**Astro-friends: Dear Seagoat is a new site feature. Kind of Dear Abby meets Savage Love, but with more planets. If you have a question, send it to seagoatastrology@gmail.com along with your birth info (time/date/location) and I’ll happily take it for a spin.**
Dear Seagoat,
A good friend of mine has a boyfriend that I absolutely can’t stand. He is flaky and passive aggressive and treats her badly. Their relationship has been tumultuous and she often complained to me in the past about his behavior, but recently she seems to have some kind of deluded idea that things are perfect. Me and all our friends can see that he is the same selfish loser as always, but he does just enough to keep her from leaving. I finally decided to tell her what I thought. She doesn’t deal well with confrontation. Now she’s constantly delivering passive-aggressive jabs at me. I believe I did the right thing by being honest, but now am being punished for it. At this point, I feel like she and her boyfriend deserve each other, but she and I still have to work together and I can’t take much more. Do you have any suggestions for how to handle her behavior?
— Virgo Under Duress
Dear VUD,
Between your helpful nature (Virgo sun), gooey-squishy compassionate heart (Pisces moon), defend-your-friend-to-the-end relationship style (Venus in Cancer square Aries Mars) and your ironclad bullshit detector (Pluto in the 1st), you, VUD, are a kickass friend. So, good for you for taking the risk of speaking up, even though it sounds like you guessed it could have repercussions.
Problem is, your South Node (woospeak: past life baggage) is also in Virgo/11th house, which creates the expectation that if you do the Right thing, you’ll be rewarded with friendship, security and appreciation. You’re hardwired to equate other peoples’ reactions with the quality of your actions. When a friend jabs passive-aggressively at you, your South Node asks, “What did I do wrong?”
Tell your South Node to lay off, because in this lifetime, you’re learning to let go of your friends’ opinions and respond out of your sense of joy, generosity, spontaneity, intuition and love. While your friend’s negative response may be stressful, it has to do with her, not you. It takes a lot of work to leave a toxic relationship. If girlfriend isn’t there yet (which is what it sounds like), then it’s easier for her to decide that you’re the asshole than to face the abyss of a potential breakup, her attraction to douchebags, etc.
So, what now?
As burned as you feel, I’d advise against cutting off/giving up on her—yet. By telling the truth about Boyfriend, you opened up a conflict and your Pisces/5th house North Node (woospeak: soul growth) job is to stay present with everything that comes up as a result. That doesn’t mean you have to fix her or the friendship—you absolutely don’t—just that you’ll feel more positive (and be better able to work with her) if you stay in touch with the love that motivated you to speak up in the first place. So she’s conflict-phobic, so what? That’s her trip. Your chart shows you have the tools to maintain your integrity and evolve with the situation. That may mean interrupting the passive-aggressive jabs with directness—and warmth. She’s probably reading you as more aggressive than you actually are, because 1st house Pluto folks tend to project intensity, so reassure her by being warm, open and without any hidden agendas (e.g. to change her or to prove yourself right). Who knows how she’ll react to that, but at least that way you’re not letting her hang-ups dictate your behavior.
Finally, remember you don’t have the answers and you’re not responsible for her reactions. Your only job is to stay present, be loving to yourself and notice the good growth you’re doing. Those strategies should give your Pluto (urge for saving others) and North/South Nodes (anxiety, etc.) a sense of peace and help let this situation turn out the best possible way for everyone.
Love,
Seagoat