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Compatibility
Cancer Tiger and Aries Snake

It may appear to be something of an energy minefield, but there is real potential here—provided the famously disagreeable combination of firstwest and secondwest fulfills its potential for life-changing personal growth, and the precarious firsteast and secondeast match is carefully controlled.

Western Zodiac sign, Cancer
Western Zodiac sign, Aries

Western Zodiac

Cancer and Aries

Compatibility overview

The pairing between firstwest and secondwest brings powerful, swirling energy. This is not a match for the faint of heart! The Square aspect—where signs are three steps, or 90 degrees, apart—is associated with combativeness and tension, but also potency and progress. This powder-keg, contentious yet productive potential of Square relationships is never more apparent than when these two signs encounter one another!

Cancer and Aries - Relationship Horoscope

Read more about the CANCER and ARIES zodiac signs...

Read more about the CANCER TIGER and ARIES SNAKE combined zodiac signs...

Chances are, the intense energy between Aries and Cancer will reveal itself immediately. For better or worse, these two find each other hard to ignore!

In the beginning, at least, mutual admiration or sexual chemistry is strongly indicated for these two signs. However, a rush of disputes, provocations, or clashes of wills is equally likely. Aries' element, Fire, is often said to be least compatible with Water signs like Cancer. Ambitious Fire souls can find themselves fizzling in disappointment, while normally more placid Water types may feel powerless to avoid boiling over. Aries and Cancer both represent the pure, initiating Cardinal modality of their respective elements, so there is none of the softening influence that complementary modalities can bring.

Surprising as it may seem at times, though, this relationship has real prospects for various successes. In a word, the secret for this highly-charged Square relationship is growth. The conflicting natures of Aries and Cancer can drive each party to assert themselves in ways that independently may well be impossible. Hence this is a fertile match for all manner of power couples, whether creative, professional, sporting, or romantic. Even feuds can yield invaluable life lessons. It may be trite to say, but whatever doesn't kill these two will almost certainly make them stronger.

Celebrity Cancer/Aries Pairings*

*Click on the names to see both Western and Chinese zodiac matches for that pairing.

Gerald Ford and Betty Ford
Gerald Ford and Betty Ford (click for attribution/s)

Betty Ford (4/8/1918, Aries Horse), Gerald Ford (7/14/1913, Cancer Ox) : The 38th US President and First Lady were married from 1948 until Gerald Ford's death in 2006. They had four children. Betty Ford had been married previously, and Gerald postponed their wedding because he was unsure whether voters would accept him marrying a "divorced exdancer". They had a famously charged relationship, with Gerald a conservative Republican (at one time Richard Nixon's vice president) and Betty expressing liberal views about equal rights, abortion, gun control, marijuana, and premarital sex. After Betty gave an interview in which she described Roe v Wade (the now-overruled US Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion) as a "great, great decision", Gerald Ford wryly commented that she had probably cost him 20 million votes. Betty was also known for saying about them sleeping together in the White House, "I guess if you’re president, you’re supposed to become a eunuch." Later, Gerald led a family intervention about Betty's alcohol and drug dependence, which led to the Betty Ford Center for rehabilitation. At Ford's inauguration in 1974, he said: "I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman—my dear wife—as I begin this very difficult job."

Pharrell Williams (4/5/1973, Aries Ox), Helen Lasichanh (7/22/1980, Cancer Monkey) : The musician and fashion designer/model have been longtime partners and married in 2013. They have four children together, including triplets born in 2017. While the family has maintained their privacy, Williams said in 2018: "I’m in awe of women and my wife. To carry another heartbeat inside your body for nine months — in my wife’s case she had four heartbeats — is beyond anything a man can give back to the universe."

Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai
Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai (click for attribution/s)

Emma Watson (4/15/1990, Aries Horse), Malala Yousafzai (7/12/1997, Cancer Ox) : The actor/activist and education activist share a mutually admiring relationship. In a a high-profile interview with each other, organized to open the Into Film Festival in 2015, Yousafzai described how she had been influenced by Watson's 2014 speech to the UN launching the "He for She" campaign: "[T]his word feminism, it has been a very tricky word. And I had, when I heard it the first time I...heard some negative responses and some positive ones, and I hesitated in saying, am I a feminist or not? And then after hearing your speech when you said, if not now, when, if not me, who, I decided that there’s no way, and there’s nothing wrong by calling yourself a feminist. So, I am a feminist and you all should be feminist because feminism is another word for equality."

Jackie Chan (4/7/1954, Aries Horse), Joan Lin (6/30/1953, Cancer Snake) : The two actors have been married since 1982 and have one child together. Although their relationship has faced challenges, including Chan fathering a child with another woman in 1999, they have remained together. Chan wrote in his 2018 memoir, Never Grow Up, "When I started to empathize with [Joan Lin], I came to respect her more and more. She is a strong woman, stronger than I am in so many ways."

Nelson Mandela and Jacob Zuma
Nelson Mandela and Jacob Zuma (click for attribution/s)

Jacob Zuma (4/12/1942, Aries Horse), Nelson Mandela (7/18/1918, Cancer Horse) : The first and fourth Presidents of South Africa shared a close connection as anti-apartheid activists and one-time fellow political prisoners at the Robben Island prison. In 2012, it emerged that Mandela had paid debts accrued by Zuma, apparently as a way of improving Zuma's political prospects. The author William Gumede, who wrote Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (2007), described: "Nelson Mandela gave [Zuma] the money to pay off all his debts as a personal favour. It was in the hope that he would walk away from all those dubious benefactors. The idea was to say: 'You know what, I'm seeing and hearing all this stuff and it doesn't look good. There are no strings attached but I want you to clean up your act.'"

Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman
Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman (click for attribution/s)

Akira Kurosawa (3/23/1910, Aries Dog), Ingmar Bergman (7/14/1918, Cancer Horse) : These two legendary filmmakers shared a profound mutual admiration. In a letter celebrating Bergman's 70th birthday, Kurosawa wrote: "Your work deeply touches my heart every time I see it and I have learned a lot from your works and have been encouraged by them. I would like you to stay in good health to create more wonderful movies for us."

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Chinese Zodiac sign, the Tiger
Chinese Zodiac sign, the Snake

Chinese Zodiac

Tiger and Snake

Compatibility overview

Devotees of the Western zodiac are often surprised by how critical Chinese astrologers are of certain energy matches. Nowhere is the Chinese prognosis as bleak as with the Adversary matches along the fourth degree axis. One such pairing is that between Tiger and Snake, an unsettling combination that is likely to test even the most amiable personalities.

Tiger and Snake - Relationship Horoscope

Read more about the TIGER and SNAKE zodiac signs...

Read more about the CANCER TIGER and ARIES SNAKE combined zodiac signs...

An infamous adversarial energy surrounds the pairing between the Tiger and Snake.

A confounding aspect of this combination is that the Tiger and Snake both have strong visual appeal, and both naturally focus on abstract ideals over more everyday concerns. Someone who knows them separately could be forgiven for imagining they might get along famously! Yet appearances here can be quite deceptive. The Tiger's instincts favor speed, action, and decisiveness. The Snake, by contrast, leans towards restraint, patience, and reflection. This essential disconnect tends to produce instability and miscommunication. These two will likely vacillate between recklessness and procrastination, secrecy and tactlessness, miserliness and extravagance.

More challenging still, the conflict here is ambiguous rather than direct. Resentment is more likely to fester than to reveal itself through confrontation. There is a quicksand quality to communication, so even attempts at kindness and resolution can be misconstrued by the receiver, or make the giver feel as if they have surrendered or compromised their true self. Ultimately, for a Tiger and Snake to succeed together will likely require strong counterbalancing energy on the Western side, or highly-developed conflict resolution skills. Otherwise the personal growth of both parties may lead to limiting the relationship's scope, or even abandoning it altogether. If such countering forces are brought to bear, however, there is potential here for harmony, and for the relationship to inspire profound personal growth.

Celebrity Tiger/Snake Pairings*

*Click on the names to see both Western and Chinese zodiac matches for that pairing.

Slash and Axl Rose
Slash and Axl Rose (click for attribution/s)

Axl Rose (2/6/1962, Aquarius Tiger), Slash (7/23/1965, Leo Snake) : Before reconciling in 2015, the two founding members of Guns N' Roses were almost as famous for the feud between them as for their legendary collaborations. A lowpoint was Rose saying in 2009 that, "Slash either should not have been in Guns to begin with or should have left after [1988’s GNR Lies]. In a nutshell, personally I consider him a cancer and better removed, avoided — and the less anyone heard of him or his supporters, the better."

Marilyn Monroe (6/1/1926, Gemini Tiger), John F. Kennedy (5/29/1917, Gemini Snake) : Monroe's performance of "Happy Birthday" for John F. Kennedy is one of the most famous events in modern U.S. history. Rumours have abounded of a sexual relationship between the two, but according to reports any such liaison was not especially memorable for either of them. The only known photo of them together shows Kennedy looking down and away.

Megan Fox and Michael Bay
Megan Fox and Michael Bay (click for attribution/s)

Megan Fox (5/16/1986, Taurus Tiger), Michael Bay (2/17/1965, Aquarius Snake) : The actor and model Fox starred in the first two Transformers films directed by Bay, but was famously dropped from the third instalment after saying this about the director: "He’s like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for…"

Phil Collins (1/30/1951, Aquarius Tiger), Lily Collins (3/18/1989, Pisces Snake) : The celebrated musician and his model/actor daughter seemed to reconcile in 2020 after a well-publicised estrangement. Lily Collins wrote in her autobiographical essays collection, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me (2017), addressing her father: "We all make choices and, although I don’t excuse some of yours, at the end of the day we can’t rewrite the past. I’m learning how to accept your actions and vocalize how they made me feel. I accept and honor the sadness and anger I felt toward the things you did or didn’t do, did or didn’t give me. I’ve learned a lot and my eyes and heart are wide open."

Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell
Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell (click for attribution/s)

Rosie O’Donnell (3/21/1962, Aries Tiger), Barbara Walters (9/25/1929, Libra Snake) : The two television personalities, both stars of The View, famously clashed during a dressing room confrontation in January 2007 following a dispute about Donald Trump. O'Donnell has since been quoted as saying, "I said something about her daughter, which I should not have said. But I did...Things that were way too personal to bring up, and I brought them up, and I felt regretful since."

Tom Cruise (7/3/1962, Cancer Tiger), Brooke Shields (5/31/1965, Gemini Snake) : The two actors starred together in the 1981 film, Endless Love. In 2005, Cruise criticized Shields' use of antidepressant medications to treat postpartum depression. She rebuked him: "[C]omments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere...If any good can come of Mr. Cruise's ridiculous rant, let's hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease."


Combined Relationship Horoscope

Final Words

The Square energy between firstwest and secondwest is perhaps as contrary as any in the Western zodiac. However, while it may sometimes feel as if there is nothing these two cannot disagree about, their disputations can yield great positives, offering rare insight into their individual identities, and producing lifelong benefits. In this case, the greater challenge may be navigating the disturbing energy of the firsteast and secondeast, one of the Chinese zodiac’s most notorious combinations. Clear communication, independent roles in the relationship, and encouraging sensitivity wherever possible may be important for these two, if they are to maximize the available prospects for successful collaboration and affection.

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