When I look at your birth chart, I see that your mom felt that she had to tamp down her independence, her willfulness, and a lot of her independence⁠—yeah, a lot of her independence and willfulness to be a mom and be a wife. And by the time you came around, she was having a much harder time doing it. So, again, this is why we can't even talk about your sisters, because they went through⁠—

Ruby:              Totally different parenting. Yeah.

Jessica:            Your mom was a different person.

Ruby:              Totally different. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. By the time you came around, your mom was fighting for herself a lot more. She was advocating for herself a lot more.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And it did cause issues within the relationship is what it looks like. I don't know if this is something your mom has talked to you about.

Ruby:              No.

Jessica:            She's kept your dad pure for you.

Ruby:              Yeah, probably so. Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's not a bad thing or a good thing. It's the choice she made. It was a good choice for her to make as a parent, and also, it's part of this whole pattern for you. You've got this perfect person in your dad.

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And what's your brother's name?

Ruby:              [redacted].

Jessica:            Do you think [redacted] wants to be in a relationship?

Ruby:              I don't know.

Jessica:            Come on. This guy does not want to be in a relationship at all. Do you think he wants to be in a relationship?

Ruby:              I don't know. I don't have that kind of a relationship with him where we talk about this stuff. But from what I do know, it sounds like it's a little bit all over the place.

Jessica:            Yeah. He's all over the place. Is he younger?

Ruby:              Yeah. He's two years younger than me.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. He's in no rush to get married.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm guessing he will get married, though, because he's⁠—

Ruby:              Interesting.

Jessica:            ⁠—traditional enough that he's like, one day, it'll just be like, "Okay. This girl." And they'll do the thing he's supposed to do. But he is going to eke it out as long as he can.

Ruby:              Okay. That's really funny.

Jessica:            But he doesn't want to be partnered. He doesn't want intimacy and love. That's not what your brother wants. So is there something wrong with your brother in some way from family trauma because he's not with a partner? No. He's a dude who doesn't want to be tied down. That is your brother.

                        So then there's you. You've had lots of opportunities to be in lots of relationships, eh?

Ruby:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And whether it's⁠—I guess I'll just⁠—I'll be very direct since we're at this point of the conversation. And you pull out. You either pick guys who are completely unavailable, or you pull out because you're dissatisfied with them, yeah?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            All right. This is a free will issue. You are using your free will not get fucking tied down to something that doesn't work for you.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Sometimes that's because you're thinking about 15 years from now, and you're like, "There's no way I could be happy in my 40s," or whatever. And then sometimes it's because you're just not happy in the moment, right?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

Ruby:              Yeah. And I don't regret ending any of those past things. I look back on all of them, and I'm like, "Why did I even do that?" You know?

Jessica:            Totally. Yeah. Totally. Listen. You have ten more ex-boyfriends in the next four years; I'm not mad at that, not for you. Uh-uh. That would not be actually bad. The only thing that would be bad about that is if you did the same things over and over and over with them⁠—you don't advocate for yourself. You don't tell them what you really think. You don't tell them what you really need in the relationship. And then you end it. That would be a tragedy for you.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It would be such a missed opportunity. But it would not be a bad thing if you dated guys, had fun, and stopped dating them when it wasn't fun. I would call that healthy⁠—

Ruby:              Okay.

Jessica:            ⁠—if you are not in a rush to procreate, which I am guessing you are not.

Ruby:              Yeah, I don't know. I've always wanted children, but at this point, I mean, I have friends that have kids, and sometimes I'm like, "I don't know about that." And also, the state of the world⁠—I'm just like, "I don't know that I want to put that burden on you." You know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. So what you just said was the fantasy is⁠—or when I was a child—"For sure, baby." The reality of being a parent or bringing a child into this world is a hard pass for now. That's what I just heard.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Which means you're not in a rush to procreate. The only reason to rush to marriage⁠—other than family pressure, societal pressure, taking that shit on⁠—is the rush to procreate, right?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Because there's a biological imperative; you gotta fucking do it in a certain amount of time. But otherwise, you can just meet the right person when you're in the right state.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            What I'm trying to say to you is you don't have a lack of opportunity. What I'm trying to say to you is that there's not a reason why you haven't found the right guy in your early 30s at all. What I'm saying to you is that if you're dating out of the desire to have a magical moment, you will keep on dating the same guys you've dated⁠—

Ruby:              Whoa.

Jessica:            ⁠—because you know who can give you a magical moment? A fuckboy. You know who can give you a⁠—and this guy that you're dating is not a fuckboy.

Ruby:              No.

Jessica:            That's not what he is. But I mean, we've all been there.

Ruby:              Oh, sure. Oh, sure.

Jessica:            Gender aside, we've all been there.

Ruby:              Oh, sure.

Jessica:            Yeah. A magical moment is literally a moment. It's not what you want. It's fantasy that you want. But again, I encourage you to explore kink in this direction or cosplay or whatever.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            What I want to encourage you to do is to really think about the life you want. And the life that you want is to have that romance but also to have a lot of space, to have a life with a fully functioning, self-sufficient adult man who you feel really wants you and is devoted to you but doesn't need you in a needy way.

Ruby:              Yeah, 1,000 percent.

Jessica:            We haven't talked about this, but that's a big trigger for you.

Ruby:              Oh my gosh, big time. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. You hate neediness.

Ruby:              I hate it. I can't handle it.

Jessica:            You like romance. You like devotion. But you hate neediness. It is really hard to find somebody who will give you the two. It's easy to get one or the other but not the two. Okay. Fine. The cool thing is you date men, and they say very loudly and frequently that they don't want to be tied down and they don't want neediness. And I don't think it's true, but they say it a lot.

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So it seems to me like it shouldn't be impossible for you to find somebody who's like, "Yeah. I would love it if we had a duplex. I would love it if we had our independent homes and we split our time between them both. I would love it if we had really romantic vacations frequently but we didn't have kids." There's a lot of ways your life can look you would fucking love, but you will never see them on a movie about a traditional straight couple.

Ruby:              That's so real. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so the invitation I want to pose to you is, can you start fantasizing, like really fantasizing, about things that you could enjoy based on how you already are, who you already are, and how you like to live?

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Because if you do that, then your fantasies get closer to intuition and manifestation⁠—

Ruby:              Cool.

Jessica:            ⁠—whereas now, they're like cartoons.

Ruby:              Yes. Yeah. It's funny you describe it in that way because that feels very spot-on. Yeah.

Jessica:            The cartoon piece, you mean?

Ruby:              Yeah, just this very fantastical, nonrealistic kind of⁠—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It has glamor to it. You know what I mean?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Neptune literally governs glamor.

Ruby:              Oh. Interesting.

Jessica:            You can have both. You can have fantastical components to your dynamic, but you do need a lot of material space in order to keep the fantasy alive. Otherwise, as you're already experiencing with your current boyfriend of only six months, you spend too much time with a nerd and everything about them shows up. And then you have to deal with it, and that's not romantic.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But it's real. And I do want to encourage you to be different with him than you've been with other guys.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Be more yourself. Be with him like you are with your besties. Tell him what the fuck you think. Tell him what you need. Tell him, "Yeah, I know we have plans, but I don't feel it, so I'm going to have to go and spend time alone tonight."

Ruby:              Damn. Yeah.

Jessica:            You would do that with your friends, right?

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. If he's not your best friend, why would you partner with him? I mean, I think it's good to have multiple best friends. He shouldn't be your only friend.

Ruby:              Oh yeah.

Jessica:            But this person could use more boundaries and clarity about what you do and don't like about him.

Ruby:              Yeah. That's real.

Jessica:            Yeah. You've got so much good in your chart. You've got so much good going on in your life. I know that this is not⁠—I did not give you the answer, probably, that you wanted, but⁠—

Ruby:              No, it's okay. It's helpful.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ruby:              It's genuinely very, very helpful.

Jessica:            I'm really glad that it is, because what I think it comes down to for you is expanding. It's really expanding. It's expanding your openness to all your parts instead of being so fixated on one of your parts.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So don't think of it as, like, "I have to get rid of this idealization." You don't. You can keep it, but you want to expand to include more reality, more parts of your nature, and that'll make it a lot easier.

Ruby:              Okay. That makes a lot of sense because I feel like I spend a lot of time fixated on this thing. And I even have times where I'm like, "Why do I spend so much time thinking about"⁠—you know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ruby:              I have moments where I'm like, "There is 1,000 things to think about in this world more than that."

Jessica:            Yeah. And it's especially interesting because I've talked to a lot of people who have this issue over the years, and most of them are desperate for human children and desperate for marriage. You're not for either. So it's especially odd because it's super divorced from what you actually consciously want in the short term.

Ruby:              I think I did. I was really about that for a long time, but it's not until more recently that I've been like, "I don't know that I need those things."

Jessica:            You're post-Saturn Return, but you're just post-Saturn Return. So it makes sense that in the last two years-ish, since you've been post-Saturn Return, you've been like, "Maybe adult me doesn't want the things that 15-year-old me wanted."

Ruby:              Yeah. Yeah. True.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

Ruby:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Well, Ruby, this has been really good. I mean, I've enjoyed it. I hope it's helpful.

Ruby:              Very helpful. Yes, very helpful. This is literally a dream come true, so thank you so much. And I'm really glad that we got to talk about this because it's been very pressing right now.

Jessica:            Good. I'm so glad. And I hope you can continue to enjoy this nerd.

Ruby:              Yes.

Jessica:            I'm calling him a nerd. I don't think he would like that, but it's like a term of affection for me.

Ruby:              I know. Yeah. No, it's cool.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Ruby:              I think it's a cool term, so...

Jessica:            I think it's a cool term, but also, I said it, and then I was like, "Oh, I don't think he would think it was as cool as I think."

Ruby:              Probably not. Yeah.

Jessica:            No (laughs).

Ruby:              (laughs)

Jessica:            But it's been great meeting you. I'm so glad we got to do this.

Ruby:              Same.

Jessica:            And I wish you all of the messy, sticky, tumultuous human happiness in the world.

Ruby:              Thank you so much for that, truly.

Jessica:            It's my pleasure.