Venus opposing Saturn: 3 Ways You Block Love, Connection, and Pleasure

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi

The most popular post on my blog is an essay in which I examined this Rumi quote.

One of the astrological signatures that can show us the ways we block love is Venus opposing Saturn.

Venus Opposing Saturn

Venus is the planet of love and relationships, beauty, harmony, and pleasure. It struggles in Virgo, which is a place where we separate and pick thing apart.

Saturn is the planet of limits, rules, restrictions, obstacles, boundaries, and saying “no.” In Pisces, a sign that strives toward oneness and dissolving borders, Saturn is like a heavy weight.

An opposition is an aspect of tension, but when Venus is in Virgo it feels like Saturn in Pisces is acting more as a reinforcement of the challenges that Venus has in Virgo.

As Venus in Virgo opposes Saturn in Pisces (October 11, 2025 7:10 am ET, 26º59’), it draws our attention to some of the ways in which we block not just love, but also connection and pleasure.

3 Ways You Block Love, Connection, and Pleasure

As Venus in Virgo opposes Saturn in Pisces, it shows us 3 ways we might be blocking love, connection, and pleasure from our work routines and service:

(1) Perfectionism

One of the traps of Virgo’s constant quest for improvement is a tendency toward perfectionism. Venus can easily fall into this trap in its desire for beauty and harmony, whether in a physical object, written work, projects, or relationships.

Virgo is a place for details, and Venus can easily get caught in the minutiae of aesthetics, message, or function of a thing in its effort to improve the beauty or utility.

The irony is that when we focus so intently on the little details, we often lose the core elements that facilitate connection, joy, and pleasure.

If you’ve ever tried to apply frosting smoothly on a cake only to end up pulling crumbs off the cake, you’ve experienced this principle in action. The more you attempt to achieve perfection, the more it backfires.

This phenomenon applies in every discipline and area of life.

• In an effort to perfect the grammar on a piece of writing, you might strip out phrases that sound most authentic and real, losing connection to your reader.
• Striving for perfect form in your movement practice or weightlifting can strip the activity of the joy it brings you, killing your motivation to move or workout.
• Picking on everything your partner does in the interest of helping them improve can be exhausting for them and you, leading to greater distance in your relationship.

(2) Inner Critic

Virgo is a place that seems to stimulate the inner critic, and Saturn is also the voice of the critic. The desire for improvement is laudable, but when it is fueled by constant criticism, it becomes a chore.

Our inner critic can blow up on us in three ways.

First, it can cultivate seeds of self-doubt and dampen self-esteem, keeping us from showing up with our best work and ideas. After all, why would you share anything publicly when your inner critic is telling you how bad it is? This also impacts the joy we receive from our efforts.

Second, when your inner critic is always running on full throttle, objective and constrictive criticism feels like a threat. Your nervous system shuts down to the legitimate ways you can improve.

Third, when we’re not aware of our inner critic it often shows up as judgment and criticism directed outward — toward other people. That constant criticism puts a wedge in relationships and blocks us from true connection.

(3) Rigid Boundaries

Virgo is a place where we separate the fruits from the harvest. Venus in Virgo is already prone to keeping things at a distance; it can isolate itself.

Saturn is the planet of boundaries; it also represents limits, structure, and fear. In many ways, Saturn’s nature reinforces the temperament of Virgo.

As Venus opposes Saturn, it can show us the ways in which we erect boundaries to protect ourselves in some form, whether to protect our heart, time, energy, focus, or attention. This can be a signature of loneliness.

To be sure, healthy boundaries are necessary. Without boundaries, we can be too flexible — bending over backward to please and accommodate others, being a pushover. This can breed resentment of the people we desire to serve or please.

The problem is that the walls that protect you can also imprison you. The gates we erect to protect our time and attention can keep us isolated and alone, fostering loneliness and depriving us of connection and community.

Mediating the Polarity

All oppositions invite us to see the tension that exists between the polarities of the planets in opposing signs. Once we see the polarity, we can mediate it.

As Venus opposes Saturn, it invites us to consider where we’re being too restrictive and dogmatic in our perfectionism, inner criticism, and boundaries. How can you soften the edges to invite more connection, love, joy, and pleasure into your life?