Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace: Who You Fall For, and Where You Get Stuck

With Tian Fu in your Spouse Palace, you are drawn to steady, reliable people who make you feel safe. Your partner is usually conservative and practical, family-minded and good at holding on to money and running daily life.

Your pattern in love

Tian Fu is the treasury star, and in the Spouse Palace it usually means a partner who brings stability and resources to the family; classical texts say Tian Fu here “wins a worthy spouse.” Its lesson is caution: the relationship is steady but short on surprises, and your partner does not much like change.

You and your partner: the Life and Spouse Palaces

When Tian Fu is in your Spouse Palace, the Life Palace always holds Tan Lang. You are sociable, have many interests and love novelty, while your partner is steady and security-minded, one restless and one still; the thing to watch is you finding them dull and them finding you unsettled.

This is built into the chart: counting two palaces forward from Tian Fu always lands on Tan Lang, and the Life Palace always sits two palaces forward from the Spouse Palace, so anyone with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace has Tan Lang in the Life Palace (either alone or together with Zi Wei, Lian Zhen and Wu Qu). Further reading: Tan Lang in the Life Palace.

Bright and fallen positions

When Tian Fu is bright, your partner is big-hearted and runs the household well, the anchor of the family. In a fair position, your partner is just as steady, only with smaller resources and less presence; with Di Kong or Di Jie present, watch for someone who looks strong outside but is stretched thin within. Brightness by branch, from the table of the Complete Book this site uses: Exalted: Zi, Chou, Yin, Chen, Wei, Xu; Strong: Wu, You; Favorable: Mao, Si, Shen, Hai.

The Spouse Palace's four-way set is the Career Palace (opposite), the Travel Palace and the Mind Palace: love and work pull on each other, and both are tied to how you come across in the world and how content you feel inside. The table shows the major stars of these palaces, and of your Life Palace, for each of the twelve branches Tian Fu can occupy in the Spouse Palace.

"Empty palace" means the palace has none of the fourteen major stars; in that case you read it through the stars of the opposite palace.

The six combinations

Wu Qu with Tian Fu (Zi or Wu)

Zi: Tian Fu exalted, Wu Qu strong; Wu: Tian Fu strong, Wu Qu strong. Opposite (Career): Qi Sha; Life: Tan Lang. About 17.0% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner can both earn and save, values security and family, and is a very steady financial partner. The relationship is solid but not good at expressing feelings, so the romance is up to you to create. Further reading: Wu Qu in the Spouse Palace.

Tian Fu alone, facing Lian Zhen and Qi Sha (Chou or Wei)

Chou: Tian Fu exalted; Wei: Tian Fu exalted. Opposite (Career): Lian Zhen and Qi Sha; Life: Zi Wei and Tan Lang. About 17.7% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is reliable and good at preserving what you have. With Lian Zhen and Qi Sha opposite in the Career Palace, you push very hard at work, and in love you need a steady base behind you.

Zi Wei with Tian Fu (Yin or Shen)

Yin: Tian Fu exalted, Zi Wei strong; Shen: Tian Fu favorable, Zi Wei strong. Opposite (Career): Qi Sha; Life: Tan Lang. About 17.3% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is big-hearted, family-minded and image-conscious, someone who can hold up a whole household. The relationship is steady and substantial, but neither of you likes to back down, so arguments can stall; someone has to speak first. Further reading: Zi Wei in the Spouse Palace.

Tian Fu alone, facing Wu Qu and Qi Sha (Mao or You)

Mao: Tian Fu favorable; You: Tian Fu strong. Opposite (Career): Wu Qu and Qi Sha; Life: Lian Zhen and Tan Lang. About 17.3% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is steady and runs the household well. With Wu Qu and Qi Sha opposite in the Career Palace, your career is tough and high-pressure, and your partner is the one you lean on when you get home.

Lian Zhen with Tian Fu (Chen or Xu)

Chen: Tian Fu exalted, Lian Zhen fair; Xu: Tian Fu exalted, Lian Zhen fair. Opposite (Career): Qi Sha; Life: Tan Lang. About 14.8% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is shrewd, tactful and attentive to family and finances, and the relationship is steady and practical. Tian Fu steadies Lian Zhen’s intensity, making this Lian Zhen’s most stable combination in the Spouse Palace. Further reading: Lian Zhen in the Spouse Palace.

Tian Fu alone, facing Zi Wei and Qi Sha (Si or Hai)

Si: Tian Fu favorable; Hai: Tian Fu favorable. Opposite (Career): Zi Wei and Qi Sha; Life: Wu Qu and Tan Lang. About 15.9% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner has the air of a general and can shoulder a lot. With Zi Wei and Qi Sha opposite in the Career Palace, you have strong career ambitions; you both have minds of your own, so divide the roles clearly.

Birth-year transformations in the Spouse Palace

Under the Four Transformations table of the Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu, Tian Fu never transforms, so Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace never carries a birth-year Hua Lu, Hua Quan, Hua Ke or Hua Ji of its own. For transformations affecting your love life, look at any other star sharing the palace, at Zuo Fu and You Bi, Wen Chang and Wen Qu, and at the Career Palace opposite.

A man's chart and a woman's chart

In a man's chart: Classical texts say that for a man, Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace means a wife who is “virtuous and able to run a household.” The modern reading: your partner is capable, family-minded and good with money, the person who keeps life steady.

In a woman's chart: Classical texts say that for a woman, Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace means a husband who is “well-off and responsible.” The modern reading: you admire reliable partners with a solid financial base; the relationship is stable, but you need to bring some change into life yourself.

The classical texts read the Spouse Palace as the wife in a man's chart and the husband in a woman's chart, reflecting the traditional view of marriage they were written in. Relationships today take many forms, so this site reads the Spouse Palace as your pattern in close relationships, whatever your gender and whatever shape the relationship takes.

Getting along

Stability is a strength, but keep a little freshness too. With Tan Lang in your Life Palace, remember to bring your enthusiasm home.

About 43.5% of charts with Tian Fu in the Spouse Palace also have at least one of the six Sha stars in that palace, about the same as the 42.0% across all charts. Malefic stars in the Spouse Palace usually show up as high expectations of love and a need to work things through; they do not mean the relationship is bad.

What our sample shows

How we counted: this site’s engine cast one Zi Wei chart for every day from 1960 to 2005 (birth hour drawn by a fixed-seed random sample), 16,802 charts in all. These figures describe how chart structures are distributed; they do not measure anyone’s love life.

Other major stars in the Spouse Palace