Relationships end for reasons the two people can name, the job in another city, the family, the fight that was really about something else, and for a reason the chart names underneath them: the sub-period that carried the relationship turned, or the fifth and seventh houses were never able to hold it, or Venus sat under a planet that ends what it touches. The two accounts are not rivals. The chart’s reason is the shape of the ending and the people’s reason is what it looked like from inside, and a native who has both stops asking the question that has no answer, what did I do wrong, and starts asking the one that has: what kind of ending was this, and does it hold. This article reads breakups that way: the houses and planets of the ending, the six kinds of ending and the planet behind each, the signatures that make one native break up the same way every time, the transits that end against the ones that only test, and the difference between a breakup and a pause.
It belongs to the complete relationship astrology guide. Whether an ending reverses is the next question and has its own page, Will My Ex Come Back?; the months after an ending are read in Moving On After a Breakup; and the marital version, separation and divorce inside a marriage, belongs to the troubled-marriage pages, beginning with the divorce signs in the birth chart.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa, Vimshottari dasha, the fifth house as the romance and the seventh as the bond, the twelfth as the ending, the eighth as the break, the sixth as the quarrel; transits of Saturn, the nodes and Venus. A breakup is read as a signature and a period, never as a fault, and the other person is read only from their own chart. Nothing on this page is a remedy for an ending, and a relationship that was harmful is not read for its return.
What kind of ending was it, and does it hold? The chart answers both.
A relationship consultation reads the signature behind the breakup and the period it fell in, tells you whether this ending is the fade, the fight, the betrayal, the family's no, the distance or the period's end, and whether it holds, from your chart or from both.
In this article
- Two accounts of every ending
- The houses of the ending: fifth and seventh against twelfth, eighth and sixth
- The planets that end: Saturn, Ketu, Rahu, Mars and the twelfth lord
- The six kinds of ending, and the planet behind each
- Nine breakup signatures, and which endings hold
- The period that turned: the ending that came with the calendar
- The native who breaks up the same way every time
- Transits that end, and transits that only test
- A breakup or a pause: reading the difference
- What the other chart adds
- A worked chart: three endings, one signature
- Frequently asked questions
Two accounts of every ending
The people’s account of a breakup is the story: who said what, the month it went wrong, the other person’s family, the distance, the thing that could not be forgiven. The chart’s account is a structure: which houses the relationship lived in, which planet carried it, and which planet or period ended it. The two agree more often than the native expects, since the story usually has the ending’s planet written into it, the Saturn breakup being the one that cooled over a year and the Mars breakup the one that ended in an evening. The use of the chart’s account is not to replace the story but to answer the question the story cannot: whether this was an ending of the relationship, which the chart reads from the fifth and seventh, or an ending of a period, which it reads from the dasha, or an ending of a kind the native carries into every relationship, which it reads from the signatures below. Each of the three has a different sequel, and a reading that names which one has told the native what to expect next, which is what they came for.
The houses of the ending: fifth and seventh against twelfth, eighth and sixth
The fifth is the romance, the feeling and the pleasure of the relationship, and its lord’s placement says whether the feeling has somewhere to live. The seventh is the bond, the partnership as a commitment, and its lord’s placement says whether the bond can form and hold. Against them stand three houses. The twelfth is the ending, the loss, the distance and the letting go; a fifth or seventh lord placed there gives the relationship that ends by departure, the partner abroad, the love that dissolves. The eighth is the break, the crisis and the transformation; a fifth or seventh lord there gives the relationship that ends in a rupture and sometimes returns changed. The sixth is the quarrel, the dispute and the enemy; a fifth or seventh lord there gives the relationship that ends in conflict and often in the two people as adversaries. The placements are read in the fifth lord in the twelfth, the eighth and the sixth, and the seventh lord in the sixth and the eighth. A chart with the fifth lord in a dusthana and the seventh lord clean has romances that end and a marriage that holds, which is a common and reassuring shape; the reverse, a clean fifth with the seventh in a dusthana, has romances that are happy and a bond that will not form, which is the harder one.
The planets that end: Saturn, Ketu, Rahu, Mars and the twelfth lord
Saturn ends by cooling: the relationship that stops growing, the partner who becomes a duty, the distance that arrives as silence, and a Saturn on the fifth or seventh, or Saturn’s aspect on Venus, gives endings that take a year and hold when they come; the conjunction is read in Venus with Saturn. Ketu ends by dissolving: the feeling that is simply gone one morning, the partner who walks away without a fight and does not look back, and a Ketu on the fifth or seventh, read in Ketu in the fifth, gives the endings nobody can explain; with Venus it is Venus with Ketu, the love that detaches. Rahu ends by consuming: the relationship that was an appetite, obsessive at the start and reversed at the end, the partner who was unfamiliar and stays so, and Rahu on the fifth, in Rahu in the fifth, or with Venus, in Venus with Rahu, gives the ending that is as sudden as the beginning was. Mars ends by fighting: the quarrel that goes too far, the anger that says the unsayable, and Mars on the seventh or aspecting Venus gives the endings that happen in an evening and are regretted by the morning. The twelfth lord ends by departure, and its sub-period is the season in which relationships are lost rather than broken. Each planet leaves its own kind of ending, and the native can usually name which one they have lived through.
The six kinds of ending, and the planet behind each
The fade is Ketu’s and Saturn’s: the relationship that ends without an event, the two people further apart each month until one of them says what both know. The fight is Mars’s, with the sixth house: the ending with an incident, a night, a sentence, and the two people as adversaries afterwards. The betrayal is Rahu’s, with the twelfth: the third person, the secret, the trust broken, and it is read in the chart from Rahu on the seventh or fifth and the twelfth lord’s touch, and in the marital case from the infidelity signatures the KP pages read. The family’s no is the fourth and the ninth against the fifth and seventh: the relationship ended by the parents, the caste, the community, the ending that neither person chose, read in Family Opposition to Love Marriage. The distance is the twelfth and the ninth: the job abroad, the city, the relationship that could not survive the geography, read in Long-Distance Relationships in the Chart. And the period’s end is the dasha alone: the relationship that ended because the sub-period that carried it ended, with no planet’s kind of ending visible at all, which is the one the people’s account never explains and the chart’s account explains at once. Most breakups are two kinds at once, the fight that was really the period’s end, the distance that was really Saturn’s fade, and the reading names both.
Nine breakup signatures, and which endings hold
| Signature | The kind of ending it gives | Does it hold |
|---|---|---|
| 5th lord in the 12th | Romances that end by departure or dissolve; the love abroad | Usually; the fifth lets go |
| 5th lord in the 8th | Romances that end in a rupture and sometimes return changed | Often not; the eighth transforms rather than closes |
| 5th or 7th lord in the 6th | Endings in quarrel; the two as adversaries afterwards | Holds, with bitterness |
| 7th lord in the 12th | The bond that dissolves or lives abroad; the partner who leaves | Holds when the period supports it |
| Venus with Saturn, or Saturn on the 5th or 7th | The slow cooling over a year; the duty that replaces the feeling | Holds; Saturn’s endings are final |
| Venus with Ketu, or Ketu on the 5th or 7th | The fade nobody can explain; the walking away without a fight | Holds; there is nothing to reopen |
| Venus with Rahu, or Rahu on the 5th or 7th | The obsession that reverses; the sudden end of the sudden beginning | Often not; Rahu returns and reverses again |
| Mars on the 7th or aspecting Venus | The ending in an evening; the sentence that could not be unsaid | Often not; Mars’s endings are regretted |
| The relationship’s sub-period ended, no signature | The ending that came with the calendar | Holds unless a later period reopens the same door |
The third column is the reading’s use: the same breakup is a closed door in a Saturn chart and a swinging one in a Rahu chart, and the native who knows which has been told whether to wait or to walk.
The period that turned: the ending that came with the calendar
The relationship lived in a sub-period, and when the sub-period ended the relationship often ended with it, for reasons the two people then supplied. Find the sub-period in which it began and the one in which it ended: if they are the same, the ending is one of the planet’s kinds above and may or may not hold by the table; if they are different, and especially if the ending fell in the first months of a new sub-period belonging to the twelfth lord, the eighth lord, the sixth lord or Ketu, the ending came with the calendar, and it holds because the period that carried the relationship is over. The junction between two major periods is the classical time for this, the end of a Venus period and the start of the Sun’s, the end of Rahu’s and the start of Jupiter’s, and a breakup within a few months of a major-period change is the one least likely to reverse and the one the native least understands, because nothing happened; the sequence of periods for any birth is in the Vimshottari reference. The reading that finds the period turned is the kindest one on this page, since it says the ending was a season and not a verdict on either person, and the next season is on the same table.
The native who breaks up the same way every time
Some natives have had three or four relationships that ended the same way, and the chart shows why: the signature is natal, not circumstantial. A fifth lord in the twelfth gives the serial departure, the partner who always goes abroad or the native who does; Ketu on the fifth the serial fade; Venus with Rahu the serial obsession that reverses; Mars on the seventh the serial fight; Saturn on the fifth the serial cooling. The pattern has three things worth telling the native. It is theirs, so that the next relationship will meet the same signature and the reading can say what the ending will look like before it comes. It is a tendency of the houses and not a sentence on the person, so that the fifth lord in the twelfth is met by choosing a partner whose own chart does not also live abroad, and Mars on the seventh by learning what Mars’s evening looks like before it arrives. And it usually does not apply to the seventh in the same way it applies to the fifth, so that a native with three romances ended by Ketu on the fifth and a clean seventh lord has a marriage waiting that the romances were not. The reading of the pattern is the most useful reading a serial breakup native can be given, and it is the one they are least often given, because each breakup is read alone.
Transits that end, and transits that only test
Saturn’s transit over the fifth or the seventh, two and a half years each, tests the relationship and ends the ones that were not going to survive; a relationship that survives Saturn over the seventh is usually the one that becomes the marriage, and the ones that end under it stay ended, read in Saturn’s transit through the fifth. Ketu’s transit over the fifth or seventh, eighteen months, is the season of the fade, in Ketu through the fifth; Rahu’s over them, in Rahu through the fifth, is the season of the obsession and its reversal, and a relationship that began under Rahu’s transit often ends when Rahu leaves. These three end. Others only test: Mars over the seventh, six weeks, gives the fight that a sound relationship survives; Venus retrograde over the fifth or seventh gives the reconsideration that a sound relationship comes through changed; the eclipse on the fifth-eleventh or first-seventh axis gives the month of the crisis. A breakup under a testing transit in a relationship whose period is still running is the one most likely to reverse; a breakup under an ending transit at a period change is the one least likely to. The reading of transits for relationships in general is in Relationship Transits.
A breakup or a pause: reading the difference
The chart distinguishes the two by three checks, and it is the distinction the native most needs and can least make from inside. The period: a breakup inside the relationship’s own sub-period, with that sub-period still running, is a pause more often than an ending, and a breakup at a sub-period change is an ending more often than a pause. The transit: a breakup under Mars, Venus retrograde or an eclipse is a pause more often; under Saturn, Ketu or a departing Rahu, an ending. The signature: a Rahu or an eighth-house signature swings and returns, a Saturn or Ketu or twelfth signature closes. Three checks, and a breakup that is a pause on all three reads as a pause, with a window for the return in the ex-return article; a breakup that is an ending on all three reads as an ending, and the reading says so once, plainly, and turns to the months ahead. The mixed case, two checks one way and one the other, is common, and it is usually the pause that becomes an ending on the second attempt, which the native should be told before the second attempt.
What the other chart adds
The other person’s chart answers the question yours cannot: whose ending it was. Their fifth and seventh lords, their signature, and their period at the time of the breakup say whether the ending came from their side of the table, and it is common for one chart to show a pause and the other an ending, which is the shape of the relationship in which one waits and one has gone. The two charts together also say what the relationship was, in the synastry, read in Synastry in Vedic Astrology: a bond between the seventh lords or a contact between Venus and Mars, and the second ends more easily than the first. A reading with both charts is the reading in which a breakup stops being a mystery, and it is the one to ask for when the other person’s details are known; when they are not, the horary route in the horary without a birth time asks the question directly.
A worked chart: three endings, one signature
A Gemini lagna man, particulars altered. Venus, lord of the fifth and twelfth, sits in Taurus in the twelfth, its own sign: the fifth lord in the twelfth, and the fifth lord is also the twelfth lord, the romance and the departure in one planet, dignified. Ketu sits in Sagittarius in the seventh, with Rahu in Gemini in the lagna. Jupiter, lord of the seventh and tenth, sits in Aquarius in the ninth. Mercury, the lagna lord, sits in Gemini in the lagna with Rahu, in its own sign. The Moon, lord of the second, in Libra in the fifth; the Sun, lord of the third, in Taurus in the twelfth with Venus; Mars, lord of the sixth and eleventh, in Leo in the third; Saturn, lord of the eighth and ninth, in Capricorn in the eighth, its own sign.
Three relationships ended the same way. The first, in Rahu-Venus, began at a university abroad and ended when she went home, the fifth lord in the twelfth delivering the departure in its own sub-period. The second, in Rahu-Moon, the fifth-house Moon’s sub-period, ended when he took a posting in another country, the twelfth lord being the same Venus and the departure now his. The third, in Rahu-Mars, the sixth lord’s sub-period, ended in a quarrel over the same move, the sixth adding its kind to the twelfth’s. He came at thirty-one asking what was wrong with him, and the reading said: nothing that is not in the chart, and the chart is one signature, the fifth lord in the twelfth, met three times in three sub-periods, each ending a departure with the sub-period’s colour on it; and Ketu on the seventh, which is not a denial of marriage but a bond that forms without drama when its period comes. The period: Rahu’s major period had a year left, and Jupiter’s, the seventh lord’s, would follow, sixteen years in which the seventh house, not the fifth, would carry the relationships. The reading said the pattern belonged to Rahu’s years and would stop in Jupiter’s, and that the partner to look for was one whose own chart did not live in the twelfth. The fourth relationship began in Jupiter-Jupiter, with a woman from his own city whose seventh lord sat in her fourth, and it has not ended; the fifth lord in the twelfth still sends him abroad for work, twice a year, and comes back. One signature, three endings, one period that changed the house the relationships lived in.
Frequently asked questions
Which planet causes breakup in astrology?
Each planet ends in its own way: Saturn by cooling over a year, Ketu by dissolving without a fight, Rahu by the obsession that reverses, Mars by the quarrel that goes too far, and the twelfth lord by departure. The ending’s planet is the one on the fifth or seventh house, with Venus, or ruling the sub-period in which the breakup fell, and the native can usually name which kind they lived through from the way it ended.
Which house is responsible for breakup?
The fifth, the romance, and the seventh, the bond, when their lords sit in the twelfth, the house of endings and departure, the eighth, the house of the break, or the sixth, the house of the quarrel; and the twelfth, eighth and sixth themselves when their lords’ sub-periods run or their houses are transited. A fifth lord in a dusthana with a clean seventh gives romances that end and a marriage that holds, which is a common and reassuring shape.
Why do my relationships always end the same way?
Because the signature is natal: the fifth lord in the twelfth gives the serial departure, Ketu on the fifth the serial fade, Venus with Rahu the serial obsession that reverses, Mars on the seventh the serial fight, Saturn on the fifth the serial cooling. It is a tendency of the houses and not a sentence on the person, it is met by choosing a partner whose chart does not share it, and it usually does not apply to the seventh house the way it applies to the fifth, so the marriage may hold where the romances did not.
Does a breakup in astrology mean the relationship is over for good?
It depends on three checks: whether the breakup fell inside the relationship’s own sub-period or at a change of sub-period, whether it fell under a testing transit such as Mars or Venus retrograde or an ending transit such as Saturn, Ketu or a departing Rahu, and whether the signature is one that swings, Rahu or the eighth, or one that closes, Saturn, Ketu or the twelfth. A breakup that is a pause on all three often reverses; one that is an ending on all three holds.
Which dasha causes breakup?
The sub-periods of the twelfth lord, the eighth lord, the sixth lord and Ketu, and the junction between two major periods, in which a relationship carried by the old period ends with it. A breakup in the first months of a new sub-period belonging to one of those lords came with the calendar, and it holds because the period that carried the relationship is over; the people then supply the reasons, and the chart explains why none of them was needed.
Does Saturn transit cause breakup?
Saturn’s transit over the fifth or seventh house tests a relationship for two and a half years and ends the ones that were not going to survive; those endings hold. A relationship that survives Saturn over the seventh is usually the one that becomes the marriage. Ketu’s transit over the fifth or seventh brings the fade, and Rahu’s the obsession and its reversal; Mars over the seventh and Venus retrograde only test, and breakups under them in a running period often reverse.
Can astrology tell whose fault the breakup was?
No, and it does not try; it reads signatures and periods, not faults. What the two charts together can say is whose ending it was, since one chart often shows a pause and the other an ending, which is the shape of the relationship in which one person waits and the other has gone, and which kind of bond it was, a connection between the seventh lords that ends hard or a contact between Venus and Mars that ends easily. That is a different and more useful answer than fault.
Three checks tell a pause from an ending. Have you run them?
A relationship consultation reads the signature behind your breakup, the period it fell in and the transit over it, and tells you which kind of ending it was and whether it holds; with the other chart it tells you whose ending it was, and with neither, a horary asks the question directly.