The thing about Saturn in the seventh house is that it will take relationships super seriously. I’m serious. You know those lesbians who proudly announce that they’re going through a “fuck boy” phase but then immediately get in a seven year long live in relationship? That’s what I’m talking about.

You have to remember that Saturn is the world’s slowest moving planet. In fact, it is the slowest moving planet that is always visible to the nude eye. Uranus is only sometimes perceptive to a naked eye (there’s a sex joke in there somewhere, I know). What happens if you go really slow? Yeah, you last really long. Saturn in the seventh house appreciates long term relationships. Not just with lovers but with friends, cousins, and everyone.

Seriously. I know some Saturn in the seventh house people who basically just hang out with friends who they met when they were in day care.

These are reliable people. They don’t show up unless they mean it. These people are not into the kind of performative activism that people will sometimes do when they have very little material stakes and just want to amplify an issue. They’re not into it because that kind of voice in community just doesn’t make sense to them. If Saturn in the seventh house makes a promise, they mean it. They will keep the promise. They refuse to speak on something unless they are doing something to impact what they speak on because they see their own words as promises.

If Saturn in the seventh house makes a promise to you, then they will put their own back into seeing that promise through.

The seventh house is the only place where the first house, the self, becomes known. Why? Because the seventh house is the house of other people. We only get to know ourselves through our promises to, our conversation with, and our choices made by other people. If we think of the seventh house as what we look for when we’re around other people, then Saturn in the seventh house looks for slowness, accountability, and solitude. That’s right. Saturn in the seventh is a bit weird—it looks for solitude through connection.

I know about the most common readings of Saturn in the seventh: relationship challenges or delays and the tendency to date older people. Eh. Maybe. I’ve really only seen one or two charts where someone had Saturn in the seventh while having had an important relationship with a sizable age gap. I want to unpack that first one a bit. Relationship challenges.

The reason why Saturn in the seventh house people think that they have more relationship challenges than other people isn’t because they actually do but because they’re much harder than themselves than they need to be. Most of us have had at least one young love that went terribly. Most of us have also had relationships where we didn’t behave the way that we wished we did. Saturn in the seventh house doesn’t forget those experiences, you see. They keep them around inside of their minds. The reason why they do this is because Saturn doesn’t allow you to make the same mistake twice.

Saturn is resolute like a judge. When it sits in the seventh house, you might think that other people judge you. You expect other people to expect accountability from you. You keep yourself in line accordingly.

I get along with Saturn in the seventh house people because I have Saturn in the first. I’m hard on myself and they’re hard on themselves too when they’re with people. These are people who will schedule very serious apologies for being too flippant the other day or create a research group about relationship accountability because they had a crush. Some people get spooked with stuff like that because they think it’s too much pressure. That’s also why Saturn in the seventh house people value the people they have, because they are highly specific individuals who are simply not for everyone.

There’s another trait of Saturn in the seventh house that I haven’t shared, a dirty little secret of theirs that I find utterly hilarious. You want to know what it is?

You see, Saturn in the seventh people are strict with themselves when in company. They study the art of setting impeccable boundaries. They work on their relationships and they do things for other people that only mothers do for their children—cleaning a friend’s apartment, feeding them, wiping their snot away. And they rarely complain. But what happens when Saturn in the seventh house people are in their own company?

These people let loose. I’m talking about completely letting loose. They might go off the grid, not answering calls or texts for weeks at a time. They might binge watch television for days. They might eat trash food and then fart due to indigestion and then eat more trash food while naked just for kicks. They might do a bunch of drugs or they talk a lot of shit in their diary. They might design their room in really weird ways that work for them and only them.

When they’re around people—completely trustworthy, socially attuned, and wise with boundaries. But when they’re not around people? Freedom! No more Saturn! These people do all of the socially unacceptable things that they don’t like to be seen doing when they’re all by themselves.

Saturn is one of those planets that goes through a long maturation process that takes a lot of endurance. When Saturn in the seventh house people mature, it’s not that they have to become even more accountable or rise up to become community leaders or anything like that. They might and a lot of them do. But Saturn’s maturation process in the seventh house is more about letting people see you fart. It’s about letting people know that you, too, will often do socially irresponsible and unacceptable things.

Most people feel shame about being socially inappropriate. But you know what? Shame is the emotion that you feel when you think that other people can’t or won’t match your playfulness. Feeling shame is actually a sign that you want to be more playful than you think your environment will allow. Saturn in the seventh house people are playful. Fun! Messy! But they see other people as Saturn, as these severe older personalities that want them to clean up their messes.

The best thing that you can do for your Saturn in the seventh house is to let your friends see you fart, to let your partners see you shit, and to let your lovers see you squirt. You’re messy because you’re a human being just like everyone else. If you sleep on dirty sheets sometimes, it’s because you sweat. If you leave a mess in the kitchen, it’s because you cook. If you leave a lover in a mess, it’s because you loved.