Neptunian Relationships: Women Who Love "Too Much"

Women Who Love Too Much is a self-help book by Robin Norwood, and it was first published in 1986.  The author is a licenced marriage, family, and child therapist and she specializes in love relationships, as well as addiction, co-addiction, compulsive eating, and depression. The archetypal pattern in these relationships is related to Neptune’s patterns of idealisation, sacrifice, illness, breakdowns, violence, alcohol problems, and terrible disillusionment.

The main premise of the book deals with relationship addiction, and describes loving too much as a pattern of thought and behavior which certain women develop as a response to problems from childhood. The author views these women as destructive as heroin users jabbing needles in their arms. The characteristics of women who love too much are those that come from a dysfunctional home of alcohol abuse or other drugs (prescribed or illicit), growing up around the compulsive behaviour of a parent, and domestic abuse. Furthermore, a child treated as an adult and raised to the level of a parent, heavily burdened with too much responsibility, can grow up as a woman who loves "too much".

The woman has a strong attraction to men who are “needy” and she needs to be needed and is drawn to unstable relationships and damaged men. The woman often feels that she can redeem him through her love, but the relationship turns into an all-consuming and desperate yearning for the beloved, who is perceived as mysterious, and elusive. Compassion and pity are powerful components in what these individuals define as love.

Another indication of Neptune’s role in a relationship is the willingness to endure pain and hardship for the sake of the union. Suffering in love and yearning for more than is available is another characteristic of those involved in unhappy and destructive relationships with men. Neptune glamourizes the bond and she offers unflinching devotion to him.

In childhood the woman may have been subjected to eternal chaos and she has developed an overwhelming need to fix everything and take care of everyone, and she is far too willing to take on his burdens and emotional problems. The denial of the problem is undeniably, Neptune. Robin Norwood’s books have received some criticism from feminists and women's rights groups. However, there are highly relevant psychological themes that can be applied to Neptune in relationships. 

Neptune is “hooked” on these type of relationships and the dream of saving someone and seeking redemption, slowly turns into their worst nightmare. The waters often turn dark, murky and treacherous, and her overwhelming and chaotic feelings leave her in despair and she slowly drowns in her misery. Neptune has great difficulty seeing what is actually there, so she falls in love with someone who later turns out to be not at all like the person she imagined.

Whitney Houston has Pisces rising and Sun and Venus square Neptune, and she had a squeaky clean image, until she married bad boy, Bobby Brown. Whitney has been abused frequently over the years and shown a decline in her mental health, she doesn’t even show up on time for appointments, interviews and other important schedules. Pluto is in the 7th house and describes some of the complex and obsessive patterns in her relationship. Tina Turner has Venus square Neptune (exact) and she was beat up by her husband for 16 years.

Not all Neptunian relationships are this complex and co-dependent, but we often wonder why it’s so difficult for a woman to leave an abusive relationship, even when she is given all the help that she needs. The powerful emotional compulsion shouldn’t be underestimated, and the woman often commits to such a relationship even if all the warning signs are flashing. Those who work with victims of domestic violence understand the frustration of this woman’s compelling attraction to her abuser, and even after all their best efforts to counsel her and provide a safe haven, she goes back to him.

Pisceans and Neptunians are not afraid of plunging into the world of feelings, and the archetype describes universal love and compassion. Commonly, martyrdom and taking care of others can also hold great emotional and manipulative power over loved ones. The subject is not black and white and I have only explored some of the darker themes in this topic, which relate to addiction in relationships and the role that Neptune plays.

What Dreams May Come

My favorite film is What Dreams May Come. In the movie Annabelle Sciorra plays the leading female role. Here is the summary of the movie by Wikipedia. Annabelle Sciorri plays an artist, wife and mother who loses her two children in a car accident, and the trauma of the event sends her into deep despair and to the psychiatric hospital. With the help of her husband she regains some of her strength to cope, but is dealt a double blow and left devastated when her husband dies in a fatal car accident. The intense trauma leaves her in a tormented state, and she falls deeper into dark depression. The pain she suffers is unbearable and she takes her own life. Instead of seeing her husband and children in heaven, she goes to Hell because she can’t accept her life gone wrong. Here are some of Sciorra's planetary placements.




Pisces Planets, Neptune in Scorpio, Chiron in Pisces opposed Pluto
Mercury, Venus, Chiron and South Node are all placed in Pisces. This would give Sciorra the ability to empathize with the role she is playing, the pain, anguish and emotional exhaustion of the tormented artist. The South Node in Pisces can symbolise patterns of behavior where she feels weakened, possibly through escapism, illusions, oversensitivity. Piscean depression and sensitivity to the environment can hinder the ability to focus. The North Node in Virgo is learning to function on the earth plane. Mercury/Venus/Chiron in Pisces all trine their dispositor Neptune in Scorpio, can be a healing, emotional and transformational combination. However, Neptunian feelings can be carried too easily. Venus exalted in Pisces symbolizes empathy in love and this is emphasised by having Venus trine Neptune. A beautiful aspect and she may have a longing to find love in the divine, a soulmate and she can be swept away in Neptunian fantasy.

Chiron in Pisces is on a critical degree and can symbolize deep sensitive wounds on the emotional level. Chiron opposite pluto - a great deal of intense pain, a wound which cannot be healed. Annabelle’s portrayal of the suffering mother/widow left to cope alone, projects the cruel and unfair devastating loss that life can deal us. The most devastating loss in life is the death of a child. How do you heal this kind of loss? The film raises these kinds of questions, along with the afterlife, reincarnation, soul mates, souls taking on different physical forms and returning to earth. I believe Sciorra brought something to the collective in her role, and films have a way of portraying the archetypal themes in astrology, the motifs which exist in life. The film did create debate over Annabella (Sciorra) going to Hell, and being punished for taking her own life - yet I thought it was a self-imposed hell, and she was locked inside the maze of her own tormented soul.

The book

I have not read the book. However, from what I have been reading online the children are not killed in the novel, only the parents. Here are some of the elements of the book which did not appear in the movie.

The details of Chris’s life on Earth also differ strongly in the novel. Only Chris and his wife (called Ann) die. Their children, who are grownups rather than youngsters, remain alive, as minor characters. Albert and Leona are exactly the people they appear to be, and the character played by Max Von Sydow does not appear in the book at all. Albert is Chris’s cousin and not African American as in the film, while Leona’s ethnicity is not divulged. Chris and Ann are rural, country types rather than the urbanites portrayed in the film, and he is not a pediatrician, nor is she a painter. He’s a Hollywood screenwriter, and she has a variety of jobs.

The afterlife imagery is based on natural scenery rather than paintings. The Heavenly environment doesn’t automatically mold itself to people’s thoughts, as it does in the film; some practice and expertise is required to build things. There is more explanation of how the afterlife works, and we get more of a sense that a functioning human society shares the space. The novel’s depiction of Hell is considerably more violent than in the film. Chris finds it difficult to move, breathe, or even see, and he suffers physical torture at the hands of some of the inhabitants. He does not encounter ships, thunderstorms, fire, or the sea of human faces that he must walk upon in the film. Instead, he and Albert climb across craggy cliffs and encounter such sights as a swarm of insects that attack people’s bodies.

Ann is consigned to Hell for only twenty-four years, not eternity. Chris’s meeting with Ann in her private Hell is much longer and more complex than in the film. At the end, which resembles an alternate version of the film but not the standard version, she escapes from Hell by being reincarnated, because she is not ready for Heaven.

Venus-Neptune: Someday my Prince Will Come

Camilla Parker Bowles is the second wife of Prince Charles. Camilla had been Charles' Mistress while they where both married. Today she supports her Prince in all his royal duties, which include charity work and attending events. Camilla's relationship began with Prince Charles when they met at a Polo match, and she became one of the numerous girlfriends of the Prince, and he was said to have wanted to marry her. However, she was seen as an unsuitable match for the future king. It was reported that Charles had met Camilla too early, and that he had not asked her to wait for him while he went overseas for military duties. It seemed the two of them could never really say goodbye and their feelings for each other never really ended. The affair between them became public knowledge with the Publication of Diana her True Story.

In this interview below Diana talks about her marriage with Prince Charles and his affair with Camilla.

Camilla Parker Bowles has a Cancerian chart, and the sign is emotional, caring and responsive. Even with these traits innate, she didn't elicit much sympathy from the public, not in the way that Diana could. The role of the "victim" in the whole relationship (Diana), will usually be offered a more sympathetic response. Cheating first and foremost is an act of deception, lying, and betrayal, and it is described as a violation of a relationships boundaries. 

Camilla was violating her own marriage and another woman's sacred bond (as Prince Charles was doing). A love triangle involves an unobtainable love, because the other person is involved in a permanent relationship with somebody else. The reasons may vary why a person has a love affair, but for Charles he was convinced Diana was emotionally unstable. So Charles would frequently seek comfort in Camilla's arms. She was emotionally supportive and protective over him and mothered him through his turbulent marriage with Diana, and perhaps this is where the Cancer themes dominate in Camilla's nativity. Camilla has a natal aspect of Venus-Neptune contact, and this represents the urge to lose herself in a partner, and she has a tendency to over-idealize love. 

Another manifestation of Venus-Neptune in the natal chart is the inability to see the other person realistically. Love can be blind drunk and full of longing. The high romantic idealism, sympathy and acceptance of the situation leads to her ability to overlook flaws and limitations in a relationships. In fact, the roadblocks to love prolonged the fantasy. When Camilla finally obtained her own bona fide "Prince charming" he may not have turned out to be everything that she hoped he would be, and the scales may fall from her eyes.

Venus-Neptune is a romantic, sacrificing and selfless contact in all romantic situations. Often Venus-Neptune contacts fall for people who are Pisces, Neptune or have a powerful 12th house. Some Venus-Neptune's are attracted to losers/victims in society, perhaps the penniless artist, or struggling musician. It appears any type of person who is in some kind of emotional mess and needs "rescuing" stimulates the sexual desire. Such romantic idealism is always best teamed with a realistic discrimination of the love, but then again it would spoil all the magic.

I wonder what happened when Camilla married her Prince, did it take all the "romanticism" away? No more secret rendezvous and pining for that elusive love. All her suffering and not being accepted by the public. Loving from a distance allows many of her fantasies to remain intact. Disillusionment in love is common too, here is a quote on Venus-Neptune by Sue Tompkins:

When I first started practicing as an astrologer I was several times caught out by Venus-Neptune clients requesting comparisons between them and their partners. "Caught out" in that I entered into their fantasies only to discover, after further, usually very directive questioning, that they were not in fact having a relationship with the object of their desire. It could be said they were having a relationship, but only with a fantasy, and certainly without the other person physically participating in it!