Transiting Venus retrograde occurs every 19 months for six weeks (42 days). This means Venus retrogrades only 7% of the time, the least amount of any planet. The next closest is the Mars retrograde at 9%, followed by the Mercury retrograde at 19%. Therefore, Venus’s Retrograde is the most strongly felt of all retrograde planets.
Venus retrograde can make giving and receiving love and affection more difficult. It encourages introspection about your love life and the things you value. You may become interested in someone or something of value that would please you.
During this fated period for love, old friends or lovers may reappear, or you may relive past life experiences to sort out karmic issues. Destiny encounters and feelings of inevitability or familiarity are possible. You could even meet your soul mate.
Use Venus retrogrades to improve how you feel about yourself and to love yourself more. Think about what truly pleases you. Discovering reasons for relationship problems can help you clear away the past to make room for new relationships. Even reminiscing about old partners will help to remove your karmic baggage and lighten the load.
Venus retrograde has traditionally been seen as unfortunate for love and not the best time to marry, invest or buy luxury items. However, each retrograde phase is different, and much depends on Venus retrograde’s aspects in your chart. See Venus Transits for more details.
Venus Retrograde Dates
- 2021, December 19 to January 29, 2022 – 26° to 11° Capricorn
- 2023, July 22 to September 3 – 28° to 12° Leo
- 2025, March 1 to April 12 – 10° Aries to 24° Pisces
Venus Retrograde Natal
Venus retrograde natal suggests you have difficulty giving and receiving love and affection. You may experience sadness in love or have to endure hardship or delay. Lack of self-love, social anxiety, shyness, and even financial hardship are also possible.
Often, these challenges are a result of past life relationship issues. Due to the laws of karma, if you caused suffering or hardship to a lover in an earlier life, you shall experience something similar yourself during this life. Natal Venus retrograde acts like Mars, so perhaps you hurt someone you love. Maybe you had an affair, walked out when they needed you most, or physically injured them.
Whatever happened in past romances, you come into this life with those bad memories etched in your soul. You probably don’t recognize them as memories but as déjà vu or unexplained guilt. The theme of challenging events related to your past can repeat, especially when you are young.
Sadness and disappointment may come from unrequited love, forced marriage, sexual abuse, mental illness, or physical disability. Learning to love yourself is critical in working through your Venus in retrograde issues. Other signs of natal Venus retrograde are poor personal hygiene and not caring about your appearance.
Self-love can start with beautifying your physical appearance. Fashion, cosmetics, and beauty treatments can significantly improve your self-love, making you more lovable. However, natal Venus in retrograde can also show as excessive use of makeup and jewelry or even disfigurement from cosmetic surgery.
Venus retrograde in your natal chart aims to perfect those areas of your love life that once let you down. As your relationship skills improve with experience, your karmic debt will be repaid, and you will enjoy more loving relationships.
