Be nice

In a 24 hour span, I’ve dealt with 3 different situations in which a person with both strong Libra and Neptune projected their problems externally and made their issue about someone else. One person in the throes of an identity crisis came home and picked a fight with their significant other. Someone else refused to acknowledge their role in an interpersonal dispute. In a totally different scenario, a person was refusing to acknowledge their role in an interpersonal dispute while hiding from said dispute. I’m involved in different ways with all three, so I’m vague to protect the guilty here. I’m tired and annoyed as I write this.

What all three of these people have in common is strong Libra and a strong Neptune. Either of those by themselves is a propensity for codependence, but *combine* them, and mayday. Think Buster Bluth and Lucille 2 from Arrested Development and the phrase "our nausea." (In that example, only one person is nauseous but the codependent person considers her vertigo symptoms his own.) Also: Libra needs things to be nice, and Neptune also needs to be nice, and each's response to conflict is often to be MORE nice, or worse: passive-aggressive as all get-out. Finally, and most infuriatingly, they tend to assign their problems to you. Imagine someone trying to treat you for a deep laceration when you don’t have one, and what that might be like. At what point do you give in when someone won’t stop coming at you with gauze, claiming you’re bleeding, when you’re obviously not? Especially in a situation you can’t easily leave? Now imagine that’s happening to you, and you notice the person applying pressure to your body is bleeding profusely themselves. You point it out, and they say “no I’m not” even though you can’t argue with with a spreading bloodstain, they’re…somehow doing that. Welcome to life with Libra and Neptune. These behaviors have made me feel like I’m losing my mind before, so let’s just say I’m deeply familiar with them.

Now a slightly different problem with the same results: Neptune was in Libra from 1942 - 1956, and many of the owners of Neptune in Libra natally think that just being nice, or getting along, or going along with what someone else wants will get them what they want (which is usually harmony). Neptune usually equals blind spots unless you’re very self-aware, or have had enough harsh transits to disillusion you from what were previously delusions (said another way: some of us never grow up). I get infrequent updates about the following situation: a woman with Neptune in Libra has a husband who is an alcoholic. They’ve managed to coexist/keep the peace (Neptune in Libra) for many, many years, but for the last 6 months or so, he’s been acting out more than normal. I finally asked for the woman’s birth date after being regaled with tangential tales of woe for an extended period of time (she’s the sibling of my friend) and oh, look at that: Pluto’s squaring this woman’s Neptune in Libra and opposing her Uranus in Cancer, which are square to each other natally. Also: Uranus is conjunct her Venus by transit at the moment. So she has the chance to get free IF she can admit to herself that harmony isn’t possible, because I promise you it’s draining her dry (Neptune is an energy vacuum when functioning negatively). Will she take it?

But basically: if you project problems outside yourself, hide in other people's problems, or refuse to identify what the problem is when you're encountering it again and again, you're never going to solve anything. Said a different way: Libra needs Aries, because Aries is much more willing to own problems, and Neptune needs Saturn, which is an accountability buddy. Libra doesn’t like Aries because it’s rude (see below) and Neptune doesn’t like Saturn because it’s dry and boring.

Also: I cannot TELL you how many people with Neptune in Libra have been on my case about being nice, because I’m not one to mince words. The other morning I looked a woman with Neptune in Libra dead in the eye and dropped an F-bomb because I decided to choose mild chaos that day. She flinched. Not "nice." I meant what I said (I was calling a non-person entity “fucking dumb” and I had a litany of evidence to back up my statement, though I promise the details would bore you to tears). Neptune in Libra wants nice, and Aries rising over here (with Pluto in Libra) thinks nice is often a waste of time if you’re making a point.