The synastry chart is a very good place to start, with a single glance we can see the way the couple evolves (consciously or unconsciously), by the proportion of the aspects that appear within their personal planets.
There are two basic ways of evolution within a couple based on the aspects that are dominant in the synastry chart: evolution through resemblance and evolution through differences.
Evolution through resemblance is somewhat more relaxed and steady way of evolving, when two people who are quite alike (as astrological structure) meet, fall in love and build a couple relationship. This process is based on trines and sextiles in terms of astrological aspects, and offers the chance of seeing themselves in the other exactly as they are, because of the resemblances that manifest between the two.
This means that each of them can discover their beauty and their faults in the other along the way, slowly recognizing all the aspects that are harmonious and amplifying them, recognizing all the aspects that are tensioning and correcting them.
Because the feeling of the other being just like me, like something I’ve been living with for my whole life, a certain state of comfort and stability appears, and it is more difficult to see all the personality weaknesses that are needed to correct in order to awaken our spiritual awareness and to align to our spiritual path we chose for this life. This is a way to evolve somewhat more peacefully, but on the long term, it takes time to be objective if you only see yourself (reflected by the one you love) most of the time.
The second way of evolution is through differences. This is the hardest, but most efficient and most intense way. Astrologically, these are relationships in which the dominant aspects are squares and oppositions. These relationships are intense because we can understand our own way of being, with all our strength and weakness through our lover’s totally different way of being.
The tension brought by squares specially, but also the sense of unknown that the oppositions awake in us gives us no chance to stay indifferent or be lenient with our own mistakes or our inferior resonances. It is the fastest and most efficient way to evolve, it is the hardest also because it forces our emotional and mental limits toward overcoming our human nature over and over again in order to discover that we are more than we ever thought.
These kind of couples are those who has to learn to love each other despite their differences, despite things that they don’t understand at each other, knowing that they have a common ideal and that their love sustains them and helps them overcome any difficulties.
Of course, there are few relationships that are exclusively manifesting one type or the other, but usually there is predominance toward one or the other, easing the tension of squares with trines, respectively pushing couples out of their limiting comfort of trines with some squares.
Each of the cases, divine intervention tries to help us turn toward the right direction, pushing us forward, forcing our minds in order to finally take a firm path toward our divine nature.
Excerpt from my next book coming out in October 2011: Building The Perfect Love - An Astrological Approach








