The ex is the 7th house
Horary astrology casts a chart for the moment a question is asked and reads it by the rules of traditional astrology. A question about an ex is a question about two people. The 1st house is you, the querent, and the planet that rules the sign on its cusp is your significator; the Moon is your co-significator in every chart. The 7th house is the other person in any one-to-one relationship: a partner, a husband or wife, a lover, and also a partner who has gone. The ruler of the 7th stands for your ex, whatever the genders involved. The houses and significators sections of the guide explain how the rulers are found.
The question “will they come back” is then a question about two planets: whether they are moving toward each other or away from each other, and whether anything in the chart will bring them together before either one changes sign.
Signs of a return
The clearest sign is an applying aspect between the ruler of the 1st and the ruler of the 7th that perfects before either planet leaves its sign. The planets come together, and so do the people. If the ex’s planet is the faster one and applies to yours, the ex makes the move.
A second sign is retrograde motion of the ex’s significator back toward yours. A planet that turns and moves back over the zodiac is a literal picture of returning, and when that backward motion brings it to an aspect with your planet, tradition reads it as the ex turning back.
Help can also come from a third planet. In translation of light, a faster planet leaves one significator and goes on to aspect the other, carrying the contact between them: a friend, a message, a chance meeting. In collection of light, both significators apply to a slower planet that receives them, which brings them together, as a shared friend or a shared obligation can. Finally, the ex’s planet in the 1st house puts the ex in your house: they come to you. The aspects and Moon sections of the guide say more about how these contacts work.
Signs it is over
The opposite picture is a separating aspect: the two significators met, and now they are moving apart. The contact is behind them. If nothing joins them again before either changes sign, no aspect, no translation and no collection, the chart shows no return.
Other testimonies point the same way. In prohibition, a third planet perfects an aspect with one of the significators first and cuts the contact off: someone or something else gets in the way. When the ex’s planet is about to move into a sign where your planet is in detriment or fall, the ex is heading into a life where you would not be at home. And a void-of-course Moon, one that makes no more aspects before leaving her sign, traditionally says that nothing more will come of the matter. The glossary defines each of these terms.
Return or ending: what the chart shows
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| The rulers of the 1st and 7th apply to an aspect that perfects before either changes sign | You come together again |
| The ex’s significator turns retrograde and moves back to an aspect with yours | The ex turns back: a return |
| A faster planet leaves one significator and aspects the other | Someone or something carries contact between you |
| The ex’s significator in the 1st house | The ex comes to you |
| The two significators separating, with nothing ahead | The contact is behind you |
| A third planet aspects one significator first (prohibition) | Something or someone gets in the way |
| The ex’s significator entering a sign where yours is in detriment or fall | The ex moves into a life where you don’t fit |
| The Moon void of course | Nothing more comes of the matter |
Asking with care
Horary works best with a sincere question that matters to you, and few questions matter more than this one. But strong feeling cuts both ways. A question asked in the first hour after a fight, or asked again every evening, is the mood of the moment rather than a settled question, and the tradition holds that a chart is only radical, fit to judge, when the question is. Ask once, when you really want to know.
Asking again because you did not like the answer does not make a new chart valid. Wait until something has actually changed, such as a message, a meeting or a decision, and ask then. See how to ask a question in the guide.
Most of all, the chart describes; it does not decide for you. A likely no is not a judgment of your worth, and a yes would not oblige anyone to return. Whether to reach out, wait or move on is your choice, made with everything you know about the relationship. The limits section of the guide says more about what horary can and cannot do.
How AstroGPT reads it
AstroGPT, the app behind this site, does the same thing for your own question. It casts a chart for the moment you ask, at your phone’s location, in Western mode with Equal houses, and a language model writes the reading by the traditional rules above. The chart is kept for 60 minutes, so you can ask follow-up questions in the same chat against the same chart; after that a new chat casts a new one. The example below is a real chart and the answer AstroGPT gave for it. It is a reading for reflection and entertainment, and it can be wrong, like any astrologer’s.