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

Nina:               Last year, my partner and I were having a lot of issues. We were trying to open our relationship, and that kind of muddied things a bit. They ended up cheating on me. And I'm just wondering if this relationship is worth saving. I really love this person. When we started dating in 2023, that was honestly one of my best years. We had a lot of fun getting to know each other. 2024 was just a really hard year, and I chose to stand by their side through it all as we both were just dealing with collective grief and our own personal grief.

                        Yeah, so I'm just wondering, am I abandoning myself by staying in this relationship? Is it worth it? I just feel like my mother wound is one of the issues that I have when it does come to finding love and staying in it. This person has made me feel very seen and has comforted my inner child in ways that no one else ever has. And so I would love to think this is my person. I'm hoping my intuition is right and I'm not just navigating out of a place of fear or uncertainty because the world is just so scary right now, and I really don't want to be alone⁠—

Jessica:            Yeah.

Nina:               ⁠—especially when I've built a home in this person.

Jessica:            And do you two live together currently?

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            Okay. I got lots of questions, so bear with me for a sec. Okay. So you don't live together currently. You've been together almost two years, a year and a half?

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Did you also cheat on them?

Nina:               No. I had shared feelings for a friend after they wrote me a love letter on my birthday last year, and I wrote a letter back. You know, it was a nice gesture, and I do have a lot of feelings for that person. And yeah, after my partner found out about the letter, things were just kind of tough, and then they spiraled and then cheated on me.

Jessica:            I see. So okay. Wait. They found out about the letter; you didn't tell them about the letter?

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Okay. So here's a fun fact. And you're using "they" pronouns. This is a Queer relationship, right?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. You know, Queer to Queer, for the last 30 years, I have encountered the same problem in Queer relationships and increasingly so in straight relationships, just as the world gets more Queer. When it comes to open relationships, it seems that people are very heady about it and don't make clear boundaries. So it sounds like that's kind of what happened with the two of you, where you didn't explicitly name terms; you were just like, "Let's open it up and see what happens. These are all the good things about having an open relationship."

Nina:               Yeah. We were discussing it, and when the letter was presented to me, my partner⁠—she was going through a really hard time during work. She was super stressed. She literally kept verbalizing to me, "I'm at capacity. I'm at capacity." And I did really want to share this information with her because I had no problems sharing this information because we were talking about opening our relationship. And this is a mutual friend that we have. And so I was actually excited about the idea, but I wanted to postpone the delivery of the information.

Jessica:            I see, because they were telling you, "Please don't give me anything else right now."

Nina:               Yeah, basically.

Jessica:            Okay.

Nina:               Like she couldn't handle any more.

Jessica:            Okay. There's a lot of layers to this, but⁠—okay. And we should share you were born August 31st, 1992, in Corinth, Mississippi, at 4:59 p.m. local time. So the cheating that they did was just like they straight-up went forth and hooked up with someone.

Nina:               After she found out about the letter, she went on a binge.

Jessica:            A drinking binge?

Nina:               Coke.

Jessica:            Coke. Okay. Fun. Fun.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Coke binge. Okay. And is that totally out of nature, or is that something that had happened before?

Nina:               She's never done coke around me, but she has told me in the past how she usually does it when she's in a dark space⁠—

Jessica:            Okay.

Nina:               ⁠—and she's not trying to feel anything. And so she went on and did the coke and had sex with a man.

Jessica:            Oh.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And safer sex or not safer sex?

Nina:               She said they were safe. They used protection.

Jessica:            Does she typically hook up with men, or was that just like left-field kind of behavior for you?

Nina:               It was left field, but also, she has explained to me in the past coke and men are the places she goes when she doesn't want to feel anything and connect with herself.

Jessica:            Okay. So you knew that this was a self-destructive habit from the past, but it wasn't like⁠—when the two of you were clear-eyed, talking about opening the relationship, you weren't really thinking about men.

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            Okay.

Nina:               I mean, she said she finds men attractive. I've never been with a man. So I'm like, "That's your thing. I don't like it, but okay."

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Nina:               But no, men were definitely not on my mind.

Jessica:            They weren't on your mind, which is part of where it's like⁠—because when you said that, I was like, "Oh my God. That feels scandalous to me," which is not necessarily true, but I can feel that, for you, it was kind of like a shock to the system, right? It was not what you expected.

Nina:               It was deeply hurtful. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Before we proceed, a couple more questions. Are they still doing a lot of coke?

Nina:               No. That was a one-night thing.

Jessica:            Okay. It was a one-night thing. It was not like a one-month thing. Okay.

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            And is your relationship still open?

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            Great.

Nina:               I'm just like, "We have a lot to work on." She also agrees that we have a lot to work on. And honestly, we're just in a space where we're spending less time together and trying to figure out how we can preserve the relationship in a loving and healthy way.

Jessica:            Okay. And are they your age? Are they the same age as you-ish?

Nina:               No. She's older than me.

Jessica:            How much older?

Nina:               Nine years.

Jessica:            Nine years older. That's a big age gap. So let's start at the beginning, okay? You have Saturn in the first house. You know that, right? Saturn in the first house⁠—Capricorn Rising. So do you know a little bit of hardship? Yes, you do. (laughs)

Nina:               (laughs)

Jessica:            Sorry. It's only funny because it's Saturn, because it's kind of an understatement. So do you have a habit of getting into situations where you feel kind of alone and like you have to handle everything and you're the only one who's responsible?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yes, you do. Fun fact: your Saturn in Aquarius is intercepted. And so, in your childhood, not only were you the only adult in the room when you were a child, you weren't allowed to name it. Everyone was in denial about it. So you were being tasked with being the adult whilst also being told that you were immature or that you should just listen. Does that track?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            I'm sorry, because that's some fucked-up shit. And also, je suis not surprised that you are with somebody so much older because it makes sense. It tracks with the⁠—you called it "mother wound," so I'm guessing with your mom, right? It tracks with your childhood. Okay. Another fun fact: you have Chiron in your seventh house also intercepted Mercury, also intercepted. So this pattern plays out in your relationships, your friendships, and romantic relationships, yeah?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So you being the responsible one is not inherently a bad thing. You are responsible. That's cool. It's cool. But being the only one responsible⁠—that's what's not cool, capisce? Okay. So there's layers to this. And before going further, I should ask⁠—I meant to ask this earlier⁠—are you trying to get married right now? Are you trying to be life partnered right now? Is that your ambition and hope?

Nina:               With this person, yes. We talked a lot about the future. We have a lot of dreams together. We've talked about children. I would love to marry her if she's meant to be my person.

Jessica:            Yeah. And is she a self-sufficient adult? Does she take care of her shit?

Nina:               No, not at the moment. And I don't know if she's just going through a really hard time. Well, I know she's going through a really hard time, and so I excuse a lot of her not taking care of herself. The bulk of last year, I did a lot of mothering her, feeding her, cleaning up after her⁠—

Jessica:            Oh. Wow.

Nina:               ⁠—and taking care of her because I really love this person.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Nina:               And I see that she can't take care of herself right now. And if I have the capacity to do so, I want to jump in and do it because I love her, and I'd do it for anybody that I love.

Jessica:            You would. Let's stay with that part. You would, and you can. You could be hungry and messy and still take care of me if I showed any inclination of being hungry and messy, right? This is, again⁠—you were raised to be this very person.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so there's a greater strength to your voice when you said, "I took care of her because I can and because she needed help." Your sense of self, your identity, your sense of purpose are so clear when it comes to, "I know how to rise to the fucking occasion," right? So that's a beautiful thing. I don't want to ever take that from you. That is a wonderful skill to have. It is a wonderful ability to have. And we don't want to pathologize it.

                        Here's the "but." And you know there's a "but," right? When you're taking care of someone and they are not willing or able to take care of you in equal measure⁠—so that doesn't mean in the exact same way, but if they are not your partner, then we have a problem. And now your body language is getting all⁠—something. So tell me, what comes up around that? Does this person take care of you?

Nina:               Yes, when⁠—yes. She does take care of me when she has the capacity.

Jessica:            And I want to just ask you, are you conflating treating you with love as taking care of you?

Nina:               Probably.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So, if you were raised where there's food around you, but the adults around you only gave you enough to survive, then when, as an adult, you enter into a room and people give you the bare minimum of a meal, you're like, "This is love. This is care." Right? So, when you say that she takes care of you, I am not seeing that she never takes care of you, but I am seeing that when you report to me, "Oh, yeah, this person does take care of me," 80 percent of what you're referring to is they treat you with love and care.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So here's the trouble with that, is that it's a different version of your childhood trauma, but it's like a different version like crimson and fire-engine red are different versions of red. Do you know what I'm saying?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, we're talking about nuance. We're not talking about authentic difference, you know?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Okay. And they're how old now?

Nina:               41.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So this is the tricky thing about being the younger person in an age dynamic like yours, is that you are looking upon self-sufficiency from the perspective of your early 30s. And in your early 30s, when you think about your adult experiences, you may still a little bit include your teens, right? You may still kind of reference those years, which is how we have evidence that you are a very young person still. Okay. Thank you. And your partner, at 41, is not doing that anymore because they have so many more adult years. The difference between⁠—you're 32, 31?

Nina:               32.

Jessica:            So the difference between 22 and 32⁠—I mean, unspeakable, right?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. I mean, if you think it through, right? And so 32 and 41 actually have similar⁠—it's the same amount of years.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            And I'm only grounding you in this because some of the allowances that you are making in your thinking for their behavior and their choices make more sense for 22 or 32 than 42. Does that make sense to you?

Nina:               Absolutely.

Jessica:            And that's not to say that a person can't get fucked up at any age. You can be 62 and fucked up. That's okay. We get to be fucked up, right? I'm not trying to suggest otherwise. Here's the "but." The "but" is this is a trauma pattern for you, right?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            It's not just like, "Oh, this kind of reminds me of my childhood." It's actually like trauma for you. And so this dynamic that you're describing around the letter⁠—part of what I'm seeing when I look at it energetically⁠—and we'll get to the astrology, but part of what I'm seeing when I look at it energetically is that you were a little messy, but they were giving you, as you suggested, actual reason to believe that sharing something like this was just not right moment. And so you weren't hiding something; you were just hanging out around the edges of what was acceptable in monogamy. You were stepping on the outside of it, but you hadn't gone into another room; you were hanging out on the other side of the boundary.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And they were telling you, "Don't give me anything extra. I can't take anything extra." I'm seeing you're not making that up, and you're not making that dramatic. They were really communicating that frequently, correct?

Nina:               Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. So the intensity of their reaction was not really about you. It was like the one thing that kind of emboldened them to slip into an old self-destructive behavior pattern.

Nina:               Right.

Jessica:            It wasn't really about the monogamy/non-monogamy thing. They were just like, "Fuck it." They got nihilistic.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so that doesn't make them a bad person, and it doesn't mean you can't be with them. But it should remind you of someone you know, yeah?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            A little bit?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And her name is Mom, I'm guessing. I'm guessing.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's a pattern. And the thing about relationships is that there's going to be problems. There is no perfect person. You're not going to meet some person and not have problems, right?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You're not going to meet a person who's not got maladjusted coping mechanisms and doesn't fuck up. That's you. That's me. That's them. It's everyone we've ever dated, everyone we're friends with. That's fine. The question is, are the problems that this person has with themselves and then, therefore, the problems that are going to keep on showing up in the relationship because they're the problems they have with themselves⁠—are those problems that keep you stuck and fucked up and hurt? Are they a reiteration of your trauma? Or are they problems that force you to step up and become more yourself?

That's always what I'm looking for when I talk to people about their relationship problems. And when I'm looking at my own relationships, that's what I'm looking for when I'm being healthy, which is not every [indiscernible 00:16:06]. But we do our best. We do our best. From that perspective, my concern is that the problems that this person has with themselves and then, therefore, the one that will always show up in your relationship⁠—unless they have committed to intensive therapy, taking radical responsibility for their behavior, practicing amends on a day-to-day level⁠—none of which is happening, I can see, so I'm not asking. Am I right?

Nina:   Correct.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So, unless that had happened, which would be a breaking of the pattern, instead, you're taking care of them because they feel like shit because they fucked themselves and you.

Nina:               Yep.

Jessica:            Okay. So this is a reiteration of trauma. This problem forces you to stay that little kid who had no choice but to try to take care of all the adults they love in order to be safe.

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. I believe that life is like a game of Deal or No Deal. And right now, the Universe has offered you a $10 briefcase, when you could have a million dollars in that fucking briefcase. And you're like, "It's not the worst deal. I could use $10."

Nina:               Oh no.

Jessica:            I know. And I'm not talking about this person. I'm not talking about your partner. I'm not putting a value on the partner. I'm talking about you, your choices, your patterns, what you consent to, what you cultivate in the garden of your life.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            What's happening is you fell in love with this person, and you experienced love and joy and passion and all of these things together. You were feeling the same amount of things at the same time. Am I seeing that correctly?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that was transformational for you. It felt like being seen.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            You felt like you were being seen because you were feeling the same thing at the same time, which is not the same thing as being seen, unfortunately.

Nina:               Right.

Jessica:            Yeah, which doesn't mean that they weren't also able to see you. I think, in some ways, they were. I think maybe, in some ways, they were able to see that you didn't want to be seen. They were able to see that no matter what they did, you would show up, and you would take care of them. They were not wrong. And what you ideally want is somebody who sees that in you and is like, "Wow. That's really powerful. I appreciate that," and not, "Oh, thank God. Okay. I can collapse at the feet of this person," which is what your partner has done. And this is their pattern. This is the pattern they played out in their 30s and in their 20s and before. This is their shit. It's not because of how much they love you.

                        And that Saturn tells you, "If this person loved me, they would take care of me," obviously, because you could be in a desert with no water, and if somebody came to you thirsty, you would find a way to get a drip out of your clothes and give them a bit of water. You are very fucking intense about taking care of people. Am I right?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so it makes sense⁠—it stands to reason⁠—that you would be like, "Well, if a person actually gave a fuck, they would try. It's not that hard." I'm guessing you think those words or some version of that, yeah?

Nina:               All the time.

Jessica:            Yeah. And listen. Triple Capricorn over here⁠—I have the same logic. I agree with you 100 percent. And we're both wrong. We're just wrong. We're wrong. That's wrong. You know what I mean? How many people⁠—if you're super, super Saturnian, how many people do you cultivate in your life who are just like you? Well, not that many, because they don't need you. And that fucks with your sense of value, right?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so I'm guessing you have maybe one⁠—possibly two, but probably only one⁠—friend who's similar to you; they take care of everyone.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            One? Two? One?

Nina:               I think maybe more than two, but yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Okay. Good. So let's say you have friends, and they take really good care of you, right? My guess is you would never even imagine dating those people. You're welcome. It's fine. Nothing personal. I'm sure they're all beautiful. It's fine. And it's because we play out our trauma often in romance. Here's the thing that I think fucks a lot of people up. You have this really clear sense of fatedness with this person, right? But the thing about you is that because of the placement of your Saturn and your fucking Capricorn Rising and yada yada, you have karma with everybody you have contact with. You have a sense of fate with everyone you have contact with.

                        If you've got a Capricorn Rising, and also especially if you have Saturn in the first house⁠—you happen to have both, you lucky devil⁠—yeah, you're going to have a sense of fatedness in all of your relationships.

Nina:               Okay.

Jessica:            So it's what I call a rainy day in Portland. It's like⁠—you know when you're seeing a scary movie and it's dark and it's rainy, and you're like, "Oh God, that means something bad is going to happen"?

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Well, if that movie took place in Portland, it should mean nothing because it's dark and rainy. Climate crisis is changing my metaphor, but it's an old metaphor. But if it was dark and rainy in Portland, you'd be like, "Oh, it's just another day in Portland."

Nina:               Correct.

Jessica:            And what I want to say is having that sense of fatedness with someone is a rainy day in Portland for you.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's not data that you can deeply rely on. And then, when you feel loved and cared for, you can't help it; you plan. You plan. You plan. You plan. You think forward. "How could we be together? What would it look like? What could we build together?" This is how you love, is plans. And I am not saying that you are wrong to imagine a future with this person. But I saying that parenting with this person would be a re-creation of your childhood⁠.

Nina:               Okay.

Jessica:            ⁠Point final. You know what I'm saying.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And we haven't even gotten to the cheating part. Sorry. Right after you took a sip. I'm so sorry. This is all before we're even talking about cheating. And part of what really appealed to me when I read your question is this kind of core question of, "Am I abandoning myself in order to stay in the relationship?" And, ironic to how you actually described your question, you're abandoning your inner child. You're abandoning your inner child and forcing them to do what you were forced to do as a child, so to continue to play their roles. You're abandoning your inner child so that your inner child has to take care of everything and everyone. Your inner child does not get to be at ease because you have to constantly be like, "Okay. What could go wrong? How could it go wrong? What could go wrong? How could it go wrong?"

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I can see from your birth chart that no matter how good of a job you did, you could not control the adults around you. They did fucked-up shit. They were self-destructive. They made choices that changed their lives, and there was nothing you could do about it. It was outside of your control. Am I seeing this correctly?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. It fucked you up. And when your partner⁠—who had every right to be upset, right?

Nina:               Right.

Jessica:            But when your partner went from⁠—somebody told you they had feelings for you, and you wrote a fuzzy, loving response without any promise of sex or romance for the future⁠—am I seeing that correctly? There was no promises?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So, when your partner went from⁠—I mean, I'd like to say 0 to 20, but they were not at zero. They were at eight.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            They were at eight when that happened, right? So, when they took this situation and they went just off the charts in their reaction, it was a re-creation of your childhood trauma in the most dramatic sense. And I can see that this had happened in your relationship many times before at a smaller scale, but this was at a much larger scale. Am I correct in that?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Do either of your parents have issues with addiction or drug use?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Nina:               They're both alcoholics.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nina:               My mom liked pills. I don't know. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, it looks like drugs and mental health issues were a big part of what was hard with your parents, correct?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so what your partner did was like almost all of the things they could have done to betray you, like at a core level.

Nina:               Oh yeah.

Jessica:            They really did the worst things they could have done. Maybe one or two were missing, but most of them were there. Yeah.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And they knew that, because they know you.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And the reason why they did it is because this is their pattern and not because they don't love you, and not because they were conscientiously trying to be inconsiderate and fuck with you. This is who they are.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's the part that you haven't accepted yet. Sorry. It's terrible. We laugh because we don't want to cry, but yes.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is. If you truly accepted this is who they are, then you know the answer to, "Is staying with them abandoning myself?" I'm sorry.

Nina:               It's fine.

Jessica:            No, it's not. It's actually really awful and terrible. So let's get to the astrology part, or more of the astrology part, which is that your Moon is at one degree of Scorpio, okay? And that means that Pluto is fucking squaring your Moon. So Pluto started to square your Moon in January of 2024. It's been off and on. Then, 2025, it's more on than off. And the transit will be completely over on January 11th, 2026. So it's a long transit.

                        The Moon is associated with the "nurturing parent," quote unquote. You know what I mean? Your chart doesn't look like you had, exactly, a nurturing parent. So we look to the mother. So, when we don't have a nurturing parent, we can fall back on the traditional gender roles, just as my general rule with astrology. So, of course, because Pluto is squaring your Moon⁠—a once-in-a-lifetime transit that does not happen to everyone⁠—your mother wound is being just ripped open and salt thrown within, right? I'm so sorry.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. This is why it's happening now. And there is something positive in that⁠—I know it doesn't sound like there is, but I want to get to it⁠—which is that this transit doesn't happen twice in a lifetime, just the once.

Nina:               That's great news.

Jessica:            It is. It is. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event. And so there's a couple things to know about that. One is the depth of your pain⁠—it's not how love is for you. It is how love is for you now. And the depth of your capacity to love and experience the power of love that you're sharing with this person is intensified now. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Nina:               Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. The thing about this transit is that it's a once-in-a-lifetime event that opens the door and then shifts you through it so that you heal⁠—deeply, deeply, deeply heal⁠—core emotional patterns. And that's why you're experiencing this profound love relationship that's also embodying your biggest pain points.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry. So what comes up for you as far as questions or would be helpful for us to then, therefore, talk about?

Nina:               So, after this transit, will I magically become less self-sacrificing?

Jessica:            Excellent question. No. Absolutely not. Sorry. But I really liked that question. You don't believe in magic like that, so it was really funny. It was funny. It was funny. You're a Virgo. We haven't even commented on the fact that you're a fucking Virgo, Scorpio Moon. And you're like, "Will I magically be healed?" You don't even believe that. Okay. So here's the answer, okay? Here's the answer. Absolutely not. However, if you do the hard work that Pluto is trying to get you to do now, you will be forever, for the rest of your life, different.

                        So what does Pluto ask? Pluto asks that you let go of a person or a thing which is essentially a pattern and coping mechanisms that don't serve you. That's what fucking Pluto square the Moon wants you to do. And so, at this stage of the transit, we can clearly identify that you love this person who loves you back. And lines were crossed, and we haven't even gotten to the part of you that gets punishing and resentful because somebody fucked you up so much, right? We haven't even acknowledged that. Again, I don't want to⁠—because when somebody that you love, whether it's your parent or your partner, shows you how incompetent they are⁠—and I know that's not a fair word, but Saturn to Saturn, let's call it what it is.

Nina:               I mean...

Jessica:            I mean, we try to be nice. But okay. Somebody shows you they're not responsible. They're not competent. They're not accountable. Instead of saying, "Okay"⁠— the pattern is, instead of saying, "Okay. That's a boundary for me. I need to be able to trust the person that I'm committed to, and that was too far outside of what I can handle. I need somebody to be able to take care of her own basic needs, even if that means saying, 'I can't take care of my needs, and I'm going to own how fucked up I am, and I'm going to own that I'm asking for help. And I'm going to appreciate the help instead of behave as though I'm entitled to that help'"⁠—

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            There's a lot of layers to this because I'm not trying to suggest that you can't be fucked up in a relationship, like you can't be in a state of need. Of course you can. But when it becomes a roles issue, it becomes more problematic. And for you, it becomes a reiteration of trauma, which makes it unacceptable. The more any person shows you that they're not capable of taking care of themselves or being accountable, you lose respect, which makes you kind of hate them, which makes you hate yourself, which puts you in this really ugly pattern. You've got Saturn square Pluto in your chart. You get into this fucked-up pattern. And so you vacillate between taking care of them and resenting that you're doing it, and then feeling awful about yourself as a person for how you're behaving or not behaving or how you're feeling or not feeling. Am I on track here?

Nina:               Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So the fun part of all this⁠—haha, not fun⁠—is that by abandoning that inner child, by participating in your own trauma pattern, it turns you into a person that you don't want to be, that you've worked really hard through your 20s to not be an angry, punishing, resentful, bitter person, which would be the result of how your parents behaved and the circumstances of your childhood, because there's no room for vulnerability. There's no room for vulnerability. If you're the adult amongst adults as a small child, you don't get to be truly sad. You don't get to be truly vulnerable. You have to take care of the people around you in order to be safe.

                        And so here we have this reiteration. You knew this before in the relationship, but after that incident, you now have evidence that if you don't take care of them at all times at a certain very high level, then they will hurt you or they could hurt you in a way that is really hard to recover from. So now, in order to take care of yourself, you have to take care of them. But taking care of them is abandonment of self, so you're fucked up.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm really sorry. So will you be magically different? No. Could you, in this period, make different choices that are deep and painful and confronting but ultimately very healing and emerge a radically different person with a different relationship to your trauma? Fuck yeah. Yes, you could. Yes. Is it magic? No, sir, it is not. It's not magic at all. I apologize.

                        And so it puts you in this really fucked-up position. And within that, I'm going to ask you⁠—and we're going to beep this out. Will you say your full name and their full name?

Nina:               [redacted].

Jessica:            Do they want to stay in the relationship?

Nina:               She says yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I believe that. I believe that. And do you?

Nina:               I really do.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. So what are the two of you doing to change or improve the relationship?

Nina:               Well, right now, we are not doing the greatest right now just because the first plan of action that we wanted to do is couples therapy, but a lot of the therapists are booked right now until later in the spring. We also talked about getting individual therapy. I used to be in therapy, but I wasn't able to afford it anymore. And she's never been in therapy, and I think she would greatly benefit from it. And even before we had this rupture in our relationship, I've always tried to get her to go.

                        So yeah. The first plan of action is therapy, but right now, we're just taking space. And then, when we do get together, sometimes it's joyful, and sometimes it's just really toxic. Yeah.

Jessica:            So here's my red flag that I'm going to just name.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            She's in her early 40s, and she's never been in therapy.

Nina:               I know. I know.

Jessica:            Okay. This is a stunning admission. And this is a person who⁠—you know enough about their childhood to know they should have been in therapy at like 12.

Nina:               Oh yeah.

Jessica:            They should have been in therapy their whole lives.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            And therapy is not for everyone. It's not accessible to everyone. That's not why they have not been in therapy. They have not been in therapy because they haven't wanted to do certain kinds of work.

Nina:               Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So, when they go on a bender and fuck someone else after being really not accountable to their own welfare and therefore placing a lot of pressure on you and the relationship⁠—you had to take care of them. So there was a lot going on before the infidelity, right?

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            For them to not say to themselves and you, "I see what I did, and I need to take care of myself better. I need help, and it's not fair for me to place that on you or us. So I'm going to go to therapy"⁠—or something, you know?

Nina:               She said something along those lines, but I just⁠—the thing about her is that she's so slow to do things. And I'm starting to think it's a Cancer thing because a lot of my Cancer friends are also very slow to do things, and so⁠—

Jessica:            That crab moves sideways. It moves sideways.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Nina:               Yeah. So she says that she is searching for a therapist, and she actually has insurance, which I don't have. So it's kind of like, "You got a leg up on me when it comes to this." And⁠—

Jessica:            How long ago did this happen?

Nina:               It happened in November.

Jessica:            So, from November to late January, this human person with insurance couldn't pick a name at random for a therapist?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. I want you to hear that.

Nina:               I hear it. Oh, I know it.

Jessica:            I just want you to hear it. Yeah, because that's the behavior of a person who has no intention of doing a thing or who has mixed intentions to do a thing.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            If the two of you⁠—if your big plan for fixing the relationship is therapy, but they can't get into therapy when they have free or very low-cost therapy available to them, then you need to hear that.

Nina:               Yeah. I mean, she says that she hasn't found anybody who's open right now, and I'm choosing to believe that. I hope she's not lying to me about that and she actually is being proactive in finding her own therapist.

Jessica:            I am really mixed about this for you because, on the one hand, you know what? Fuck. Totally. Maybe there are no therapists, or the only therapists that are there are people who⁠—they're just like, "I don't want to have therapy with this kind of a man," or whatever, with this⁠—okay, fine. Maybe for three months, there are no therapists available.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            I don't want to blow your mind, but there are other forms of low-cost and free resources for somebody who's determined to get help.

Nina:               I agree.

Jessica:            Okay. Because you're telling me your only plan is avoid each other or go to therapy, I'm concerned⁠—first of all, it's a terrible plan. No offense. It's a terrible plan.

Nina:               We had a little more planned.

Jessica:            Okay, but it's not happening.

Nina:               Kind of. I mean, my biggest language is quality time, and that was a lot of our fight, and her being intentional about how she was spending time with me. I was just like, "I'm always coming over to just watch you work."

Jessica:            Oh.

Nina:               We don't go out on dates. We don't do the thing. And we don't do anything. And I was just like, "I want you to be more intentional about how we spend time with each other." So, after this giant challenge we've had in our relationship, we've been on a couple of dates.

Jessica:            So here's the thing. This⁠—you watching them work, like you coming to their house and watching them work thing—unacceptable. And also, it's a little bit of an age thing, a little bit. A little bit. Not a lot a bit, a little bit. In no relationship is that a good situation at any age. And also, at 32, especially not, whereas at 41, I can see that for them, they can defend it in their thinking. I would say like 10 percent of it may be a little bit of age.

Nina:               Yeah.  

Jessica:            80 percent of it is priorities.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And their priority is avoiding problems.

Nina:               Absolutely. And I've called her a workaholic and let her know she needs better boundaries with work because that will be her only thing. She'll wake up, go to work, come home, bring work home, do that, go to sleep, and then that's where I was coming in and making sure she was eating, making sure things were getting done. I understand you value your job and you're great at it, and I respect it. And also, it's draining you. It's not just⁠—

Jessica:            Well, let me interrupt that. Very supportive. Very kind. Very nice. Very mature. But here's the bottom line, and I really hope you hear this and that this stays with you. If you and I are in a relationship and I depend on you for my basic survival⁠—so, in your particular case, it's around eating, basic mental health maintenance⁠—and I'm actively doing something over and over again that I know makes me unwell, at a certain point, you as the helper need to understand that I am demanding this of you. I'm not like, "Oh, I'm a little bit fucked up," and, "Oh, I'm just living my life."

Because we're in a relationship and because I know that, over and over and over again, you're going to come over and you're going to feed me and you're going to take care of me and all these things, I'm not demanding it of you, right? Because otherwise, you're going to be around me, who hasn't eaten all day and has been working all day, so I'm out of my body, out of my head, unable to have real intimacy, unable to truly listen to you, unable to give you anything because I am focused on my job. And I speak to you as a workaholic. I get that. But this is really important.

Again, I want to affirm for you I am not trying to shit upon this person or say that there is no value to the person or to the relationship. But I am saying this is so intensely your pattern, like your pattern around your trauma, that the parts of you that are defending it⁠—defending your partner's right to be how they are and to need what they need⁠—that part of you is your little kid, your inner little kid who's defending your mom's right to be as fucked up as she is because if you really see through her, then how do you live?

Nina:   Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome/I'm sorry. I want to comment on something that just happened, and I've seen it happen a couple times in our reading. And I think it's a big pattern for you. When something hits you in a really vulnerable place, it's wild. It's like your energy comes⁠—you don't pretend it's not there, but you shove it deep inside, and then you sit and wait. You sit and wait yourself out, and then you wait⁠—okay⁠—and it's like seconds for you. It's not hours or days. It's like you do this within a short period of time, and then you're like, "Okay. I can handle this." Am I seeing this correctly?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that coping mechanism is a great one. Congratulations. You can thrive in patriarchy. You can handle industrialization. You know what I mean? That is a great coping mechanism for the ills of the world. But it's a terrible coping mechanism. You are feeling what I'm talking about. Okay. What I'm saying is it's a good coping mechanism to have access to, but it's a trauma pattern, and it enables you to tolerate the intolerable.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It enables you to tolerate the intolerable and to skim past how vulnerable and sad you feel and go straight to, "Okay. What do I have to do? What should I do? What do I have to do? What should I do?" So, in that moment that I'm pulling from, you're like, "Okay. I'm going to respond to Jessica. We're having a conversation." You're like, "That's what I have to do. I have to keep it together. I have to be focused." Right?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And okay. That's fair. We're having a reading. Again, it's not like an inappropriate behavior per se. But it's a pattern when your emotions go from⁠—on a scale from one to ten, once they tip over seven or whatever the number is, that's your go-to coping mechanism. So I want to name it because if you can track that you're doing it, you can start to understand, do you need to be a better ally to yourself?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And let's say that came up in a moment between you and your partner. You might be able to be like, "Oh shit. I'm doing that fucking thing," and then get up; go to the bathroom. Get up and go to the bathroom. Allow yourself to cry. Allow yourself to feel panic because underneath it is panic⁠—

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—because that inner child is like, "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" It's just like this terrified, panicked thing because if you feel bad, then how can you take care of me or the situation? And taking care of me or the situation is how you take care of you. So it's like your world starts to break apart. And it seems like it's not from the biggest provocation. If I broke into your house and stole all your favorite sweatshirts, that would really fuck you up. But these little things fuck you up more, in a way, because if I stole all your favorite sweatshirts, you would have a fucking plan. And that would be appropriate. You would be getting all the people together, finding me, taking the shirts back. You have a cute sweatshirt on. The people don't know that, but I do. It's a cute sweatshirt.

Nina:               Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome. But do you see what I'm saying? It's the little things that are actually much harder for you than the big things. So the big thing of, "Do we break up or not?"⁠—that was hard in your relationship. But the little things of, "I told them what I need, and they persist in providing 2 percent of that"⁠—that's what fucks you up⁠—

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—because you're like, "Well, it's not zero," or, "They had a really hard day," or, "It's snowing," or, like, whatever. The truth of the matter is you do deserve to have the full breadth of your vulnerability. And for you to be in a happy, healthy relationship long term where you could co-parent with someone, you need someone who has the capacity to hold space for and then show care for your vulnerability, your really intense form of anxiety that you have. It's like the anxiety of an existentialist. It's not like a panicky, floopy anxiety. It is⁠—no shade to floop, right? But it is like the anxiety that Sisyphus feels as he pushes that ball up the hill every damn day, every damn day. That's your anxiety. It's the weight of the world.

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            And this partner of yours plays into the trauma pattern, doesn't help. I want more for you. Do you want more for you? Eh. Eh, not completely. You know what I mean? If you wanted more for you, I don't know what you're⁠—I mean, just like we could say if your partner really wanted to be in therapy, they'd find a fucking therapist⁠—right?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            They'd go to an Al-Anon meeting. I don't know. There's things in the world.

Nina:               I've asked them to go to one.

Jessica:            Oh, I bet. Oh, I bet. I bet you have. And you know what? They could do it from the comfort of their house. They could be working and have a different computer on and do a Zoom meeting in another country, if they wanted, on an Al-Anon meeting or something, right? It's free. It's online. It's in person. You gotta really not want to do a thing to not do it.

                        Now, again, this is Saturn-on-Saturn violence, right? We agree about this because that's how we're wired. And we want to hold space for how not everyone is wired the way we are, and that's not necessarily true. But what is true is how unhealthy this pattern is for you. That's what's important. Whether or not our shared worldview is correct⁠—and by the way, it is and it isn't, right? It's both. It's really about compatibility. It's not about right or wrong.

                        And whether they're right or wrong in the way they're living and the way they're showing up in the relationship, what isn't working is you've expressed your needs with a hat on. You've expressed your needs without a hat. You've expressed your needs gently. You've expressed your needs aggressively. You have expressed your fucking needs is what I'm seeing. Am I right about this? You have been exceptionally crystal clear, yeah?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And they persist in doing exactly the same thing they were doing before you expressed your needs. They haven't changed. I'm not saying they haven't said smart things or caring things.

Nina:               (laughs)

Jessica:            You're welcome. Yes. They've said nice words, but their behavior is identical.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It is unchanged. And this is their problem with themselves. It's not their problem that they're only having with you because they don't love you enough. That's not the case.

Nina:               Yeah. I get it. She recently had a friendship breakup. Her best friend texted her and said, "You're not available enough, and I don't want to keep reaching out for you if it's not going to be reciprocated." And that was a wake-up call for me⁠—well, not a wake-up call, because I know it. But it just⁠—I was like, "Oh, okay. Somebody else is saying it."

Jessica:            It's not just you.

Nina:               "Maybe she's going to understand now."

Jessica:            Something happens in our 40s where⁠—the 20s, you go into the world, and you're like, "This is who I am." And then Saturn Return hits, and the Saturn Return is like, "Ha. Really? Are you sure?" And then what happens is the 30s occur, and in the 30s, we continue to do all this work. We work out who we are and what it means. And we have all these opportunities for changing, as you're experiencing right now.

And then the 40s hit and the midlife transits and all this sort of stuff. And in the 40s, what starts to happen⁠—and this gets more intense in the 50s, 60s, 70s, for the rest of your life⁠—is you deal with the consequences. If you don't change while the world continues to spin, you inevitably move backwards. So standing still and doing nothing equals moving backwards at a certain point.

Nina:   Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay? And I do firmly believe as an astrologer this is an age thing. At your age, it'll eventually be true. At their age, it is true. And so they're dealing with consequences that probably shock them because a couple years ago, they could do what they're doing and get away with it.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But everyone is changing, right? Let me just say this. If you're going to choose to stay or go, do it because you're taking care of you, not because of whether you love them or not, not because of whether or not they're deserving of love, not because of the potential between you. Do it because you deserve to not re-create your trauma and live inside of it. The truth is if they are capable of changing so that they become a person who's a good partner for you, they'll do it whether you break up with them or not. You know what I'm saying? So, if you break up with them, they could go to therapy and come back and be like, "I was fucked up. I put you in a bad position. I have changed. Evidence, receipts. Evidence, receipts." And then you can make a decision.

Nina:               I feel like that happens with all my relationships.

Jessica:            That they come back and they're like, "I have changed?"

Nina:               That they're like, "Oh, yeah, you were right. This was an issue, and now I'm fixing it or trying to do better."

Jessica:            Yeah. That's part of that Saturn in the first house, Capricorn Rising thing. So what that says is that you're good at helping people. What it also says is if you keep on having this fucking life where you're choosing to help people to adult, basically, then you're not going to be happy because you're having this reiteration of a trauma pattern that ultimately makes you feel abandoned.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You're not going to find a perfect person who's perfect at adulting. You're not that person. I'm not that person. That's not a thing. But what you can find is people who love your help, who understand that you have a very paternal form of showing love⁠—"Let me help you with that. Let me show you how to do that. I'm going to take care of you"⁠—and that they really appreciate that, and they then grow and thrive within that, but they don't need it in order to maintain their basic fucking living. That is like a cherry on top in their lives as opposed to their basic needs being met.

Nina:               Right.

Jessica:            And that doesn't have to happen while Pluto is squaring your Moon, for the record. That's not a great timing to plan for that. You are changing a lot. And some of the change is really quick, and some of the change is really slow. And you have choices to make. And I urge you⁠—because you're going to leave this conversation and be like, "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" because that's how your brain works, right? I urge you to not think about what to do in the relationship and what to do with her, but instead to think, "What do I need to do to take care of my inner child? What do I need to do in order to take responsibility for my desire to evolve past this trauma pattern?"

Nina:               I just⁠—I don't think I know how to choose myself, which sounds very fucked up. But I know I was literally raised into that role, and I just⁠—I don't know.

Jessica:            That's okay. It's okay. So of course you don't know how. You haven't even hit your Christ year. Of course you don't know how. That's what the transit is teaching you, right? What's hard for you is not what's wrong with you. We all encounter trauma. Now, some people, I guess, encounter very little trauma and some people a lot more. But anyone who has encountered trauma is confronted with our own survival mechanisms and patterns for coping with it because it doesn't matter if when you were a little baby toddler, your parent came and hugged you and said, "You're smart, and you're beautiful, and you deserve only the best in life," or that same parent came up to you and hit you in the back side of the head and said, "You suck. Stop being loud." Whatever it is, we human animals try to re-create those experiences in our adult life because it's familiar, because the person who's supposed to love us and protect us did the thing.

                        So, if the parent hit you in the back of the head and said something shitty, then it's going to on some level feel like love. And that's true for you. That's true for your partner. And nobody has an easy time. Nobody is good at this, for whatever it's worth, because I know you are very intense about, "I should be able to handle this. Why can't I do this?" You're very hard on yourself. What I want to say is all you can do is make choices. Some of your choices will be terrible, and some of them will be excellent. And that's okay. All you can do is make choices. What you've been doing since their kind of breakdown period and subsequent infidelity is making a choices that you know⁠—technically, you know better. Since before they cheated, you knew something was really off in this relationship, right?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so okay. You've been making a choice to hold on to something that was once really damn near perfect.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And you can, in your objective moments, see how that's just your inner child just playing out this pattern, right?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            So today you may choose to sit with that awareness in a different way than you did yesterday. You don't have to act on your awareness all the time. I mean, obviously, that's a fantastic goal. But you're not a machine. You cannot force yourself to do shit that you're not ready to do⁠—

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            ⁠—until maybe one day you can, right? Will you ever be ready to let go of someone who you love and who you want to be with? No. That's not a thing, actually. But you can one day be sick of this pattern and your participation in it, at a point where you actually change. That's a thing you can do. And I think you can be more conscientious. And so what that might look like is saying to your partner, "I've said it before. I'm saying it again. Here's the last time I'm going to say it, though." And then you have to promise to make it be the last time because the parental part of you could be repeating what you need and what they should do. So you don't want to do that, right?

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Instead, say to them, "I love you. I want to be with you, and I want to trust you. You've told me you're going to get a therapist. I've waited three months, four months, whatever it is. I need you to prioritize it, to take responsibility for taking care of your own mental health as a way to invest in our relationship. I need you to prioritize it. I need you to do that. Is that something you are willing to do?"⁠—and to say them, "Listen. I'm not trying to ask you to explain why it hasn't happened already⁠—to just let me know, are you committed to this?" And if they say yes⁠—which I'm guessing they will because they're very good at promising you what you need to get you to stop, which is also like your parents. If they say yes, then you sit with that⁠, over the weeks and months, however long you decide to sit, where they don't do it, to understand that they are making a conscientious choice.

                        You said what you needed. They consented. They gave you their word. If somebody consents and gives you their word and they're not good for that word, and they are not being authentic to what they're consenting to, that's a reflection on them. It's not about you. It's about them. What's about you is whether or not you choose to participate; you pretend you don't know what's happening.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So, if you want to give them one more very clear shot, do that. But don't speak on it ever again. The next time you speak on it is the last time you speak on it. You can go forth to your friend, your partner, whatever, and be like, "Hey. This is my problem. This is what I need." And they can listen to it and be like, "Okay. I'm going to meet you there. I'm going to give you what you need," once, and then you leave and nothing changes. Okay. Fine. You come back a second time, full trust, open heart. Maybe word it differently. Say what you need, what you're feeling. And then they give you whatever they give you, and they say, "I'm going to give you more." Just wait.

                        If you walk away, you can come back a third time, same process, earnest, open-hearted, trusting. At the fourth time that you need to come back, now it's on you. Now you're not listening to what they're telling you⁠—

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—with their behavior. I'm a big believer in threes. If you want to turn⁠—okay. You are, too. Okay. Great. So you're at, like, twelves with this person.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So that's a reflection on you at this point.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Now it's not just about them. It's about your own patterns. And so that's what I want to encourage you to focus on in the relationship. I'm not trying to say that I think you're perfect and they're fucked up, because I see your chart. I see you, and I respect you, and also, I respect you. You know what I'm saying? But I am saying that this is a core issue for you.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And neither of you are really happy anymore. I'm not saying that you're not having moments of happiness, because you both are. But this isn't working. And just because this relationship isn't working⁠—let's say it's not; let's say it ends⁠—doesn't mean you're not going to be in love, doesn't mean you're not going to have a partner at all. And we didn't even talk about⁠—and unfortunately, we don't have time⁠—the friend who has feelings for you. And you don't have feelings for them?

Nina:               I do.

Jessica:            You do. So your big fear of being alone⁠—you're just putting off somebody who's tenderhearted. They're younger as well?

Nina:               The friend is my age.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's what it looks like. I meant younger than your partner.

Nina:               Maybe a year younger⁠—oh, yeah.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they're very emo and tender, and they get you, and they know you. This is not nothing, this other thing. Am I right?

Nina:               No. Yeah, it's a very beautiful friendship. And I was excited to explore the depths of a romantic relationship with this person, and I thought that my current partner would have been able to handle it⁠—

Jessica:            Hell no.

Nina:               ⁠—just because it was such a beautiful person, and we both love this person, and [indiscernible 00:59:42].

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, the two of you didn't have real conversations about⁠—again, you did what most people do, which is you did not have real conversations about nonmonogamy or polyamory.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You did not. I mean, what you're talking about is true-blue polyamory, having multiple intimate love relationships. What they were talking about is fucking other people sometimes.

Nina:               I⁠—yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Radically different. So this is about emotional boundaries, and that's the most important part of talking about nonmonogamy or polyamory, is the emotional boundaries piece.

Nina:               Right.

Jessica:            None of that matters. Okay? It does matter, but what I'm trying to say is let's say you end this relationship with your partner. Wait three to six weeks before doing any kind of deep connecting with this friend person.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay? Because you're going to⁠—I mean, I'm seeing six weeks, but I see you're impatient, so I'm saying three to six weeks. You're welcome. So yeah. So that is my advice on that. The loss of your partner, if you do lose your partner, will be massive to you. But it's not like⁠—that feeling of loneliness that you have is a spiritual condition. It's not a material reality.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's good for you to remember because it could be both a spiritual condition and material reality, but it isn't.

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So we want to be honest about that part.

Nina:               I don't know. I just really thought that I found somebody to really be that person. 2023 was such a beautiful year for us. We traveled out of the country together more than once, and everything was just so easy, and life was easy. We were just constantly surrounded by friends and doing things. And then 2024 hit, and things just got so hard in the world, with both of our jobs, and then our relationship. And I don't know. I'm just a person who wants to show up for people, clearly. So I really thought that I was doing a good job in 2024 seeing that my partner was having a hard time and being able to be someone that can hold her because I would love to have somebody hold me if I was going through that, but yeah.

Jessica:            What happened was you did the right thing, but you also got to know this person on another level. And what you got to know you didn't like, and it wasn't safe for you. So you chose to ignore it, and it triggered your trauma pattern. And the trauma pattern is, "I will empty myself out taking care of you. The only way for me to be safe is if I keep you safe."

                        So you are right that it was an ideal relationship when you were busy and everything was working. But when things slowed down and you encountered obstacles, you found the places where you aren't compatible. And it turns out the ways in which you're not compatible are fucking serious. They're not surface. They're deep, deep, deep stuff. And so you weren't wrong. You just got more information, and things changed. And I think that something that's really important to you is travel and community connection and creativity and all these things, and that's something you learned from the relationship. Who knew that that was a recipe for success for you? But it is. And also, you can't travel in a relationship for the entirety of the relationship.

Nina:               Right.

Jessica:            And when that happens⁠—I've seen it in long-term relationships when, eventually, finances or circumstances force both parties to stay in the same house all the time. They have problems⁠—

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—because there's this thing that's called linear reality. And if you don't have a compatible way of living together, of navigating the hard stuff, then you don't have sustainability, which doesn't mean that your love was subpar. It just means what it means. Sorry. I'm really sorry.

Nina:               Thank you.

Jessica:            The kind of final thing I want to say is I don't believe that in life, anyone is guaranteed health or wealth or love. I wish. I deeply wish, but that's not reality, right? You are a person who is always in relationships, and you make them work. You're not exactly old enough to really trust that about yourself yet because you're too young. You haven't had enough experiences. But in the next few years, you're going to be able to be like, "Oh, objectively, that's technically true," whether or not you feel it.

                        What I'm trying to say is your problem is not getting into relationships where there's love and care and intention. You think that's your problem, but it's not your problem. Your problem is making good choices about what you're willing to stay in and with.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I very much believe that you could be in a happy, healthy, successful long-term relationship. But I also believe you could continue to do what you're doing, which is try to turn a square peg into a round peg. This is a square peg to your round hole. It is not a match. And that doesn't mean that they're a failure or you're a failure or that somebody fucked someone over. I mean, it will mean that if you keep on this path, as you've already experienced.

                        This is why I use that stupid Deal or No Deal metaphor all the time, because I genuinely believe⁠—and I've seen this bear out a bazillion times⁠—that if you keep on participating in one dynamic, it has no choice but to persist. If you keep on playing the same role, the Universe has no choice but to give you opportunities to play that role because somebody who takes full responsibility for themselves, who doesn't need a daddy⁠—what are they going to do with you if the way that you know how to locate your value to other people is by taking care of them?

So there's a way that these things happen that are really obvious and behavioral, and then there's the spiritual⁠—like the psychic unconscious parts. And this is where what we're willing to consent to is really important. It's not just about the behavioral part, which I know that you have a hard time tracking. It's more of the beliefs we hold about ourselves. It's more about our willingness to say, "No deal," even though it's not the worst deal. You know what I mean? Your partner is not the worst deal. There are significantly and endless worse options than your partner. Your partner is so good for you in a series of ways. But it's not what you're capable of.

Nina:   Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you have choices there. And your capacity for grief and depression and sadness is Scorpio Moon deep⁠—deep, deep, deep, deep.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And you, of course, are trying to avoid feeling those feelings. Who could fucking blame you? I mean, obviously. Don't want to walk into a burning fire? That makes sense. You know what I mean? That's fair. And also, have you ever heard that expression, death by a million cuts? Yeah. I mean, this is⁠—it's just a different version.

                        So the bad news is this hurts, and your best-case scenario hurts. Your worst-case scenario hurts, and your best-case scenario hurts. But again, they are different forms of pain. One is the pain of choosing yourself and breaking, and the other pain is not choosing yourself and breaking. The first⁠—when you choose yourself, you break, and then you heal. There's a healing that happens, like a resetting of a bone, whereas the other kind⁠—you break in the same fucked-up position you were in that made you vulnerable to begin with. And this is life. It's not just you. I want you to know it's not just you. It's not like you fucked up or you're screwed and things will never work out for you. That's not it. It's that you're hypervigilant, so you're clocking all of it. And so you get no pause from any of it, right?

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And in that, again, you have choices. I know it's really hard.

Nina:               Thank you.

Jessica:            Now, before we close, I want to see, do you have a final question that you would want to ask me?

Nina:               I have so many, but I can't even come up with one, so I'm going to say no.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. We got you where you need to go. So okay. Say your full name out loud.

Nina:               [redacted].

Jessica:            You have a spiritual practice, right?

Nina:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Does it involve going to the water?

Nina:               When I can, yes.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. I think working this out is going to involve you going to the water. Where is the water? Is it near you?

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            It's far from you. Okay.

Nina:               Yes. When I work with water, I like to go to the ocean.

Jessica:            Ocean. Yeah. Of course. Scorpio Moon. You want to go to the ocean. Okay. So, when you can't go to the ocean, I'm going to give you this little⁠—just like a little nugget. Turn on YouTube and watch the fucking ocean. Turn on ocean sounds on the sound thing to sleep. Start connecting to the ocean as a source of strength because I'm seeing that there's something in your spiritual guidance that is directly connected to the ocean.

Nina:               Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            What just happened? Tell me.

Nina:               I don't know. I'm just emotional.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's fair.

Nina:               Right now, I've been missing the water. I didn't touch water at all last year, and I blame myself that that's why the year was so shitty, because I didn't prioritize going to the water.

Jessica:            That's definitely not why the year was shitty. Pluto is squaring Moon. That's why the year was shitty, okay?

Nina:               I know. I know that now.

Jessica:            For whatever it's worth. Okay. Now you know. But just understand this. The ocean⁠—there's a million reasons why you like it, but a big one is the energy. You can connect with the energy of the ocean from anywhere, right?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Part of why I love going to the desert is because an ocean was once there. So I connect with the ocean in the desert. So, again, some people turn on fake fireplaces on their TV. You can just watch videos of ocean so that you can connect with its energy and what it kind of sparks inside of you. And then, yeah, your next vacation, go to the fucking ocean for sure. But I think that'll help. It just connects you to your guidance. I feel like you have ancestors that are linked to the ocean. You have a very intense spiritual relationship to ocean, and it is good for you to get in it.

Nina:               Thank you.

Jessica:            Oh, it's my pleasure. And I'm so sorry. I know this fucking sucks. You don't have to act on it instantly or anything like that. Give yourself space to be in the emotions.

Nina:               Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Nina:               I've been wanting a reading from you for a while now, and I really prayed about this one, and I got selected. So thank you.

Jessica:            It is absolutely my pleasure. And I think it's important that the reading was offered to you, and then you weren't able to get it, and then the timing worked out. There's something really, I think, important about even the process of you not having to rush to get your needs met and you still being able to get your needs met. You know what I mean?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I feel that there's something in that process that feels emblematic of this process inside of you. And it is just a fucking torturous transit. Pluto square Moon is just like⁠—it only rips from you what is deep in your guts, like what is your core survival mechanisms and pain points.

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So it's really hard. Give yourself space, and if you can⁠—you don't have insurance?

Nina:               No.

Jessica:            Yeah. Have you ever considered Al-Anon?

Nina:               Yeah. Actually, a friend invited me to a meeting, and I think I might join them.

Jessica:            Yeah. A little codependence, anonymous styles, you know. I mean, I feel like it's free therapy. And it may not resonate, and you might want to check a different group out, or it may not resonate, and it just might not be your path. But it really may. And I think⁠—do you have a meditation practice?

Nina:               Yeah. I haven't done it in a minute, but yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I feel⁠—yeah, I see that. You might want to try to lean back into that. You don't have to do everything all at once, but again, try those things out and see here that takes you. I think it'll help because, again, this transit is trying to get you to heal core emotional wounds, which means you need to support yourself emotionally and put things in place where you can get support.

Nina:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Right? So therapies, meditation, walks in nature if you can, snuggling cats, all the things.

Nina:               Yeah. I'm thinking about a silent retreat or something.

Jessica:            That would be great. Yeah. And if it doesn't work that you can go off on a silent retreat, then just practice no devices at home or something like that for a couple days. Adapt and adjust. Everything doesn't have to be like a silent retreat where you go off and you labor. Again, I respect you⁠—the labor. The labor. You want to do the hard emptying out yourself. And I respect that, but also, maybe just don't be on your phone. You know?

Nina:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Just⁠—yeah. There's also that. So do what you will.

Nina:               You're right.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, you know⁠—I mean, as it works. As it works. All right, my dear. It was really lovely to connect with you, and I wish you the best through all of this. I know it's hard.

Nina:               Thank you so, so much. I appreciate you.

Jessica:            It's totally my pleasure. Totally my pleasure.