What Is The Spouse Element?
“Spouse Element” is a modern mainstream term for pointing out which element in your chart represents your romantic partner, wife, or husband. Whenever we assess the quality of someone’s marriage using BaZi, we must look at the Spouse Element and its role in the chart. A more traditional and accurate way of addressing the “Spouse Element” is to look at the specific ‘god’ that represents the spouse. We always look to the Direct Wealth ‘god’ for male chart-holders. For female chart-holders, we always look at the Direct Officer ‘god’. Indirect Wealth and Indirect Officer can be used, too, if the official Spouse Element is missing.
One of the occupational ‘hazards’ that I have is that I will always look at someone’s BaZi before I decide to go out on a date. Yes, it’s a little calculative on my part, and it kills off the romance a little, but given the number of clients I’ve advised on love-related matters and looking at my own parents, I can’t help but put my BaZi skills to use. I don’t just use it for my romantic life, but I also use it to decide whom I want around in my life.
Like it or not, BaZi compatibility is a very real phenomenon in Chinese metaphysics, and it matters. It can save you from a major heartbreak, many years of your life, and money. Utilizing Chinese metaphysics for matters of the heart, of course, requires a bit of faith in our Chinese sages and what they passed down, and also in the practitioner you are engaging. Not many people are willing to let Chinese metaphysics and BaZi be part of their selection process for a partner, but I don’t blame them. We are all emotionally driven, after all. Relationships are complicated, and we don’t always make the most rational decision. Who we end up with also has a bit to do with karma because if our own individual BaZi charts are bad, it will be challenging to attract a suitable partner too.
Assessing the Spouse Element in one’s BaZi chart is also a good time to reflect on ourselves and whether we deserve the kind of relationship and marriage we dream of.
Why Being Practical With Love Is Important
Many clients have come to me for a consultation when they’re in the middle of a divorce. I feel for them for having to go through so much pain and suffering, and even more for their children, as I come from a dysfunctional family myself. I know how traumatizing it can be for a child when the relationship between the parents isn’t healthy. I wouldn’t want that for myself, and neither for my children. Hence I entirely use my gift when it comes to making one of the most critical life decisions that one has to make.
I don’t think everyone needs me to point this out: Not everyone makes a good partner, and not everyone is ready for a relationship. Getting into a relationship or marriage when you are not ready is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. True, a problematic relationship helps you learn about yourself and grow sometimes. Still, most people prefer to avoid all this drama in hindsight and wish they went into a relationship being a bit more prepared.
Most people feel that applying Chinese metaphysics before a relationship begins is bastardizing and killing love. But I personally feel that there is nothing wrong with being a bit more practical about love, and neither is there any need to over-romanticize things. A good balance between the emotional and practical is always best. A lot of my clients who approached me with relationship issues wish they had come to me before they got together with someone. Perhaps you would appreciate this more if you were in a toxic or abusive relationship.
Discussing whether one is ready for a relationship will be long, but I won’t go into it here. All I can say is that the way we grew up, our relationship with our parents, and our innate characters all play a part. A BaZi chart might be able to reveal all these, but it will require the practitioner to have a lot of life experience for him or her to tell you that it might be your parents’ influence that is causing your bad decisions in partners.
Some People Should Never Get Married
Are there charts that should never get married? Of course, there are. There are people with certain charts that you should avoid at all costs.
A Male Chart That Harms The Wife (克妻)
The above chart on the left belongs to a male, where Yang Earth (戊土) represents his spouse. We can immediately tell a few things above this chart:
- Although the Fire element is the most critical one here, there is no doubt that the Earth element is also considered very important and should not be harmed.
- We can see that Yang Earth, representing the wife, gets severely harmed by Yang Wood, manifesting as the Rob Wealth ‘god’. This naturally means the wife of the chart-holder will not do well in life.
- It does not help that the chart-holder has obvious character flaws as a Rob Wealth person. On top of that, yin-si-shen Punishment (寅巳申三刑) also appears in his natal chart to harm the beneficial elements.
A Female Chart That Harms The Husband (克夫 kè fū)
The above BaZi chart is perhaps one of if not the worst, BaZi chart I’ve ever seen in my career. There are few good things to say about it besides this chart holder having one or two supportive 10-Year Phases. However, due to the poor quality of the natal chart, these positive 10-Year Phases won’t do much other than help the chart-holder stay out of trouble.
This chart is known as 刑夫克子 chart, meaning it harms not just the spouse but also the children as well. I will focus on the spouse and marriage aspect of things for now:
The above female chart-holder has an extremely strong Hurting Officer (伤官) ‘god’ appearing as Yang Wood (甲木) harming her spouse element of Yang Earth (戊土) showing up as her Direct Officer ‘god’ (正官). The Spouse Element is being harmed beyond redemption because of Yang Wood’s harm on Yang Earth, especially when this Yang Wood is supported and rooted by the Month Branch (月令), which has the greatest say on the strength of the elements.
What makes matters worse is that the Elemental Phases continue to strengthen Wood, and the harm on the Spouse Element gets amplified throughout this person’s life. The Child-Harming spect of the chart comes from looking at the Hour Pillar, but I won’t discuss that for now.
What Does The Spouse Element Tell Us?
People fail to understand when you are looking at someone’s inner world when you look at someone’s BaZi chart. How they think, behave, and act will ultimately lead to different outcomes in their lives. This is common sense.
Looking at the Spouse Element is not just looking at your future potential partner. More importantly, it also looks at how the chart-holder treats his or her spouse and their attitude towards marriage.
I have come across countless charts similar to the above two examples. Their relationships have always been very unstable, and their partners would suffer due to some character flaw that they have. It comes to a point where their partners wonder why they even got married to them.
The above examples are people who should never get married because people like them have nothing to offer in a relationship other than negativity and toxicity. They can be very self-centred and vindictive. They will argue to win, never compromise, and often put their partners down without consideration for their feelings or well-being. There is no such thing as loving-kindness and compassion in the relationship. One important thing to remember is that only people with lower-quality BaZi charts will allow themselves to be with someone like the above two examples. As I’ve always said, we will almost always end up with someone with the same chart quality because a couple’s chart will paint a cohesive story.
If you have difficulty relating to what I said above, that’s fine. Because no one wants to be familiar with a toxic relationship dynamic, but know that they exist. If you’ve been focusing on your growth and getting your priorities right, it probably means you have a good BaZi chart, and naturally, you’ll be able to attract a good partner too. Again, this is also common sense.
The Spouse Element From Your Own Chart’s Perspective
The above two cases are from the perspective of your potential spouse’s chart. The other angle is, of course, looking at your chart and figuring out the role the Spouse Element plays. The logic isn’t that different from the above examples.
Ideally, we want the Spouse Element to play a positive role in the chart because it means the partner will play a positive role. Following that, we look at the Spouse Element’s strength and how it influences the rest of the chart. We could also bring in the Auxiliary Gods (神煞) to add another layer to the analysis. Such BaZi charts will have the best marriages, but it is also extremely rare.
There will be cases where even though your partner does not outrightly harm you, they will still feel stifling, for lack of a better word to put it. They might limit your growth if they are not handling their lives well, and you have to help them instead of focusing individually on your goals and aspirations.
A BaZi Practitioners Perspective On Marriage
The harsh truth is that not all marriages will be blissful or easy. Some marriages can be described as two people coming together to suffer together as though they have some karmic debt. It’s harsh, but it is true. We can also tell these things in a BaZi chart, although I’ll leave that for another discussion.
This is precisely why arranged marriages were prevalent in ancient times, or people would get their BaZi charts matched before deciding they wished to spend the rest of their lives together with another person. In modern days, more often than not, we go with our hearts and not our heads, and we get into relationships without knowing why we want to be in one.
Companionship is always nice, but even more importantly, your partner must be able to bring out the best in you, inspire you to achieve greater things, and imbue you with a sense of purpose. One thing I realized from my consultations is that the people who end up in fulfilling relationships have a clear idea of why they wish to be in a relationship. In contrast, those in troubled relationships wish to fill a void within themselves, need healing in one form or another, or are just really afraid of being alone. In a way, our BaZi charts can tell us of the karmic debt with have when it comes to relationships, and some of us end up with the wrong people as we have a debt to return or a lesson to learn.
One of the interesting things that I’ve noticed as well is that the charts of the couples have a very strong correlation when it comes to a certain aspect of their lives – you could call it congruency. I have never seen a married couple where one chart says the marriage will be excellent, whereas the other says otherwise. The charts will always paint the same story, and will not contradict.
I guess it has a little to do with fate as well; as much as everyone would like to pick a partner who would be good to them to the point, we have to bring their BaZi charts to the table, whether we do end up with such a great partner different story. If you wish to hear more of this perspective, please read this blog post: On Love, Marriage & Spouses Who Bring ‘Good Luck’ – A BaZi & Zi Wei Dou Shu Perspective.
As a BaZi consultant, what I can do to save a marriage is severely limited. I can provide insights from a metaphysical perspective as to why things are happening the way they are and what the universe has in store for the married couple. However, to change things and transcend one’s chart, as I’ve always said, is the chart-holder’s responsibility. That is not something I can help with – it is your life, not mine.
P.S. If you want to have your and your partner’s BaZi chart interpreted for compatibility, please visit my BaZi consultation page to look. Fill up the form when you’re ready, and I’ll be in touch.
