Zodiac sign compatibility - discover how fire, earth, water, and air signs love and what that could mean for you

Understanding your zodiac sign compatibility can be somewhat of a minefield, with countless aspects of your astrology birth chart that must be considered.

Astrologer Carolyne Faulkner has a lot to say on the matter, as the author of three books, a writer, and founder of Dynamic Astrology - she's better acquainted with what makes each sign tick than most. In her latest book, The Signs In Love, Carolyne delves into how astrology can help you understand and identify the patterns of how you love - according to your astrology birth chart.

Carolyne shared excerpts from her latest book The Signs In Love: An Interactive Cosmic Road Map to Finding Love That Lasts, which is out now, with woman&home. So join us as ‘Britain’s Coolest Astrologer’ examines how fire signs, earth signs, water signs, and air signs love. 

The Signs in Love: An Interactive Cosmic Road Map to Finding Love That Lasts | $17.99/£13.19, Amazon

Carolyne Faulkner's Dynamic Astrology™ approach for a simple, tried-and-tested framework to the signs and planets that explains how harmonious each match is likely to be, as well as how to build a solid foundation for a forever love.

How fire signs love

Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius

Fire signs are learning about loyalty and perseverance. They love in an all-consuming way similar to passionate love. They are not overly cautious and throw themselves headfirst into any union in their quest for excitement and stimulation. When you are involved with a fire sign, it can be hard to breathe or imagine your life before they entered it. 

Often, without being conscious of it, they expect loyalty and devotion, but many don’t what that looks like. By the time maturity sets in, and it will at some stage in this life or the next, they develop a more stable attitude without losing that flame that warms both partners.

Passionate Love

There are so many different styles of love, but perhaps the one most accountable for our complete loss of sanity is the fiery, fierce, and furious passionate love, also known as erotica, from Eros, the Greek god of passion and fertility. 

Passionate love falls into the fire signs category of love but impacts us all and creates unparalleled desire, and the kind of euphoric highs people chase with drugs or exercise. When it’s based on lust, sexual desire, overindulgence, or obsession, what begins as a whirlwind can escalate into a tsunami. It also inevitably causes devastating lows if either person becomes ungrounded in their behavior or unrealistic with their expectations. 

Love unions often start out this way, and when viewed with clarity, handled with a sense of perspective, and equally respected and nurtured, they can result in enduring love.

How Earth Signs Love 

Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn

Earth signs are learning about impermanence and spirituality. They need to balance a natural tendency to seek status and power above all else. Many are looking for security in a world where, really, there is none to be found. Impermanence is a tough reality to fathom, but as soon as they realize happiness and peace come before money and gain, they can settle into magical unions. 

That said, they take relationships as seriously as they take everything else, and they often make wonderful partners. Before making commitments, earth signs, in their flow, take time to analyze the pros and cons, rarely jumping headfirst into anything. 

You know when they have done their due diligence because when they say they are all in, it’s for the long run. When they finally make promises, they do all they can to keep their word. 

Enduring Love

There is no magic formula that leads to enduring love. It takes work, rooted in pragmatism, and, of course, love. Passionate love only lasts a few years at most, but what replaces it is far superior. Earth signs are prepared to put in the work. This certainly doesn’t mean their passion must die; it just metamorphizes their love into something far more stable. 

Earth signs are real and honest enough to grow, yet both parties are required to face themselves before understanding, compromise, and open dialogue is possible. We have been fed romantic myths for so long, and I believe your dreamboat is out there waiting for you, if that’s what you want. But here’s the thing: each of us has our own kingdom of the heart and mind, which needs to be stable and respected, and we should come to each other’s aid, but the kingdoms don’t ever become one. Respect is a must for earth signs.

And to wait for another person to complete you implies that you are not already whole. That wound will inevitably attract another wounded person. Earth signs invest time and energy into their unions and for them to commit their partner must be seen to invest equally.

To attract the right one, you must first become the right one. The good news is that all signs, but earth signs (in particular) have the ability to retain their own power and still surrender to real love. Enduring love is achieved when both parties feel a sense of peace. This is true happiness, as opposed to chasing pleasure, which is often exciting but rarely tranquil. 

How Air Signs Love

Aquarius, Gemini, Libra

Air signs usually believe that if you truly love someone, you always will love them. Because friendship comes first, that love lasts for lifetimes. Air signs love from a detached perspective. They let their partner be who they are and allow them to grow into who they want to be without placing demands on them to fulfil their own vision or ambition. 

Still, their lovers may perceive them to be cold and push their buttons with wild displays of emotion or mind games. Needless to say, no one will be happy in this dynamic. Air signs are predisposed to cerebral connections and intellectual stimulation. 

They fall in love with a person’s acumen, their bright mind, and their ability to provoke thought and spark debate. They enjoy nothing more than a friendly verbal sparring match and a lover who will bend their mind with profundity, not profanity. They need space but also stimulation, attention, and open communication to resolve misunderstandings or other issues. 

Falling in love with a person’s mind is a sure bet on an eternal bond. Unlike everything else, the mind never dies; it continues to form future lives. 

Detached Love

Those who practice non-attachment encourage us to review our basic understanding of love and what it means to us. It’s not to be mistaken for manipulative or controlling behavior, and there are no mind games behind it. Instead, it is one of the highest forms of love one person can offer another. It isn’t based on the primal, “I love what you can do for me,” or, “I love how you make me feel.” It’s more like, “I will love you without strings” - which is not the same as without respect.

Air signs love usually begins with friendship and respect and rarely ends in just one lifetime. Detached love is also the most misunderstood version of love, which leads to many unions failing when they needn’t have. When we think of detachment, we wrongly assume it means 'indifference,' which isn’t the same thing at all. We may feel that someone doesn’t love us enough to display attachment or assert ownership, but it is, in fact, often the contrary; detachment can be the highest form of respect. Air signs working within their flow are the least possessive of all the signs. 

They value independence and freedom which doesn’t equate to being unfaithful; it just means they don’t like to feel trapped by someone else’s concept of how they ought to be or how the union should appear to the outside world. We may look on in wonder as air signs form friendships with their ex-lovers’ husbands or wives, happily spending holidays with their former paramours. To them, it makes absolute sense, and everything about their way of loving has to make sense. 

Air signs believe that once you have loved someone, you always love them, and that friendship lasts for lifetimes. Air signs 'gone right' let their partner be who they are and allow them to grow into who they want to be without placing demands on them. When it works well, it’s incredible. 

Some of the other signs struggle with this form of affection, perceiving their lover to be cold, and if they lack maturity or have insecurities, they will attempt to push their air sign’s buttons with displays of jealousy and other harmful emotions (which usually leave their partners looking to hit the eject button). There is little point attempting to play mind games because air rules the mind - it would be like a child attempting to beat a seasoned champion with primary school chess moves. 

How Water Signs Love 

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces

Water signs believe love is worthy of commitment. When they fall, all that joy (and pain) will last them several lifetimes. They generally require a formal commitment and emotional security and see marriage as a sanctity that will save them from loneliness and bring them stability. Even within a long-term relationship, they don’t often readily speak of their emotions; they expect their partner to automatically know what’s going on. 

Scorpios in particular communicate via intuition and feelings and expect everyone else to do the same. Feelings are their love language, so take care of them. Unless they have lots of fire or air in their charts, they are usually the first to settle into a partnership and stop looking elsewhere. 

Water signs have such high expectations, it can be hard to meet them. There always seems to be something that “just doesn’t feel right.” Because of that, they can remain stuck in the past and hold grudges like no other sign, not realizing we are solely responsible for our own happiness, for better or for worse, and no one else is to blame when things go awry. 

Nourishing Love

Nourishing love is exactly what you sign up for when in a union with a water sign. This sort of love is one of our basic requirements, and our parents provide us with our first experience of love, for both good and bad. We each began life in our mother’s womb, during which - and in the months and years that followed - we must have experienced some level of nourishing love or else we wouldn’t have survived long enough to be reading this. Some Eastern cultures teach that a baby removes all the negativity from their mother during the process of childbirth to express their gratitude for housing them and giving them precious life. 

Ancient scriptures say we will never be able to repay the karmic debt we owe to our parents so, no matter our relationship, we need to detach from any weightier emotions and show respect. Knowing what this kind of detached respect looks like enables us to form balanced partnerships. If any sign, but water signs especially, we have issues with their mother, it negatively impacts the relationships we have with women (and ourselves, if we identify as female). The same can be said of any issues we may have with our father. 

Water signs must work through any parental issues honestly and then release them to embrace their love lives with gusto! When my clients are embarking on a new love journey, I en-courage them to heal their own wounds first. I suggest that they observe both their own and the other person’s relationship with and attitude toward their parents. That was their first experience of love. 

Letting go of unrealistic expectations or previous hurts is hard for them, but it’s essential so they are freed from the prison of the past to enjoy the present and plan for a brighter future. Life is too short to allow past disappointments to ruin the present, and if you’re always looking backward, you’ll miss the magical experiences offered along the way.