Will My Ex Come Back? The Honest Answer
No birth chart can tell you whether an ex will come back. Two charts can show what drew you together, what wore on you and what the sky was doing on the day you split, and they can show how ordinary that day was.
Most pages that answer “will my ex come back” with astrology give a yes or a no, a reading of your sun signs or a tarot card. None of them reads your chart and your ex’s. This calculator does, and it tells you what that reading can and cannot carry.
What two charts can show
Synastry with an ex compares your birth chart and your ex’s planet by planet. Here the contacts between you and your ex are sorted into three columns: what drew you in, what wore on you, and what did both. There is no total and no percentage, because a score would turn a description into a verdict on your ex or on you.
Add the day you split and the calculator reads the sky on that day: the slow planets on your Venus, your ex’s Venus, both Descendants and your composite chart, the eclipses in the months before, and the progressed composite. Then it does the part other pages skip and counts how often a sky like that came round in the five years before.
What they cannot
A chart is fixed at birth. A relationship is two people deciding things every day, and the deciding is not in your chart or your ex’s.
Whether a person has changed
Astrowiki’s synastry guide puts it plainly: “The level of maturity, which no horoscope can reveal, is highly significant.” Whether your ex has grown, or you have, is something you can only learn from how each of you acts now.
Whether you should try again
That decision belongs to you and your ex, and it rests on things a chart never records: how the break-up happened, what each of you wants now and whether it is safe. If your ex hurt you, read the safety section before anything else.
Getting back together is common, and it is not written anywhere
Reunions with an ex are not rare. About 45% of 17–24-year-olds in one American study had broken up and got back together at least once, and across the samples René Dailey reviews in a Cambridge University Press book on the subject, about two-thirds of people have had at least one on-again, off-again relationship.
So an ex coming back is an ordinary event, not a sign. And because it is ordinary, no chart contact has to explain it.
How to Use the Ex Compatibility Calculator
Five steps take you from your birth date and your ex’s to the sky on the day you split. Nothing is stored, nothing goes into the link, and the whole page is free.
Step 1: Enter your birth details and your ex’s
Add both birth dates and places, and the times if you know them; if you don’t, switch on “I don’t know the time”. Nothing is stored and nothing goes in the link. If your ex hurt you, switch on “This person hurt me / I don’t feel safe” first.
Step 2: Add the day you split, if you want to
The day works best; if you only remember the month, switch on “I only know the month”. You can leave it empty and still read the two charts.
In the example above, Robin (born 31 March 1991 at 02:28 in New York) and Avery (born 20 November 1993 at 21:20 in Los Angeles) became exes on 22 December 2022. That day Uranus was within 1° of both of their Venuses at once and squaring the composite Venus, and six weeks earlier the lunar eclipse of 8 November 2022 had fallen on the same axis.
Step 3: Read the three columns
What drew you in, what wore on you and what did both, with how close each contact is.
Step 4: Read the sky on the day you split, and how ordinary it was
The slow planets within 1° of your points that day, eclipses in the months before, the progressed composite and the retrogrades, then the share of your days in the five years before that had a sky like it.
It looks like a striking sky. But on 69.6% of the days in Robin and Avery’s five years before the split, at least one transit like these was active, close to the 71.1% average across 500 random pairs.
Step 5: See what has changed since
Which of those transits are over, what is active between you now, and the progressed composite then and now.
What Drew You Together
The first column holds the contacts astrologers read as pull: soft aspects and conjunctions between the personal planets. They describe what felt easy or exciting with your ex, not whether it should have lasted.
Venus and Mars: attraction
Venus–Mars is the best-known attraction contact in synastry. Robert Adler writes of it: “The keyword here is attraction. The permanence of these attractions is usually indicated by Saturn aspects.” 37.8% of random pairs have a Venus–Mars contact of some kind.
A square or opposition between them goes in the third column instead: it is read as attraction with friction built in.
Sun and Moon: recognition
Your Sun on your ex’s Moon, or the other way round, is the classic sign of feeling recognised. 35.6% of random pairs have a Sun–Moon contact. The opposition counts as pull here, because astrologers read it as two halves that fit rather than as a clash.
The Moon: feeling at home
The Moon describes what makes a person feel safe. Contacts to it are read as comfort: the sense of being at ease with your ex without having to explain yourself.
Moon–Moon
Two Moons in a soft aspect are read as similar emotional rhythms: you and your ex tended to need rest, closeness or space at the same moments.
Moon–Venus
Venus on the Moon is read as affection that lands where it is needed. Many people remember this contact as tenderness more than as passion.
Mercury and Jupiter: talk and generosity
Mercury contacts describe how easily you and your ex talked, and Jupiter contacts how generous you were with each other. Jupiter in a hard aspect is left out of the ledger, because astrologers read it as excess rather than strain.
In the example, Robin’s Sun is 1.42° from a trine to Avery’s Mars, and Robin’s Mars 1.88° from a trine to Avery’s Moon: energy that met easily.
What Wore On You
The second column holds the same personal pairs in squares and oppositions. They describe needs that pulled in different directions. Read them as things that could be said out loud, not as proof that you or your ex was to blame.
Mars contacts: friction
Mars is how a person pushes for what they want. Hard Mars contacts are read as arguments that started fast, or as your pace and your ex’s wearing on each other.
Mars–Mars
Two Mars in a square are read as competing ways of acting: one rushes, one digs in. A Mars–Mars conjunction goes in the third column, because it is read as shared drive as often as rivalry.
Mars with the Sun or Moon
Mars squaring a Sun can feel like being challenged on who you are; Mars on a Moon like being rushed when you needed calm.
Same planet, opposite needs
The strongest contact in the example is in this column. Robin’s Venus at Taurus 14°56′ and Avery’s Venus at Scorpio 15°13′ are 0.28° from an exact opposition: two people who show love in opposite ways, one through steadiness and comfort, the other through depth and intensity.
An opposition like this can be what drew two exes in and what wore on them later. That is why the ledger never adds the columns together.
Hard Moon contacts
A square to the Moon is read as one person’s needs landing on the other’s sore spot. These contacts often explain why ordinary days with an ex felt tiring even when nothing dramatic happened.
Strain is not a verdict
Every couple, exes or not, has entries in this column. The figure below shows how common the contacts with the worst reputation are: most pairs carry them, and most carry both kinds at once.
What Did Both: Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
When a slow planet in one chart touches a personal planet in the other, the contact goes in the third column. These are the contacts most written about when people look back at an ex, and they cut both ways. The ledger shows which way each one leans: a trine or sextile leans to pull, a square or opposition to strain.
Saturn: glue and weight
Saturn contacts are read as commitment and as pressure at once. Cafe Astrology writes that “Saturn interaspects tend to be very binding”; Astrowiki that they “may be difficult but also tend to lend the relationship more stability”.
80.8% of random pairs have a Saturn contact to a personal planet, and 19.2% have Saturn conjunct, square or opposite Venus, the version most often blamed when an ex felt cold or critical.
Uranus: spark and instability
Uranus on Venus or the Moon is read as sudden attraction, freedom and an on-off rhythm. 60.2% of random pairs have one of these contacts, so it cannot be the reason things with your ex in particular were unsettled.
Neptune: ideal and disappointment
Neptune contacts are read as romance, imagination and the risk of seeing the person you hoped for instead of the one in front of you. After a split, they are often the contacts that make an ex hard to see clearly.
Pluto: intensity is not proof of love
Pluto on Venus or the Moon is read as attraction that is hard to explain and harder to let go of. Adler warns that with these contacts “obsession may sometimes be mistaken for love”. 61.6% of random pairs have one.
In the example, Robin’s Pluto is 4.77° from Avery’s Venus. A pull that strong can make an ex feel unforgettable. Intensity is not proof of love, and it is not a reason to go back.
When intensity turned into control
If the intensity included jealousy, checking your phone, isolating you from friends or fear of how your ex would react, that is not a chart contact. It is a pattern that support services know well, and the safety section lists where to talk to someone.
Why these contacts are common
Slow planets move so little that people born a few years apart share their positions, and those positions land on an ex’s Venus or Moon, or anyone’s, all the time. Astrowiki says outer-planet contacts “often have a compelling quality that those involved find difficult to explain” — and the numbers show that quality is widespread.
Pluto contacts to a personal planet run at 82.2% for pairs less than two years apart, 83.2% for two to five years and 85.1% for more than five. Saturn contacts run at 77.6%, 82.2% and 81.2%.
The Sky on the Day You Split
Astrologers who look at a break-up with an ex usually look at transits: slow planets in today’s sky crossing the points in a chart that stand for love. This calculator checks Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto against your Venus, Sun, Moon, Descendant and 7th-house ruler and your ex’s, and against the composite Sun, Moon, Venus and Descendant, within 1°.
Slow planets on Venus, the Descendant and the composite
On 71.0% of random split days, at least one of these transits is active; the median is one. The natal Moon is touched on 19.6% of them, the Sun on 17.6%, Venus on 17.4%, the Descendant on 16.4% and a 7th-house ruler on 12.6%. Each composite point is touched on about 8%.
Saturn
Saturn is read as a test of what is solid: a relationship either takes on more weight or sets it down. It was active on 28.8% of random split days.
Uranus
Uranus is read as a sudden need for space or change, the transit astrologers name most for unexpected break-ups. It was active on 25.8% of random split days, and it is the one in the example.
Neptune
Neptune is read as fading, confusion or disillusion, a relationship that dissolves rather than breaks. It was active on 26.8% of random split days.
Pluto
Pluto is read as an ending that changes both people. It was also active on 26.8% of random split days.
How a transit loop works
A slow planet can cross the same point up to three times as it turns retrograde and direct, so the calculator treats every crossing within 1° as one loop with its start, its end and each exact pass. In the example, Uranus stayed within 1° of an exact opposition to Avery’s Venus from 26 November 2022 to 19 March 2023 and was exact on 28 December and 17 February.
The split on 22 December fell inside that window, before either exact pass. A transit is a season, not a moment.
Eclipses in the six months before
Eclipses are read as turning points, and many astrologers look back six months from a break-up. 29.8% of random split days had an eclipse within 3° of a Venus, the Ascendant–Descendant axis or the composite Sun or Venus in the six months before. The eclipse transit calculator lists the eclipses for any chart.
In the example, the total lunar eclipse of 8 November 2022 at Taurus 15°59′ fell 1.05° from Robin’s Venus and 0.77° from the point opposite Avery’s.
The progressed composite
The progressed composite is the relationship chart moved forward a day for each year. Cafe Astrology writes: “I have seen break-ups occur when the progressed composite Moon sets off a composite Sun opposition Saturn…” The calculator checks the progressed composite Moon within 1° of either end of a hard aspect between the composite chart’s Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Pluto.
That trigger appears on only 1.2% of random split days. The calculator also shows the progressed composite’s lunation phase: in the example it was balsamic, the last phase of a 29.6-year cycle.
Saturn returns
Around 29 and 58, Saturn comes back to its birth position, and many people reconsider their commitments then. 4.2% of random split days fell in one person’s Saturn return, counted within 3°. Avery was in one on 22 December 2022; the Saturn return calculator gives the dates for any chart.
How Ordinary Your Split-Day Sky Was
Finding a Saturn or Uranus transit on the day you and your ex split feels like an explanation. The question this calculator adds is how often the same kind of sky came round when nothing ended.
The number this calculator adds
For each couple, the calculator goes day by day through the five years before the split and counts the days with at least one transit of the same kind. That share is your base rate.
Robin and Avery: 69.6%
From 22 December 2017 to 22 December 2022, 69.6% of the days had at least one such transit active. The sky record on the page draws all of them: 74 loops from five years before the split to today.
Across 500 random pairs: 71.1%
The average is 71.1% of days, the median 71.7%, and most pairs fall between 56.0% and 85.7%. No pair in the sample was below 20%.
What 71% means
If seven days in ten carry a break-up transit, finding one on your split day is close to what chance alone gives. It can describe the mood of that season. It cannot explain why it ended for you and your ex and not for every couple under the same sky.
When a split-day sky is unusual
A low base rate, below about 50%, means your five years were quieter than most, and a transit on the day itself stands out more. Several loops on the same point, an eclipse on it and a progressed composite trigger together are rarer still. Even then, the sky describes a season, and the decision was made by people.
Venus Retrograde, Mercury Retrograde and Exes
No topic brings more searches about exes than retrogrades. The calculator shows whether either one was under way on the day you split, and how often that happens anyway.
Do exes come back during Venus retrograde?
Tradition says that during Venus retrograde “past lovers may reappear”, and the same sources advise against making big relationship decisions until it ends. Venus is retrograde on 7.2% of days, and on 18.4% if you count the shadow before and after.
Nothing in the sky decides whether an ex returns, and whether you answer is your choice. The Venus retrograde page shows the current cycle and the points it crosses in your chart.
“We broke up during Mercury retrograde”
Mercury is retrograde on 19.2% of days, so about one break-up in five falls in one by chance; 17.2% of random split days did. It is read as misunderstandings and second thoughts, not as the reason a relationship ends.
How often each one happens
Venus
Venus turns retrograde about every 19 months for about six weeks. 7.8% of random split days fell in one, close to its 7.2% share of all days.
Mercury and Venus together
One of the two is retrograde on 24.9% of days. A quarter of the calendar cannot hold the reason for most break-ups.
What Has Changed Since You Split
If you wonder whether things with your ex are different now, the calculator puts the split day and today side by side. It is the closest a chart can come to that question.
The transits that have passed
Each transit active on the day you split is marked as over, with the date it left the 1° orb, or as still running. In the example, all three Uranus loops had ended by the middle of March 2023.
What is active between you now
The same check runs for today. Read on 18 October 2026, Pluto is within 1° of Avery’s Descendant from 20 July 2026 to 3 January 2027, and Saturn is crossing Robin’s Sun, exact on 20 October 2026.
Neither describes the relationship coming back. They describe what each of the two exes is living through now, apart.
The progressed composite then and now
On the day they split
The progressed composite Moon was in Aquarius, in the balsamic phase, which astrologers read as an ending and a clearing out.
Today
It is in Pisces, in the new phase, read as a fresh start. A new phase of the composite does not mean a new start together; the composite describes the relationship whether or not two people are in it.
What no chart can show
Whether your ex has changed is the question most people bring here, and it is the one a chart cannot reach. A Kansas State University study of couples who reunited found that many believed the other person had changed, “but the results indicated otherwise”.
Without Birth Times
Many people do not know their ex’s birth time. The calculator still works without it, and it says what is missing.
What still works
Every contact between your chart and your ex’s holds, because the planets move little in a day. So do the slow transits to Venus and the Sun, the composite Sun and Venus, and eclipses on those points.
Without a time each person is cast at local noon, and the Moon can be up to about 7° from that position. Moon contacts are marked ≈.
What needs a time
The Descendant and the 7th-house ruler
The Descendant moves a full sign in about two hours, so transits to it and to the 7th-house ruler are left out without a time. The Descendant calculator shows how much it moves for a given day.
The composite Moon and the progressed composite
The composite Moon and Descendant need both times, and the progressed composite trigger is only checked when both are known.
If Your Ex Hurt You
Some people search “will my ex come back” because they are afraid it will happen. This section is for them, and it stays on the page whatever the reading says.
The switch on this page
Switching on “This person hurt me / I don’t feel safe” moves the help lines to the top of the result and words the intense contacts with care: Pluto, Uranus and Mars between you and your ex are described as intensity, never as romance.
If your ex asked for no contact
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is clear: “If your ex has asked for no contact, it’s healthiest to respect that boundary.” If you asked for it, it is yours to keep. This page never suggests a day to get in touch.
Where to get help
United States
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. love is respect, for young people: 1-866-331-9474, or text LOVEIS to 22522. Both are free, confidential and open around the clock.
Everywhere else
findahelpline.com lists free, confidential helplines by country. If you are in danger now, call your local emergency number.
What the Research Says About Getting Back Together
Research on reunions with an ex is far larger than research on astrology and break-ups. Here is what it says, with the sources.
How common reconciliation is
Halpern-Meekin, Manning, Giordano and Longmore (2013) followed 792 young adults: about 45% of those aged 17–24 had broken up and got back together at least once. Rhoades and colleagues (2011) found that 36.5% of 1,295 unmarried 18–35-year-olds had at least one break-up in 20 months.
Why people get back together
Dailey’s research on on-again, off-again couples lists lingering feelings and uncertainty about what the break-up meant among the main reasons to try again. Those are questions about you and your ex, which is where the answer lies.
What people expect a break-up to feel like
Eastwick and colleagues (2008) followed students through a break-up and found that people overestimated how bad they would feel, and that the error lay in the first, sharpest stretch. Rhoades and colleagues found that starting to date someone other than the ex went with a smaller drop in life satisfaction.
Do star signs predict divorce?
Swedish registers
Helgertz and Scott (2020) checked about 46,000 marriages and 15,000 divorces in Swedish registers and found that sign combinations “fail to provide any consistent evidence” of an effect.
Swiss marriages
Gunter Sachs claimed sign effects in Swiss marriage data, but Geoffrey Dean’s re-analysis found 38 significant results where chance alone predicted 37.4. No large study of full synastry and break-ups exists.
Moving On, or Trying Again
Whatever your chart and your ex’s show, the next step is yours. Here is how the rest of this site can help with either.
If you are moving on
Your own chart has love timing of its own, separate from your ex. The soulmate timing calculator reads the months when its classic signals gather, from your birth chart alone.
If you are trying again
What to talk about
The second column is a list of needs that pulled apart. Each one is a conversation you and your ex can have, not a fault to assign; the synastry chart has a reading for every aspect.
What to ask
Ask About Us answers one question about two charts from the contacts between them, such as “what pulled us together, and what pulled us apart?”
Your relationship chart over time
The progressed composite shows the relationship chart’s phases for ten years, which helps if you want to see when its themes change.
If you keep dreaming about your ex
Dreams about an ex are among the most common relationship dreams. The dream reading reads them by who was in the dream and how you felt.
Ex Astrology Myths
“The strongest pull means it should last”
Pluto on Venus or the Moon, the contact read as the strongest pull, is in 61.6% of random pairs. Strength of attraction says nothing about whether you and an ex work as a couple.
“Venus retrograde brings exes back”
Venus is retrograde on 7.2% of days. Exes get in touch in every month of the year, and the reunion study above found nearly half of young adults had reunited at least once.
“A Saturn transit caused the break-up”
Saturn was active on 28.8% of random split days, and some transit like it on 71.0%. A transit describes pressure; people make the decision.
“A break-up in Mercury retrograde doesn’t count”
17.2% of random split days fell in Mercury retrograde, about its share of the calendar. A break-up counts whatever the planets were doing.
“Hard aspects mean it could never work”
65.6% of random pairs have a close contact in the first column and another in the second or third. Almost every couple has both kinds; what two people do with them is not in the chart.
Will My Ex Come Back? FAQ
›Will my ex come back, according to astrology?
No birth chart can answer yes or no. Two charts can show what drew you together, what wore on you and what the sky was doing on the day you split. Getting back together is common, about 45% of 17–24-year-olds have done it once, but it is not written anywhere in a chart.
›What does this ex compatibility calculator show?
Three columns of contacts between your chart and your ex’s: what drew you in, what wore on you and what did both. With the day you split, it adds that day’s sky, how common such a sky was in your five years before, and what has changed since. It is free and stores nothing.
›Which transits show a breakup?
Astrologers usually point to Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto on Venus, the Descendant or the composite chart, and to eclipses in the months before. But 71.0% of random split days have at least one such transit within 1°, so finding one says little about why.
›Do exes come back during Venus retrograde?
Tradition says past lovers may reappear during Venus retrograde, and also that it is not the best time to arrange a reunion. Venus is retrograde on 7.2% of days. Nothing in the sky decides whether that person returns, and whether you answer is your choice.
›We broke up during Mercury retrograde. Does that mean anything?
Mercury is retrograde on 19.2% of days, so about one break-up in five falls in one by chance; 17.2% of random split days did. It is read as misunderstandings and second thoughts, not as the reason a relationship ends.
›What does Pluto in our synastry mean?
Pluto on Venus or the Moon is read as intense, hard-to-explain attraction that is difficult to let go of. 61.6% of random pairs have one of these contacts. Intensity is not proof of love, and if it turned into control, read the safety section first.
›Is Saturn the reason we broke up?
Saturn between two charts is read as both glue and weight, and 80.8% of random pairs have a Saturn contact to a personal planet. On 28.8% of random split days Saturn was also touching one of your points. It describes pressure, not a cause.
›Do we need our birth times?
Not for the planets. The Descendant, the 7th-house ruler, the composite Descendant and the progressed composite trigger need both birth times; without them the Moon is marked as approximate and those parts are left out.
›Should I contact my ex?
This page never picks a day for it. If your ex asked for no contact, domestic-violence services advise respecting that boundary. If your ex hurt you, the safety resources on this page come first.
›How common is getting back together?
About 45% of 17–24-year-olds have broken up and got back together at least once (Halpern-Meekin and colleagues, 2013, 792 people), and across the samples René Dailey reviews, about two-thirds of people have had an on-again, off-again relationship. People who reunite often believe their partner has changed; one study found the results did not bear that out.
Related Tools
The current Venus cycle, its dates and the points it crosses in your chart.
Where a relationship chart stands now, and the dates its phases change.
Both birth charts side by side with every aspect between them and a reading for each.
The months when your own chart’s love timing signals gather, from one birth chart.
Ask one question about two charts and get an answer built from the contacts between them.
The midpoint chart of a relationship, with its aspects and readings.