8th House: Jealousy? Fear? Possessiveness? Mothering Gene? Survival Instinct?

wild dogs feedingRe-running this from 2008. Kingsley was obsessed with analyzing the interaction between my husband and I. That aside, this is interesting.  

Kingsley writes on Men, Women. Venus And Mars In Nature:

“Jealousy is the anger about the prospect (scare) of being rejected. It could be a way in which you keep together Elsa. It would be very easy for either of you to get each other angry if you needed to do that. When I say angry, that could mean passionate too; to constantly live in the “now” of the relationship. In a way that may help to reinforce your attachment with each other. I can’t see a problem with that, its just that when the relationship is going through growing pains it will helpful for the both of you to be aware of that happening.”

Kingsley – that’s an interesting dissection of jealousy. While it sounds correct I am not sure it resonates with my actual experience so I think I may be using the wrong word – “jealousy”.

Our feelings are primal. They are akin to a dog who is feeding and keeps looking over his shoulder in case some other dog thinks it’s going to come touch its food. This stuff is in every fiber of both out bodies and seems to be happening at a much lower octave.
goosebumps-skin.jpg
My husband and I are intelligent, secure, confident and emotionally sophisticated. We are both aware the other is not going anywhere. We know this but this still does not prevent reaction when another dog gets near our bowl. The hair on the neck goes up – Period.

This happens like a reflex. It happens outside our conscious control similar to how cold weather causes goosebumps on the skin. The sensation is akin to adrenaline but I am not sure it is fear because the instinct is always to fight rather than take flight.

It feels more closely related to a mothering instinct. I am protecting mine… I will peck your eyes right out, think later and I think he has a similar experience.

What we are doing is keeping an eye on the perimeter. Broach it and someone’s goin’ down.

Can anyone relate to this or are we the only dogs out there?

38 thoughts on “8th House: Jealousy? Fear? Possessiveness? Mothering Gene? Survival Instinct?”

  1. Jealousy is certainly one of our most basic primitive genetic codes. I have it coursing through my veins like a torrential river. I think sometimes we forget our more baser instincts and pretend that we are oh so civilized and that we have designer behaviour. I believe that to recognise the beast and to have it in our line of green-eyed sight is as good as it gets. To own it and be consciously aware that there is always a choice of expression which doesn’t have to result in annhiliation either of the relationship, the Other or oneself!

  2. But also isn’t jealousy a form of passion, a powerful indicator that we are very much alive (and kicking!). It’s interesting that the 8th house signifies death and also this life blood of emotion!

  3. I don’t relate at all. I should because I’m double fixed, but I don’t. Jealousy for me is wanting what someone else has (and to be fair, there’s not a whole lot of people out there who have something I want so much that I’ll get THAT upset about it). At most, I will be annoyed for a few weeks and then it blows over.

    I truly do not understand why anyone goes ballistic if their SO say, talks to some random person of the opposite sex for five minutes at a party and aren’t flirting/trying to get in their pants. I used to watch my old roommate and her boyfriend getting OMG!SO!JEALOUS!!!111!!! if one of them ever talked to someone for a minute, and it was ridiculous. Both of them had no intention of cheating on the other one, and knew it, but how DARE they speak to someone else! If I truly can’t trust the SO to not try to get into the pants of Random Girl He Talked To For Five Minutes, how great is my relationship? Not very. You’re jealous of him paying attention to someone else but you for five minutes when you live and sleep with him? Gee, guess who has more of him- that’d be YOU, honey. What is there to be jealous of?

    I suspect this is more of a “pissing on my territory” thing more than actual jealousy, somehow. But then again, I truly don’t get the concept, so what do I know?

  4. I totally understand Elsa, especially when you say “mothering instinct”, I think I can thank my Mars in Cancer for that. I don’t go on those crazy jealous rampages like some people do. My “jealous” tendencies are usually right below the surface. It’s funny how you used goosebumps as a comparison; or like a dog, hair standing up on your neck…because that is exactly the kind of primal reaction I get. What I do is become aware, I observe…and feel out what I think the persons intentions seem to be. Most of the time I come to the conclusion that it is harmless and almost-non-intentional flirting, which I don’t mind too much because I tend to be “friendly” myself and I don’t have any ulterior motives. But if I sense something more….Get ready for the WRATH!! haha

  5. Thats what usually happens with fear, one either fights or flights. I wonder what you would call the underlaying feeling to the hair on the neck go up?

    experiencing the feeling like an instinctive process as you say Elsa could be about character again. Character jealousy or character anger is when the personality trait is “in the bones”. What ever ‘it’ may be called, as long as it doesn’t affect your relationships or individual well beings. What would you describe your attachment style to be? Dependant, secure, insecure, ambivalent, avoidant, adversarial, dysfunctional?

    Not many people seem to live in the “now” with relationships Elsa, the instinctive process you describe does sound like living in the “now” according to the jealousy factor.

    best
    kingsley

  6. Kingsley – I have no idea how I would classify myself and either does any of the geniuses who have known me for decades. All I have is astrology and can tell you I act my chart…. utterly. It is a perfect map.

    I can also tell you that my reactions around the soldier are atypical. I have had the feelings at times with other men but with the soldier they are increased by a factor of 20 or 30 or 50 as is the frequency and I don’t know exactly what to chock this up to, especially now having just gotten a new chart for him.

  7. Oh, and I do not reject the idea of fear… I have called myself “fear-based” in the past although I think I may have just liked the sound of that. 🙂

    Considering the saturn neptune quality – how would I know if I was afraid anyway? I wouldn’t. Crap! I am skinny when I think I am fat and fat when I think I am skinny. There is not much hope for me, I’m tellin’ you.

    However, I can help others like a bat out of hell.

  8. I once got so jealous that my friend was flirting with another girl right in front of me that I stopped talking to him for a month and he never knew why.
    I was just furious and it was very irrational.
    I was being very teritorrial.
    Mine…that’s mine……back off……mine

  9. I have been WANTING to ask you about this for some time. I like your analysis of the similarity to the mothering instinct. I am in a relationship with someone and we both have this primal jealousy and attachment, but I’ve been reading Eric Francis’ stuff (incredibly well-written) which describes jealousy, eloquently, as akin to fear of death, fear of nothingness, unnecessary attachment, etc. I totally understand the concept, yet I can’t seem to relate with my own emotions. If the type of jealousy, possessiveness you’re describing, is 8th house, then what house or planet helps you DEAL with challenges to it?

  10. Well I understand all of what you say Elsa and perhaps we can thank god for astrology and the reflection in the “perfect map” as opposed to what psychology and sociology have put together in an apparently scientific way. I enjoy your ecclecticism if I can call it that. I am becoming tentitive in “calling” anything in relation to yourself and the soldier now. You seem to defy any descriptive patterning but be open to the idea at the same time.

    I am also wondering why I might offer a view point to some of your self inquiring posts. You do put the question out there. Perhaps i think that I am being helpful and really you are only thinking out a loud via this blog? That is a very interesting concept indeed. Thinking out a loud and blogging.

    It does seem however that the mystery of these instinctive sources which you describe your behaviours/feelings has more meaning in the scheme of things.

    I wish that I could live a little more in the here and now.

    kingsley

  11. Yeah, I get really low octave primitive jealous thing too. Very much like a mothering instinct. The instinct is very much straight to attack and comes from a place of protection.

    (And I am so very Aqua that I used to be baffled at this response.)

    I like what you posted today about it how Scorpio will get your back, hence the motivation in talking about the green skirt incident.

    For me in that eighth house, boundaries get blurred. I have Neptune there and so sometimes I sort of accidentally merge into other people’s spaces. Then I want to protect them.

    It is about protecting your resources. . .

  12. LMAO Elsa – “I can help others like a bat out of hell” This made me laugh, I love it. You are excellent at helping others, I think that is in the genes 🙂

  13. Yes. I get motherly-protective-jealous of all my close ones, including friends, family, and romantic liasons. Blame it on my Scorpio Moon.

  14. I think it’s interesting that this fierce protective instinct is your version of mothering. I relate to it for sure, but it may not be other people’s experience.

  15. Scorp Moon here, square uranus. When my relationship is threatened, I fly out of my body, detach utterly and have a “if you can catch him, you can keep him” mentality. I figure at my age (50), if someone is going to fly the coop, they’re going to do it whether or not I’m standing there with my fists balled up. They know I don’t want them to go, and if that information isn’t enough, then …. what is to fight for? I’ve seen women who use every trick in the book to “keep” their man… and I wonder, what have your really got??? Not saying you are doing this, but “fight like a dog” can have a really thin line. Many people cross that line. I also realize Italians have a very very expressive nature, it is “normal” for them to verbalize very strongly when they are feeling emotional. I am also ethnic, but the aforementioned moon/uranus square seems to prohibit me from waving my arms around. Damn.

    1. Avatar
      ComfortableDarkness

      Scorp moon here as well, I feel the same. Aqua ascendant. I think having that natural cold detachment readily available when it comes to people in your life waffling on whether to stay or go is a good thing.

  16. Hehe- I relate. I think it has to be some sort of fear though. But if there’s a simultaneous confidence in the relationship, it turns into a feeling more akin to passion than jealousy. I’d definitely call it primal.

  17. I can relate. Cancer sun Scorpio moon, Mars in Aries in the 8th. It’s more of a fight for me too, & oddly exciting. Maybe that’s the Venus in Gemini part. But jealous? Not likely. More challenging and I don’t think men are used to women being like that.

  18. Hello. I was NeapTide on the blog and mostly lurked before, I have been reading your Blog regularly the past couple of years but I am shrugging off the dust and debris and squinting to see if the sun is the sun or another Atom bomb. I am Scorpio sun, went through Saturn:s Tour of my Sun sign with a little hysterectomy and the end of a 19 year marriage and the death of two close fries and my father. I am starting to think that I see some threads in my life that might be pointing to a vocation beyond what I thought I was possibly to bringing to the world this lifetime. I have been victim/perpetrator of my own spells of irrational jealous response when I was younger. Like, legal drinking age. I’m 40 now. The 8th house primal goosebumps hi my feeling, I am not unfamiliar and it’s not limited to only potential”competition” (I read the CockBlocking post today, my gay Scorpio friend Kristin and I call it ClamSlamming if women do it) I have a limbic system snap at certain people. Rare. 8th House: Pluto Libra, Uranus Scorpio, Venus Libra, and Aquarius asc Gemini moon 5th. My SO is Gemini with Scorpio moon in the 98th very paranoid jealous at times. Libra asc. Dimples, toe Walker, looks like the male in Picasso’s La Vie. Anyway….. I have Merc Scorpio 3rd and never shut up once I start. Thank you, Elsa. Receding into the collective now. Thanks again. Hello, everyone.

  19. Avatar
    ComfortableDarkness

    For me jealousy is an instinctive reaction to my fear that my supply lines to pleasure, sex, attention,income are going to be siphoned off or cut. It’s more id and practicality-based than ego-based in origin. I’m not even sure actual love has anything to do with it, more love of the resources than in many cases the person. I don’t get jealous if a guy I’m dating is attracted to other women as I never stop being attracted to other guys no matter how good the chemistry is with someone I’m dating. Sagittarius sun Aqua ascendant Scorpio moon.

  20. Avatar
    ComfortableDarkness

    On the jealousy thing, I wouldn’t want to be married to or partnered with a truly bad human being but on some base, raw level, as long as you meet my needs, I kind of really don’t care what or who else you do as long as it’s discreet. For me in ways that’s better than being vulnerable to someone through love.

  21. For me jealousy is displaying ones diffidence in obtaining something. There have been a few incidences in my life when I was jealous. I was always confident as a grown up. Maybe, this was because I was a sports buff when I was a kid.

  22. You’re not the only ones here LOL 😉

    That’s exactly how my BF and I are when we’re together. We also got lots of 8th house synastry energy, so when someone threatens both of us or one of us, he or she will come jumping in with the flame sword. Seriously it CAN be a little smothering from time to time (probably the mothering effect) and it sure creates some heavy overload when one of us is mad at the other. Phew – those fight. Ouch!!

    My BF’s Mars is in my 8th house where my natal moon, Saturn and Pluto is also placed. Saturn/Pluto is even conjunct too!
    Plus, our Chiron’s are conjuct with the fixed star Algol. Heavy sh*t to be fixed in this relationship for sure…

  23. The motherly instinct come out full force if anyone dares threaten any of my family. I have a Mafia mentality. I often think of how far I would go if someone actually harmed my husband. I can tell you this, I was working one night and had an altercation with a family because I had to stop the child from playing with a laundry cart. The mother told the dad that had just come in that I had gotten nasty and I hadn’t. I had just told the girl that she had to stop playing before she got hurt. At that time my husband walked in while the guy was berating me. My husband tried to calm him down and the man who was bigger than my 6′ 2″ husband threatened to take him to the parking lot. I didn’t even think…I was climbing the counter on this man and was going to attack him. My husband stopped me and I grabbed the phone and called the cops and told them I would not be responsible for what I did. The family took off before they got there. I am 5’5″ but earned the name bulldog as a child. Strong Scorpio influences with me. Funny tho, I am not as jealous as I am protective.

  24. Tonys, Mafia mentality is perfect to describe it! I am not impressed or threatened by bullies and or if I know what is good for me, I well remember what I can look forward to happening to me if I+….. I grew up in a blue collar aristocrat where my dad was a Union Labor Negotiator and district Representative in a city at a time when people were blowing each other up with car bombs almost as frequently as other Rust Belt crimes involved gunfire and knives. But forty years later, my boyfriend is in the middle of a building case that is just because of the place he was a manager and a serious case is being built for over a year. My father died give days before Christmas and in February I was at my mom’s house when my ex husband who is a cop, called me and said that there was some kind of get detection st my house where he was painting his old office… The guy wanted to talk to me. I was in my mom’s car in her garage using her lighter as a charger and this guy is talking to me and he knows a LOT about ME. SAhiy -I- got. When and where I lived in Burbank at 19. My first live album. I that I spoke st graduation. I visited 4 sections of Lakevirw Cemetery 3 times since the new year. I was at a memorial service the previous Saturday for a girl with my first name which I a5tenfed with Beth D+±++ who drove her mother Joyce’s car but has no license from a DUI in New Orleans LA Where is my boyfriend? They know where I am and will get my elderly widow mother to tell what I’m not.Hesr s car pull behind me. SUV. Two guys in suits get out. One is the guy I’m talking to. The FBI is harassing my mom. Scorpio stinger time. It wasn’t a cute thing. They can kill me before I say s word or let them NESR my family.

  25. Once a female friend of mine “accidentally” kissed my partner on his neck while saying our goodnights for the evening. She immediately apologised. I was very annoyed (accidentally..?) but decided to brush it off and never mention it again.

    The next time we were all saying our goodnights, she made a point of reminding me (“see? this time I didn’t kiss him on the neck!”), although I was not even looking to see what she was doing – she deliberately drew my attention to it.

    Result: I 100% amputated the friend and resisted all her pleas to reconnect. Saturn and Venus in my 8th. No way I will tolerate such games. I guess the 8th contains, among other things you mentioned Elsa, a deep truth which we instinctively know to be correct.

    1. Avatar
      ComfortableDarkness

      You did the right thing cutting her off. Her even bringing up “See I didn’t do it this time” sounds like a taunt masquerading as reassurance. Not a friend.

  26. PS – aforementioned friend had just split from her long-term partner, and was on the lookout for a replacement. That knowledge was also crucial to my decision to amputate her.

  27. i understand that kind of feeling that’s described! me and my husband are the same, subtle but we have strong possessiveness. i love that we have primal feelings and get super jealous, but i honestly feel it’s possessiveness. it’s so strong you can taste it. what’s mine is mine feeling. in the past i used to get very dramatic about it. lol thank god my husband doesn’t make me feel like i have to be like that. it’s a good secure feeling. my ex’s, especially the first and 2nd one were not very good at securing their significant other’s feelings. they are the types, well i’m with her, so that should be enough. i want more than that i want true deep devotion.

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