The withholding is always located elsewhere. The native identifies wholly with the wanting half and casts another person as the stone: undemonstrative, disapproving, permanently busy, or simply gone. There is generally a real original, since these things are rarely invented from nothing, but the striking feature is the recurrence. The exacting figure is replaced and reappears, in a marriage, in a superior at work, in an institution, and the native reports each time that they have been particularly unlucky in who they ended up with.
The behaviour that keeps it running is worth watching. Approval is sought from precisely those least able to give it, while easy affection from anyone else is discounted as not counting. Requests are made obliquely and then withdrawn at the first hesitation, which is taken as proof. The native alternates between pressing too hard and going quiet for weeks. Duty is discharged impeccably and joylessly, sometimes toward people who never asked, and the ledger is kept privately and never presented.
Both ends belong to the native, and recognising the internal refuser is the whole task. It usually happens when the native catches themselves being the cold one, ordinarily toward a child or a subordinate, and cannot unsee it. After that the contact becomes strong rather than sore: such people are exceptionally good at setting terms and keeping them, and at telling someone plainly what they can and cannot offer. Before that, they will keep appointing custodians of their own severity and resenting them for the appointment.
What It Gives
- ◆duty discharged without supervision
- ◆hard-won clarity about limits
- ◆endurance of long disappointment
- ◆plain speech about what is offered
What It Costs
- ◆approval sought where none is available
- ◆easy affection dismissed as worthless
- ◆severity discovered late in oneself
This is one line of a whole chart. The rest of it — every placement, house and aspect at once — is a birth date away.
Cast Your Birth Chart