The question after a breakup is how long, and the chart answers it as a season with a length, which is more than the friends can offer and less than the native fears. The months after an ending are not a mood without edges; they are the remainder of the sub-period the ending fell in, and sometimes the next, and they run in three phases that the houses name: the loss, which is the twelfth’s work; the transformation, which is the eighth’s; and the rebuilding, which is the second’s and the eleventh’s. The chart reads how long the season runs, by the sub-period’s dates. It reads what lengthens it, Saturn over the natal Moon above all, and what lifts it, Jupiter over the Moon or the fifth, Ketu’s detachment, the next carrier’s arrival. It reads what helps this particular native, by which houses are strong, since the friends of the eleventh help one chart and the work of the tenth another. It reads the pull back and its dates. And it says which grief is thinner than expected, the one after a fade, and which does not lift on the calendar and is for a counsellor as well as the chart. This article gives all of that, with an eight-house table of what helps and a chart whose season ran eleven months and lifted among her friends.
It belongs to the complete relationship astrology guide. The ending itself, why it happened in the chart’s terms and whether it holds, is Breakups in the Chart; the question of the ex’s return, which this page assumes has been answered, is Will My Ex Come Back?; the months after a divorce, which are longer for the second house’s sake, are read in New Love After Divorce; and when the heart is next available is When Will I Find Love?.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa, Vimshottari dasha; the season after an ending read from the sub-period it fell in and the one after, the twelfth as loss, the eighth as transformation, the second and eleventh as rebuilding, the Moon as the heart’s capacity to recover; transits of Saturn and Jupiter over the natal Moon and the fifth, Ketu over the fifth or seventh, Venus retrograde for the pull back. Grief is read as a season with a length and never as a fault; a grief that does not lift on the calendar, or that comes with dread, sleeplessness or hopelessness, is for a counsellor and the chart names its season alongside. Nothing here is a remedy.
How long, which phase, what helps you in particular, and the date the feeling lifts: the season after an ending, read from your chart.
A relationship consultation reads the sub-period your ending fell in and the one after for the season's length and its three phases, the transits over your Moon that lengthen or lift it, the houses in your chart that say what helps you rather than what helps everyone, the dates the pull back will be strongest, and the sub-period in which your heart is next available.
In this article
- The season after an ending: how long, by the sub-period
- The three phases: loss, transformation, rebuilding
- The Moon: the heart’s capacity to recover
- What lengthens the season: Saturn over the Moon
- What lifts it: Jupiter, Ketu, and the next carrier
- What helps this chart in particular: the houses of recovery
- Eight houses of recovery, and what each offers
- The pull back, and its dates
- The grief that is thinner than expected
- The grief that does not lift, and the counsellor
- A worked chart: eleven months, lifted among her friends
- Frequently asked questions
The season after an ending: how long, by the sub-period
A relationship ends in a sub-period, and the season after it is, in most charts, the remainder of that sub-period, since the sub-period that ended the relationship is the one whose lord is doing the ending’s work, the twelfth lord’s loss, the eighth lord’s crisis, the sixth lord’s quarrel, Ketu’s release. If the ending fell early in the sub-period, the season is most of it; if late, the season spills into the next sub-period and is read from that one’s lord, which is why some natives are over an ending in a month and some carry it for two years, and the difference is on the table rather than in their characters. The reading finds the ending’s sub-period, its end date, and the next sub-period’s lord, and it gives the native a sentence with a date in it: the season runs until such a month, and then the next sub-period, which belongs to such a planet, begins, and the feeling changes then whether or not you have finished with it. A sub-period of the twelfth lord that runs two years after an ending is a long season, and the native should be told so, not to discourage them but because a native who expects a month and gets two years concludes that something is wrong with them, and nothing is. The sequence of sub-periods is in the Vimshottari reference, and the breakup page’s reading of which sub-periods end relationships is the reading of which begin the seasons after.
The three phases: loss, transformation, rebuilding
The season after an ending runs through three houses, and most natives can say which they are in. The loss is the twelfth’s phase: the absence felt, the private grieving, the sleep and the appetite disturbed, the sense of a room emptied, and it is the phase the twelfth lord’s sub-period holds and the one in which nothing else can be done; its whole reading is in the twelfth lord in the twelve houses. The transformation is the eighth’s phase: the native changed by the ending, the questions about who they were in the relationship and who they are now, the crisis that is also a remaking, and it is the phase the eighth lord’s sub-period holds; its reading is in the eighth lord in the twelve houses. The rebuilding is the second’s and the eleventh’s: the household re-founded, the routines, the money, the table, and the circle re-entered, the friends who were let go called again, and it is the phase the second and eleventh lords’ sub-periods hold, or the next carrier’s, and the phase in which the native is, without noticing, available again. The phases do not always come in order, since the sub-periods do not, and a native whose ending fell in the eighth lord’s sub-period has the transformation first and the loss after, which feels backward and is not; the reading names the phase the native is in from the sub-period, and the phase that follows, so that the native stops waiting for the loss to lift in the transformation’s season.
The Moon: the heart’s capacity to recover
The Moon is the heart, and its condition is the native’s capacity to recover, which is the layer the friends read wrongly when they say one native is strong and another weak. The Moon exalted, in its own sign, or in a kendra with benefics is the heart that recovers by its own weight, that grieves and rises; the Moon in the twelfth, in the Moon in the twelfth, or the eighth, or with Saturn, is the heart that grieves privately and long and does not ask for help; the Moon with Rahu is the heart that grieves restlessly and reaches for distraction; the Moon with Ketu is the heart that detaches and is accused of not caring; the Moon with Mars is the heart that grieves as anger. The Moon’s resilience in general is read in the Moon and emotional resilience, and for the season after an ending the reading adds the Moon’s sub-period, which is the phase in which the heart is most itself, for better or worse, and the Moon’s sign, which says what the heart needs in order to recover, as the Moon page of this cluster says of what it needs in order to love: the water Moon needs to be felt, the earth Moon needs routine, the fire Moon needs to be out and admired, the air Moon needs to talk it through. A native told what their Moon needs in order to recover has been given the instruction the friends were guessing at.
What lengthens the season: Saturn over the Moon
Saturn’s transit over the natal Moon, the middle phase of Sade Sati, or over the twelfth or second from it, lengthens the season after an ending, sometimes by years, and the native in Sade Sati who cannot understand why a breakup that should have taken six months has taken two years has the answer on the ephemeris; the whole reading is in the complete Sade Sati guide. Saturn over the fifth or the seventh does the same to a lesser degree, and Saturn’s sub-period inside the ending’s period is the season of the grief that is a duty, carried rather than felt. The nodes lengthen it in their own way: Rahu over the fifth or seventh keeps the appetite for the lost partner alive past its season, and Ketu over the Moon empties the heart rather than healing it. And the sub-period itself lengthens it when the sub-period after the ending’s belongs to another breaker, the twelfth lord’s followed by the eighth lord’s, which is the two-year season, and the reading says so, with the sentence that the season’s length is the calendar’s and not the native’s failing, since a native who is told they should be over it by now and is not is usually in Saturn’s transit and has been given nothing but blame.
What lifts it: Jupiter, Ketu, and the next carrier
Three things lift the season, and the reading finds which comes first. Jupiter’s transit over the natal Moon, the fifth, or the first is the year the heart is offered something else, the sanction to be well, and it is the transit under which most natives report the morning on which they noticed they had not thought about the ex; Jupiter over the fourth, in Jupiter through the fourth, is the year the home is comfortable again. Ketu’s sub-period, or Ketu’s transit over the fifth or seventh, is the detachment, the season in which the feeling is simply gone, which the Ketu page reads as completion; it lifts the season abruptly, which the native sometimes finds unsettling, and the reading says that the abruptness is Ketu’s and not a sign of shallowness. And the next carrier’s sub-period, the fifth lord’s, the seventh lord’s, Venus’s or the eleventh lord’s, is the season in which the heart is available again whether or not the native has decided it, and the reading gives its date as the end of the season after the ending, since the find-love page’s window begins there. The three do not always coincide, and the reading names them in order: the season lifts under Jupiter’s year if that comes first, at Ketu’s detachment if that does, and at the carrier’s arrival at the latest, which is a date the native can hold.
What helps this chart in particular: the houses of recovery
The advice after a breakup is the same for everyone, see friends, keep busy, travel, go home, and the chart says which of those helps this native and which is wasted, by the strength of the houses that carry each. The eleventh is the friends and the circle, and a native with a strong eleventh, its lord dignified or benefics there, recovers among people, and the eleventh lord’s sub-period is when they do; read in the eleventh lord in the twelve houses. The third is the words and the expression, the writing, the talking, the short journey, and a strong third recovers by saying it, in the third lord in the twelve houses. The tenth is the work, and a strong tenth recovers by working, which the friends call avoidance and the chart calls the tenth. The ninth is the journey, the teacher and the far, and a strong ninth recovers by going somewhere or by a practice. The fourth is the home and the mother, and a strong fourth recovers at home, which the friends call hiding and the chart calls the fourth. The fifth is play, creativity and the children, and a strong fifth recovers by making something. The sixth is the routine and the body, and a strong sixth recovers by the gym and the schedule. The twelfth is solitude and the far, and a strong twelfth recovers alone, which is the one the friends most misread. A native told which two of their houses are strongest has been told what will actually help them, and the table gives all eight.
Eight houses of recovery, and what each offers
| House, when strong in the chart | How this native recovers | The season it works best |
|---|---|---|
| The 11th: friends and the circle | Among people; the friends called back, the gathering, the network | The 11th lord’s sub-period; Jupiter over the 11th |
| The 3rd: words and expression | By saying it; writing, talking, the short journey, the sibling | The 3rd lord’s sub-period; Mercury’s |
| The 10th: the work | By working; the project, the promotion, the public life | The 10th lord’s sub-period; Saturn’s, if Saturn is strong |
| The 9th: the journey and the teacher | By going somewhere, or by a practice, a teacher, a tradition | The 9th lord’s sub-period; Jupiter’s |
| The 4th: the home and the mother | At home; the mother’s care, the house set right, the town returned to | The 4th lord’s sub-period; the Moon’s |
| The 5th: play and making | By making something; the creative work, the game, the children | The 5th lord’s sub-period; Venus’s or the Sun’s |
| The 6th: routine and the body | By the schedule; the gym, the diet, the daily discipline | The 6th lord’s sub-period; Mars’s |
| The 12th: solitude and the far | Alone; the retreat, the far place, the private life, which the friends misread | The 12th lord’s sub-period; Ketu’s |
Most charts have two of the eight strong, and the reading names those two; the native who tries the other six because the friends advised them has been doing the wrong houses’ work.
The pull back, and its dates
The season after an ending has a pull back in it, the weeks in which the native wants to call, and the chart gives its dates, which is the one thing that reliably helps with it. Venus retrograde in transit, six weeks every nineteen months, is the reconnection window the ex-return page reads, and it is the pull back’s strongest season, in which the ex writes or the native wants to; a native given the dates plans for them. Rahu’s transit over the fifth or seventh, or Rahu’s sub-period, is the appetite for the lost relationship revived, and Venus’s sub-period is the season the feeling returns in its softer form. The Moon’s transit over the native’s natal fifth, seventh or twelfth, two and a half days a month, is the small weather, the day the native is most likely to reach for the phone, and a native who knows their Moon days has an almanac of the pull. The reading gives the dates and the sentence that goes with them, which the harm page and the ex-return page share: the pull is a season and the ending is a fact, if the breakup page’s checks said it holds, and a feeling with a date on it is easier to sit through than one that seems permanent. Where the breakup was a pause and not an ending, the pull back is the relationship’s own season and is read on the ex-return page instead; this page is for the native whose ending holds.
The grief that is thinner than expected
Some natives are surprised by how little they grieve, and are ashamed of it, and the chart explains it. An ending in Ketu’s sub-period, or under Ketu’s transit, or of a relationship carried by Ketu, is a completion, and the feeling goes with it; the Ketu page’s fade takes the grief away with the relationship, and the native who expects months and finds weeks is not shallow, they are in Ketu’s season. An ending at the junction between major periods, in which the whole set of houses changes at once, is the same: the relationship belonged to the old period and the new one has no room for its grief, which the native feels as an unexpected lightness. And an ending of a relationship that lived in the fifth alone, a romance without the bond, grieves in the fifth’s way, brightly and briefly, since the seventh was never involved. The reading says so, because the native with a thin grief has usually been told by someone that they must not have loved, and the chart’s answer is that they loved in a season that has ended, and that the thinness is the season’s and not the love’s. The reverse, the grief that is heavier than the relationship seemed to warrant, is the seventh’s, since a short relationship that lived in the seventh grieves as a marriage does, and the reading names that too.
The grief that does not lift, and the counsellor
The chart gives the season a length, and the reading holds to it in one direction only: when the season’s sub-period has passed, Jupiter’s year has come, the carrier has arrived, and the grief has not lifted, the grief has stopped being the season’s and the native should have another kind of help, a counsellor or a doctor, alongside the chart and not instead of it. The same is true whatever the sub-period when the grief comes with dread, with sleep gone for weeks, with the appetite gone, with the sense that nothing will be different, or with thoughts of not wanting to be here, which are not the twelfth house’s ordinary loss and are the signs that a person needs another person’s help now; the chart’s contribution is to name the season and to say, plainly, that this is beyond it. The Moon afflicted, in the eighth or twelfth, with Saturn or Rahu, is the chart that carries grief longest and privately, and its native is the one the reading asks about most carefully, since that Moon does not ask for help; the site’s page on the Moon, Mercury and mental health reads that Moon in full and says the same. A reading that tells a native with those signs to wait for Jupiter’s transit has done a harm, and this page is written so that it does not.
A worked chart: eleven months, lifted among her friends
A Libra lagna woman, particulars altered, whose relationship of two years ended in Saturn-Ketu, Saturn being her fourth and fifth lord and Ketu sitting in her third with the seventh lord: the romance’s lord’s major period with the sub-period of the planet that releases, beside the bond’s own lord. Her chart: Venus, the lagna lord and lord of the eighth, in Aquarius in the fifth; Saturn, lord of the fourth and fifth, in Libra in the lagna, exalted; the Moon, lord of the tenth, in Taurus in the eighth, exalted; Jupiter, lord of the third and sixth, in Gemini in the ninth; the Sun, lord of the eleventh, in Capricorn in the fourth with Mercury, lord of the ninth and twelfth; Mars, lord of the second and seventh, in Sagittarius in the third; Rahu in Gemini in the ninth with Jupiter, Ketu in Sagittarius in the third with Mars. The twelfth held nothing, and its lord, Mercury, sat in the fourth; the season, then, was Ketu’s, the release, in the house of the words and the siblings, and the reading was given in its second month.
The reading gave the length first: Saturn-Ketu had thirteen months from its start and the ending had fallen in its second month, so the season ran eleven months, and Saturn-Venus, the lagna lord’s sub-period, followed, with Venus in the fifth, a carrier, the heart available again on a date. The phase: Ketu’s season is the release, not the loss, and the grief would be thinner than she expected, which she doubted and then found; the transformation, the eighth’s, was in the Moon, exalted in the eighth, the heart that changes and rises. What lengthened it: Saturn in transit was not on her Moon, and no Sade Sati; nothing lengthened it beyond the sub-period. What would lift it: Jupiter’s transit over Taurus, her eighth and her Moon’s sign, in the season’s last months, the year the heart was offered something else, and Saturn-Venus after. What helps her in particular: the eleventh, its lord the Sun in the fourth with the ninth lord, and the third, holding Mars and Ketu, so the friends and the words, the circle and the saying of it; not the work, the tenth lord being in the eighth, which is where she had been hiding. The pull back: Venus retrograde fell in the fourth month of the season, over her fifth, the house Venus sits in, and she was given the six weeks’ dates and the sentence that the ending holds, since the breakup page’s three checks had said so, Ketu’s sub-period being a breaker’s and the seventh lord Mars sitting with Ketu. She called the friends in the third month, wrote it out in the fifth, the third house’s way, did not call him in Venus retrograde, which she said was the hardest thing she had done that year, and in the eleventh month, under Jupiter in Taurus, noticed the morning; Saturn-Venus began the month after, and the find-love page’s reading took over from there. Eleven months, three phases in Ketu’s order, two houses that helped, one pull back with dates, and a date the season ended, which is what this page says the chart can give.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to get over a breakup according to astrology?
The season after an ending is the remainder of the sub-period the ending fell in, and sometimes the next, so it runs from a month to two years by the dasha table rather than by the native’s character; Saturn over the natal Moon lengthens it by years, and Jupiter over the Moon or the fifth, Ketu’s detachment or the next carrier’s sub-period lifts it. The reading gives the sub-period’s end date as the season’s, and the carrier’s arrival as the latest the heart is available again.
What are the phases of healing after a breakup in the chart?
Three, named by the houses: the loss, the twelfth’s work, the absence felt and the private grieving; the transformation, the eighth’s, the native changed by the ending; and the rebuilding, the second’s and eleventh’s, the household re-founded and the circle re-entered. They come in the order of the sub-periods, not always in that order, so a native whose ending fell in the eighth lord’s sub-period has the transformation first, and the reading names which phase the native is in and which follows.
Which planet helps in moving on after a breakup?
Jupiter, whose transit over the natal Moon, the fifth or the first is the year the heart is offered something else, and Ketu, whose sub-period or transit over the fifth or seventh is the detachment that lifts the season abruptly; and the next carrier’s planet, the fifth lord, the seventh lord, Venus or the eleventh lord, whose sub-period makes the heart available again. Saturn over the Moon lengthens the season, and Rahu over the fifth or seventh keeps the appetite for the lost partner alive past its time.
What helps me move on according to my chart?
The two strongest of eight houses: the eleventh recovers among friends, the third by saying it, the tenth by working, the ninth by a journey or a practice, the fourth at home, the fifth by making something, the sixth by routine and the body, and the twelfth alone. The general advice, friends, busyness, travel, home, is the same for everyone and helps only the native whose house carries it; the reading names which two houses are strong and which sub-period each works best in.
Why do I keep wanting to contact my ex, and when does it pass?
The pull back has dates: Venus retrograde in transit, six weeks every nineteen months, is its strongest season; Rahu’s transit over the fifth or seventh or Rahu’s sub-period revives the appetite for the lost relationship; Venus’s sub-period returns the feeling in its softer form; and the Moon’s transit over the natal fifth, seventh or twelfth is the day each month the phone is most tempting. A native given the dates plans for them, and a feeling with a date on it is easier to sit through than one that seems permanent.
Why do I not feel sad after my breakup?
Because the ending was Ketu’s, a completion, in Ketu’s sub-period or transit or of a relationship Ketu carried, and the feeling went with the relationship; or because it fell at the junction between major periods and the new period has no room for the old one’s grief; or because the relationship lived in the fifth alone, a romance without the bond, which grieves brightly and briefly. The thinness is the season’s and not the love’s, and the native who has been told they must not have loved has been told wrongly.
When should grief after a breakup be taken to a counsellor?
When the season’s sub-period has passed, Jupiter’s year has come and the carrier has arrived and the grief has not lifted, it has stopped being the season’s; and at any time when it comes with dread, sleep gone for weeks, appetite gone, the sense that nothing will be different, or thoughts of not wanting to be here, which are not the twelfth house’s ordinary loss. The chart’s contribution then is to name the season and to say plainly that this is beyond it, and a counsellor or doctor is the help alongside it.
A length, a phase, two houses that help you and a date: the season after an ending, read for your chart and not for everyone's.
A relationship consultation reads the sub-period your ending fell in for the season's length, the phase you are in and the one that follows, your Moon for how your heart recovers and what it needs, the transits that lengthen or lift the season, the two houses that say what helps you in particular, and the dates of the pull back, with the sub-period in which your heart is next available.